Warren Sonbert's CARRIAGE TRADE Screened This Month at Anthology Film Archives

STILL: WARREN SONBERT’S CARRIAGE TRADE (1973). SOURCE: GARTENBERG MEDIA ENTERPRISES.

On Saturday, April 12th, at 7:30pm, Warren Sonbert’s CARRIAGE TRADE screened at Anthology Film Archives as part of their Essential Cinema series, “a special series of films screened on a repertory basis… assembled in 1970—75 by Anthology’s Film Selection Committee — James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, P. Adams Sitney, and Jonas Mekas.” Jon Gartenberg was named the custodian of Sonbert’s legacy, and since Sonbert's passing, GME has worked on an extensive project to preserve, distribute, and curate career retrospectives of his work on an international basis.

Sonbert considered the 61-minute version of CARRIAGE TRADE, completed in 1973, to be his “magnum opus.” He described the film as follows:

A 16mm, 60-minute, 6-year compilation of travels, home movies, documents, shown silent. Not strictly involved with plot or morality but rather the language of film as regards [to] time, composition, cutting, light, distance, tension of backgrounds to foregrounds, what you see and what you don’t.

As noted by Gartenberg:

With CARRIAGE TRADE, Sonbert began to challenge the theories espoused by the great Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s; he particularly disliked the ‘knee-jerk’ reaction produced by Eisenstein’s montage. In both lectures and writings about his own style of editing, Sonbert described CARRIAGE TRADE as ‘a jig-saw puzzle of postcards to produce varied displaced effects.’ This approach, according to Sonbert, ultimately affords the viewer multifaceted readings of the connections between individual shots. This occurs through the spectator’s assimilation of ‘the changing relations of the movement of objects, the gestures of figures, familiar worldwide icons, rituals and reactions, rhythm, spacing and density of images.’

GME has worked to create new digital restorations of Sonbert’s films, including CARRIAGE TRADE. Stay tuned for forthcoming announcements regarding the launch of these key works.

For additional information regarding Sonbert and his oeuvre, please contact info@gartenbergmedia.com.