The black figure has always been a subject of entertainment in popular culture, as well as an image to sell things. In some ways, that’s how people relate to us—because they’ve seen us on television.
—
Derrick Adams
The Third Person by Michael Oblowitz
Part of the Editor's Choice series.
- Subway Riders: Amos Poe by Sarah Charlesworth
- Becky Johnston by Betsy Sussler
- Betsy Sussler’s Menage by Craig Gholson
- Michael McClard by Kathy Acker
- Carl Apfelschnitt by Sarah Charlesworth
Interviews
- Why Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend by Duncan Smith
- Black Moon by Gary Indiana
- Double Lunar Dogs by Joan Jonas
- Great Expectations by Kathy Acker
- New World Information Order: Manifesto of the Non-Aligned Movement by Liza Béar
- I Was an Extra in a Woody Allen Film by Tina L’Hotsky
- Coming of Age in Xania by Lynne Tillman
- A True Story About Two People: Easter 1964 by Cookie Mueller
- Fag Rag by Terence Sellers
- Fire Engine Red by Craig Gholson
- Futuristic Rhythm by David Walter McDermott
First Proof
The Third Person is a film written, produced, and directed by Michael Oblowitz/ Camera: Michael Oblowitz/ Assistant Director: Michael Shamberg/ Assistant Camera: Christophe Lanzenberg/ Editors: Skip Lievsay, Lizzie Borden/ Music: Anton Fig/ Make up: Dunja Sagov/ With: Rosemary Hochschild, Ron Vawter, Will Patton, Fiona Templeton, Nancy Riley Peyton, Stuart Sherman.
The Third Person is about a modern couple, trapped by their social and economic circumstance in an increasingly more violent and psychologically turbulent relationship with each other. The film stresses their utter alienation from, and incapacity to relate to, the world at large. This separation from the mainstream of everyday life forces a depressingly disturbed dependance on each other, the consequences of which are neither foreseen nor understood by either of them. Their relationship becomes a metaphor for a sado-masochistic behavior pattern that underlies many modern heterosexual relationships. Their life, without a sense of history or culture through which to articulate and interpret their behavior, is not an uncommon modern existential situation. Their attempts at expressing their frustration take on progressively more and more pathogenic forms moving towards an inevitable finale …
––Michael Oblowitz 10/17/81, 2:45 AM, NYC
Ron Vawter and Rosemarie Hochschild.
Will Patton, Fiona Templeton, and Rosemarie Hochschild.
Ron Vawter, Rosemarie Hochschild, and Nancy Riley Peyton.
Rosemarie Hochschild and Ron Vawter.
Nancy Riley Peyton.
Related
Sexual panic in South Brooklyn
“She’ll be like an apple tree among all the ash-colored buildings of that granite city.”
“This is not a movie that invites you to really empathize with these characters, nor is that the point.”
Originally published in
BOMB 1,
Spring 1981
Betsy Sussler by Craig Gholson, Carl Apfelschnitt by Sarah Charlesworth, Michael McClard by Kathy Acker, Eric Mitchell, Becky Johnston, and Amos Poe. Cover design by Sarah Charlesworth.
