Drew Heitzler's Double Feature

The project, part of a trilogy that includes similar deconstructions of The Wild Ride from 1960 and Night Tide from 1961, consists of a truncated version of the original film looped and projected on the rear wall of the blackened gallery space. Heitzler focuses on the nerdy character played by Peter Fonda, contrasting his repressed desire, suggested by long, moody stares, with the playful and mischievous antics of Jean Seberg's character, a schizophrenic who, in Heitzler's version which omits all dialog, seems to find affinity with the freely rushing water that cascades below a bridge and over huge rocks below.

The story beneath the film's story, however, adds a new lens through which to read the film. Rossen was a member of the Community Party, and appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951. He refused to list other party members, and was blacklisted. After going without work for two years, he named names when offered a deal in 1953. Lilith was made afterwards; released in 1964, it was the final movie by the director before he died in 1966. While a direct correlation between the story and Rossen's life is dubious, analogies between the power wielded by institutions and its terrible effect on creativity and passion seem relevant, especially if you add the tragic life of Jean Seberg into the mix.

Heitzler also finds a connection between the film's thrilling scenes of rushing water and the rupturing of the Baldwin Hills Reservoir in December 1963. Although Rossen shot Lilith on the east coast, using the Great Falls of the Potomac Park as a metaphor for desire, the timing of the film's production and release, as well as a story about the power of profitable industries wreaking havoc, resonate with the reservoir's rupture and the ensuing flood in which five people were killed and hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed. The rupture has been blamed on the injection of fluids into the ground in the process of oil-drilling in the Inglewood oil field.

Heitzler doesn't pontificate or make elaborate judgments. Instead, the shortened version of Lilith acts like a sieve, filtering the shards of one story from the watery effusiveness of another. We're left to piece together the parts, and thanks to Heitzler's skills, we're given plenty to work with. Indeed, Heitzler's version shows Lilith and her lesbian lover walking by a theater several times; the marquee reads "Double Feature," nicely capturing Heitzler's process, which finds a second story latent in the first.