Excerpts from a Work in Progress (Undesirables) (1999)

Overview

A rough-cut of selected scenes, edited as a sampler to be used in fundraising towards completion of the film "Undesirables". “The idea started with a casual comment made by Stan Brakhage, must have been way back in the early 1970s. It stuck in my mind. Now that I think about it, Brakhage may have meant this as a joke. He said, “Someday Hollywood will probably make a film about us,” ‘us’ meaning the experimental filmmakers “and I wonder which actors will play us?” Think about that first of all: the idea that Hollywood would make a film about experimental filmmakers is totally ridiculous. The fact that one would think about which actor was going to play me at some time in the future, I think that’s very funny. Eventually it germinated in my mind and I thought it was an interesting idea… A film about experimental filmmakers, especially in the very formative period, approximately 1968 to 1972.