Film: Meredith Monk’s Book of Days

Don’t miss this very rare opportunity to experience Meredith Monk’s striking, haunting, and underseen cinematic vision on the big screen!

The Philosophical Research Society is very proud to present the legendary multi-disciplinary artist Meredith Monk’s singular and rarely screened feature film BOOK OF DAYS (1988)!

Recognized as one of the most unique and influential artists of our time, Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, music-theater works, films and installations. She is a pioneer in what is now called “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance.” Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound, discovering and weaving together new modes of perception. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which there are no words. Over the last six decades, she has been hailed as “a magician of the voice” and “one of America’s coolest composers”.

Monk’s first feature-length film, BOOK OF DAYS (1988), is a meditation on time, drawing parallels between the Middle Ages, a time of war, plague and fear of the Apocalypse, with the 1980s, a time of racial and religious conflict, the AIDS epidemic, and fear of nuclear annihilation. An examination of contemporary life from the vantage point of someone living in the Middle Ages, BOOK OF DAYS centers on a young girl from the Jewish community of a medieval village during the time of the Black Plague who has inexplicable visions of the future, while an unseen modern documentary film crew interviews members of both the Jewish and Christian communities about their daily lives. Monk used color to reflect the modern world and black and white for the medieval village, seamlessly going back and forth to weave one period through another. As the plague descends upon the village, scapegoating and blame are cast with tragic consequences. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2020, the cyclical nature of such a phenomenon made itself known once more. While the film provides no answers, it nevertheless is an acknowledgement of the power of vision and the imagination, and a poetic incantation of that which connects us through history.

Previous to creating the film, Monk developed a suite of music that premiered under the title, Book of Days, in 1985. She later developed the music for the film score and created another form for the recording of Book of Days on ECM Records, released in 1990.

Don’t miss this very rare opportunity to experience Meredith Monk’s striking, haunting, and underseen cinematic vision on the big screen.

Special thanks to Sarah Lerner at Meredith Monk | The House Foundation for the Arts

Tickets: $15 (In-Person Only)

Please email [email protected]g or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.