Brent Green + Band Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then

"A tinkerer's ode to a tinkerer, and a romantic's tribute to a romantic...radiates an oddball homemade charm."—New York Times

In this special event from the Wex's performing arts and film programs, indie filmmaker Brent Green presents a DIY film and live music project that has transfixed critics and festival audiences around the world. Green’s lo-fi stop-motion animations were first seen at the Wex as a counterpoint to Califone’s music in 2006, and the filmmaker introduced an earlier version of this project here last year. This time Green has assembled a full seven-piece band—featuring a horn section, theremin, cello, harmonium, drums—and live foley sound effects (like in an old-time radio show) to accompany his whimsical, dream-like cinematic tale.

Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then offers a chronicle of enduring love, faith, the need for miracles, and the power of electricity, while recounting the true story of Leonard Wood, a hardware store clerk in Kentucky who built a crazy-quilt house in the 1970s as a healing machine to save his wife from cancer. Green himself built a full-size model of Wood’s house and town in his own backyard, and he shot the film there, combining traditional and stop-motion animation techniques. The result is an ethereal homage to lovers and dreamers everywhere. “If Mark Twain were with us today, he would probably be engaged in endeavors comparable to Green’s films,” says Art in America. (71 mins., video).

The live band this evening features Todd Chandler of Dark, Dark, Dark; Brendan Canty of Fugazi; Michael McGinley and Alan Scalpone of the Bitter Tears; and Drew Henkels of Drew and the Medicinal Pen.