E. Elias Merhige’s BEGOTTEN Cycle (4K Restoration)

7th House—the in-house film programming imprint of The Philosophical Research Society—is proud to return to 2220 Arts + Archives for an exceedingly rare presentation of filmmaker E. Elias Merhige’s complete THE BEGOTTEN CYCLE: the new 4K restoration of his legendary 1989 feature BEGOTTEN, followed by the seldom-seen DIN OF CELESTIAL BIRDS (2006) and POLIA & BLASTEMA: A COSMIC OPERA (2022). Total Program Runtime: 126 mins. Presented with intermission. Polia & Blastema composer/sound designer Gavin Gamboa will join us in person to speak about his experience making the film. ∆ Spanning more than three decades, this cinematic cosmology traces what Merhige describes as a trajectory in which “the divinities are created then destroyed,” while approaching filmmaking itself as alchemy, through the transformation of light into material. A momentous occasion, this program marks what is believed to be the first-ever Los Angeles screening of the complete Begotten Cycle. Hailed by Susan Sontag as “one of the most important films of modern times” and by Amos Vogel as an “obsessional, nightmarish, flamboyantly unsettling” hallucinatory masterpiece, Begotten remains one of the most singular works of American independent cinema. Its primal creation myth unfolds without dialogue through unnervingly graphic, formally radical images of bodily violence, suffering and ritual, transformed by Merhige’s photographic process into something that seems unearthed from an ancient, unknowable civilization. Shot in black-and-white on 16mm reversal film, Begotten was rephotographed frame by frame through neutral-density filters, a painstaking process spanning four years and requiring roughly ten hours of work for every finished minute. Initially rejected by conventional distributors, Begotten found its audience through a remarkable word-of-mouth journey: a VHS sent to Pacific Film Archive director Edith Kramer eventually landed in the hands of Susan Sontag, who became an early champion, screening it in her New York living room. A sold-out MoMA presentation, Film Forum theatrical engagement, and growing acclaim followed, with Begotten ultimately named one of TIME’s ten best films of 1991. Yet for more than 35 years, audiences encountered versions unable to reproduce the full depth of Merhige’s photography. The new 4K restoration finally reveals the image as intended: blacks with weight, whites with force, and grain breathing as atmosphere. ~ In Merhige’s own words: “Begotten has no characters in the ordinary sense. Its final credits name three principal figures: God Killing Himself. Mother Earth. Son of Earth — Flesh on Bone. The entire film is what those names do to each other and to the earth. God Killing Himself tears open his body and dies. Mother Earth rises from what remains and takes his seed into herself. She gives birth to Son of Earth — Flesh on Bone. He is cast into a barren world, seized by the Nomads, tortured, killed, and briefly returned to life by his mother. The Nomads destroy her too. The Robed Figures gather what remains of mother and son, grind their bodies down, and return them to the soil. The ground flowers.” ~ Seventeen years later, Merhige returned to this cosmology with the rarely screened Din of Celestial Birds, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival with only the cryptic synopsis: “Do not be afraid… be comforted… remember… our origin…” Combining analog and digital techniques, it hurtles from the violent formation of matter through the evolution of life and toward the emergence of consciousness. Merhige completed the cycle sixteen years later with the monumental Polia & Blastema: A Cosmic Opera, a cinematic opera pairing his libretto with original music and sound design by Gavin Gamboa. A Gnostic creation myth of two entities torn apart across time and space and pulled inexorably toward reunion, its collision of organic and inorganic matter, decay and supernatural horror draws inspiration from Viennese Actionism and philosopher Eugene Thacker’s conception of “the world without us.” Join us for this exceedingly rare opportunity to experience the complete Begotten Cycle, more than three decades in the making.