The second of BRUISER‘s programs at Suns Cinema dedicated to Jon Jost, this screening sees the radical independent filmmaker heading to rural America with the short FALL CREEK (1970) and feature THE BED YOU SLEEP IN (1993). This pairing of an early experimental work with his mid-career masterpiece demonstrates Jost’s consistent interrogation of the not-so-hidden violence constitutive of white American normalcy. In FALL CREEK, what begins as a dreamy walk in the woods concludes with the accusing words of an indigenous man. THE BED YOU SLEEP IN concludes Jost’s “Tom Blair trilogy” (so named for the actor he previously worked with on LAST CHANTS FOR A SLOW DANCE and SURE FIRE) with a searing portrait of the current of patriarchal violence running under the nuclear family, and horrifying denials needed to repress its contradictions.

A homage to nature and a plea for a careful approach to it. In one of his early films, Jon Jost shows impressions of a stream in the forest and a couple streaming through the forest: direct looks into the camera, cross-fades, multiple exposures, playing with sunlight, shadows and shapes. At the end, the appeal of a Wintu indigenous man who condemns the reckless treatment of the whites with nature is faded in.

Times are hard for Northwestern lumber-mill operators like Ray and his wife Jean. Ray and Jean’s lives are thrown into chaos when their daughter writes home from college, claiming to have a horrifying revelation.