Gently Down the Stream

The text of “Gently Down the Stream” is a succession of fourteen dreams taken from eight years of my journals. The text is scratched onto the film so that you don’t hear any voice but that of a recorded narrator. The images of women, water, animals, and saints were chosen for their indirect but potent correspondence to the text. I chose to work with dre ams that express my deepest anxieties and longings, or that have forced a sudden awareness about a nagging problem. “I go to the circus to see women fly through the air with the greatest of ease. But then I find myself staring at many paths worn around… and round… and around in the sawdust by the clown’s feet.” (SF) “The technique is an homage to the hardwork of women. The film portrays a dreamscape where society’s conflicts step on stage in muted, mysterious forms.” – Kathleen Hulser, In These Times “‘Gently Down the Stream’ demonstrates Friedrich’s considerable technical talents and formal creativity as well as her canny historical sense in reappropriating the formal strategies generally associated with the ‘structural film.’” Bruce Jenkins, Millenium Film Journal