Country: USA
Year: 1987
Duration: 144'
This is a video shot by Kramer in the mansion of Presiderit Monroe in northern Virginia at the wedding of one of his friends, a woman who is a descendent of the Monroe family, to the representative of the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front, the guerrilla movement in El Salvador.
"So there was this amazing image of the mansion where the Monroe Doctrine had been written and which was now being applied to the revolutionary movement in Salvador with the American intervention. This was all happening at this house. What was a good idea was the idea that Paul McIsaac should come. Paul will be the sound man. We'll shoot this thing in video because that's what we can afford. We'll begin to taste what this Route One / USA thing is going to be like, working together. Very soon it was clear that the sound man was going to be in the movie. It was shot in the camera, it was never edited. I realized that not only was it very good, but it was so much the groundwork for Route One. The whole style is already there, and the style of taking any particular situation and beginning to open it up and go out into all these different directions" (Robert Kramer).<
Biography
film director
Robert Kramer
Robert Kramer was born in New York in 1940. He studied philosophy and Western European History at Swarthmore College and Stanford University. He has written two unpublished novels, numerous poems, plays and short stories. In 1965 he organized the Newark Community Project (N-CUP) in an African-American community. He worked as a reporter in Latin America for various American publications. He worked with Peter Gessner on a film on the guerrilla movement in Venezuela. In 1966 he created Alpha 60 with Norman Fruchter, Robert Machover, Peter Gessner, and Mike Robinson. It was a sort of free cooperative of director-producers who later were channelled into the Newsreel movement, which Kramer helped found and organize. Kramer's Newsreel experience lasted from 1967 to 1971, during which about sixty short- and middle-length films were produced - documentaries, films of struggle, and agitation films. In the early 1980's he moved to Europe, and he currently is living and working in Paris.
FILMOGRAFIA
Regista/Director: Faln [Faln, 1965, In the Country [In campagna, 1966], The Edge [Il margine, 1967], Ice (id., 1969), People's War [La guerra del popolo, 19691, Milestones [Pietre miliari, 1975], Scenes from the Class Struggle in Portugal (Scene di lotta di classe dal Portogallo, 1979), Guns (Fucili, 1980), Un grand jour (en France) - Naissance [A Great Day (in France) - Birth / Un gran giorno (in Francia) - Nascita, 1981], A toute allure [As fast as you can / A tutta velocità, 1982], La peur [The fear / La paura, 1983], Sarkis al Woodrow Wilson - Musée d'Art Moderne [Sarkis at Woodrow Wilson - Museum of Modern Art / Sarkis at Woodrow Wilson - Museo d'Arte Moderna, 1984], Notre nazi / Unser Nazi [Our Nazi / Il nostro nazista, 1984], Diesel [Diesel, 1985], Un plan d'enfer [A Plan of Hell / Un piano infernale, 1986], X-Country [X-Country, 1987, inedito], Doc's Kingdom [Il regno di Doc, 1987], Route One / USA [Route One / USA, 1989], Dear Doc [Caro Doc, 1989, inedito], Maquette (brouillon de film) [Scale model (Draft of a Film) / Modello (Abbozzo di film) , 1990, inedito, incompiuto], Berlin 10/90 [Berlin 10/90, 1990-91], Sous le vent [Leeward / Sottovento, 1991], Series of Videoletters: Steve Dwoskin / Robert Kramer [Serie di videolettere: Steve Dwoskin / Robert Kramer, 1991, inedito], Ecrire contre l'oubli: pour Fidel Intrusca Fernández, Pérou [Writing against forgetting: for Fidel Intrusca Fernández, Peru / Scrivere contro l'oblio: per Fidel Intrusca Fernández, Perù, 1991], Point de départ / Starting Place (Starting Place / t.l. Punto di partenza, 1993), La Roue: Greg Lemond - Andrew Hampsten [The Wheel: Greg Lemond - Andrew Hampsten / La ruota: Greg Lemond - Andrew Hampsten, 1993], Walk the Walk [Walk the Walk, 1996], Le Manteau / Der Mantel [The Mantle / Il manto, 1996], Ghosts of Electricity [Fantasmi dell'elettricità, 1997].
Attore, sceneggiatore / Actor, screenwriter: Gestos e fragmentos (Gestures and Fragments / Gesti e frammenti, 1980-82) di Alberto Seixas Santos, Der Stand der Dinge (The State of Things, Lo stato delle cose, 1981) di Wim Wenders.
Cast
& Credits
Director and director of photography: Robert Kramer.
Sound: Paul MeIsaac.
Sound: Paul MeIsaac.