Nathaniel Dorsky

Biography

Raised in New York on a steady diet of Westerns and Disney True-Life Adventures, Nathaniel Dorsky started shooting 8mm movies at the age of eleven. In 1963, when he had just turned 20, he made Ingreen, a boldly symbolic psychodrama about a young man’s sexual coming of age. At that film’s premiere, he met soon-to-be fellow filmmaker Jerome Hiler, who would become his partner in life and a major inspiration for his work. (“We were filming for one another,” Hiler recently said.) In 1971 the two moved to San Francisco, where they’ve lived ever since. Around the same time, Dorsky entered a decade-long creative silence. He returned in 1982 with Hours for Jerome, a 55-minute feature compiled from footage shot between 1966 and 1970. Like all of Dorsky’s subsequent work, it’s a kind of cinematic lyric poem, entirely silent and rooted in a centuries-old tradition of devotional art (in this case, medieval illuminated manuscripts and prayer books). The rest of the Eighties found Dorsky experimenting with new forms and materials: 1987’s Alaya was made up entirely of footage of shifting sand, and 1983’s Ariel, which had a rare public screening at this year’s New York Film Festival, is a beautif…

Directed

1. Variations (1998) — Director
2. Hours for Jerome (1982) — Director
3. Song and Solitude (2006) — Director
4. The Visitation (2002) — Director
5. Threnody (2004) — Director
6. The Return (2011) — Director
7. August and After (2012) — Director
8. Aubade (2010) — Director
9. Alaya (1987) — Director
10. Arboretum Cycle (2018) — Director
11. Summer (2013) — Director
12. December (2014) — Director
13. February (2014) — Director
14. Compline (2009) — Director
15. Sarabande (2008) — Director
16. Arbor Vitae (2000) — Director
17. O Death (2023) — Director
18. Triste (1996) — Director
19. Ariel (1983) — Director
20. Pastourelle (2010) — Director
21. 17 Reasons Why (1987) — Director
22. Pneuma (1983) — Director
23. Apricity (2019) — Director
24. Lamentations (2020) — Director
25. Kodachrome Carl Rakosi in Golden Gate Park (2013) — Director
26. Ember Days (2021) — Director
27. Terce (2021) — Director
28. April (2012) — Director
29. Song (2013) — Director
30. Spring (2013) — Director
31. Naos (2022) — Director
32. Caracole (for Cecilia) (2019) — Director
33. Winter (2008) — Director
34. Avraham (2014) — Director
35. Interval (2022) — Director
36. Caracole (for Izcali) (2023) — Director
37. Summerwind (1966) — Director
38. Prelude (2015) — Director
39. A Fall Trip Home (1965) — Director
40. Ingreen (1964) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Diaries, Notes, and Sketches (1968) — Self
2. Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1977) — Self
3. Rembrandt Laughing (1989) — Daniel
4. Carriage Trade (1972) — himself
5. Hours for Jerome (1982)
6. New Shores (2012)
7. Divided Loyalties (1978) — Himself
8. Letter to D.H. in Paris (1967) — Himself
9. Holiday (1968)
10. Interview with Nathaniel Dorsky (2011) — Himself
11. Library (1970)
12. Nathaniel Dorsky: An Interview (2014) — Self