Robert Wilson and the CIVIL warS

It is not often that a great artist has a sense of ambition to match their creative vision; Robert Wilson was one of them. Born of humble origins in Waco, Texas, he ascended to global acclaim for his haunting, evocative theatrical productions. With collaborators Philip Glass, David Byrne and many others, he began to conceive of the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down in 1979, a project that would bring together six theatre companies from six countries at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Monumental barely describes it. Howard Brookner’s recently restored documentary shows Wilson as he pulls the myriad strands of CIVIL warS together while taking countless phone calls, flying around the world and managing an electricians’ strike in Rome. Wilson’s sense of artistic integrity never wavers, even if its logic remains opaque: “Kill the fluorescents,” he says during a rehearsal, “they don’t make any sense.” But how else to describe an upside-down Robert E. Lee floating past a spaceship? Or an actor’s face frozen in a contorted grimace, playing Frederick the Great? Tasked to come up with one million dollars, Wilson ultimately fails. Like so many of us, this conjurer of different worlds is beset by the limitations of his own. (Genevieve Yue)

In the presence of Aaron Brookner.

Howard Brookner: BURROUGHS: THE MOVIE (1983), BLOODHOUNDS OF BROADWAY (1989)