Films of C. Thomas Lewis
In 2005 I made Through Corridors and Factories. This film explores abandoned sites in Kauai, Hawaii, as seen through the curious eyes of a 10 year-old girl visiting the island for the first time. Through various manipulations of space and time, and through a voice-over contributing narrative elements to the depicted locations, the film questions the degree to which an outsider can truly comprehend these abandoned sites. As it reflects on the passing of Kauai’s colonial history, Through Corridors and Factories shows an aspect of Kauai rarely experienced by conventional tourism. And in the process it questions the nature of orchestrated impressions.
Through Corridors and Factories (19:19)
More recently in 2007 I made Got Land. This film uses a road trip from Los Angeles to New Mexico as a springboard for a multi-faceted contemplation of space, time and history in the American West. In 1971 my parents, living in New Jersey at the time, bought a plot of land sight unseen in the New Mexico desert. They have never once visited it. My search for that land 35 years later forms the backbone of this film as I reflect on some of the mechanisms at play in the delineation and perception of space, time and the landscape.
Got Land (25:44)
Following the completion of Got Land, I shifted my interests from the perception of the exterior world to the internal subjectivity of a protagonist. I changed gears and made a narrative film set in a single location. Of Fire and Water (2009) is set in a dystopic near-future America and finds the protagonist lost in an isolation that blurs distinctions between reality and his myopic imagination – consequently raising questions about the tenuous nature of perception and identity.
Each of my film examines ways in which we construct meaning from the world around us, as well as how we as a society construct the world around us. The cultural perception of time, place, history and land in turn shapes self-perception and forms a complex dynamic rich with filmic possibilities.
Of Fire and Water (5 minute excerpt from a 30 minute film)