IDFA 1988
Josef Hauser - Klang und Raum
Josef Hauser - Sound and Space
Othmar Schmiderer, Heinz Ebner
Austria
1988
n.a.
The film shows Josef Hauser's everyday life as a farmer and a clockmaker, on the one hand, and, on the other, his longing for the realization of his life work. For over 20 years, he has been working on a sound-machine, consisting of various clocks and sound-pipes, and on the architectonic equivalent, a gothic tower.
In, what the makers call, a synthetic documentary a journey, told in subjective images (based on taxi drives Hauser made to gothic cathedrals) is the continuous thread. This gives structure to what is shown to us of his daily pursuits, on the one side, and his great passion which takes him to another world, that of sound and space, on the other. Moreover, the journey gives shape to the associated search the film makers undertook through the inner and outer world of this remarkable obsession. A journey that eventually lands then in Chartres, in Hauser's workshop, and that leads up to a musical culmination featuring the first performance of the edifice of sounds.
In, what the makers call, a synthetic documentary a journey, told in subjective images (based on taxi drives Hauser made to gothic cathedrals) is the continuous thread. This gives structure to what is shown to us of his daily pursuits, on the one side, and his great passion which takes him to another world, that of sound and space, on the other. Moreover, the journey gives shape to the associated search the film makers undertook through the inner and outer world of this remarkable obsession. A journey that eventually lands then in Chartres, in Hauser's workshop, and that leads up to a musical culmination featuring the first performance of the edifice of sounds.