“Smothering Dreams is one of the most compelling and extraordinary portraits of violence and personal loss ever produced by an artist or filmmaker.”
Eddie Berg - Artistic Director - British Film Institute
“Where Apocalypse Now was bloated and pretentious, Smothering Dreams is lean and harrowingly to the point.”
John J. O’Connor - New York Times
Smothering Dreams does in 23 minutes what Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter tried to do in 3 hours, “One of the most compelling, eloquently visual denunciations of war in any medium. This powerful autobiographical reflection on the Vietnam War is a
cathartic burning anti-war statement and a searing analysis of the mass media's role in inculcating violence and aggression from childhood onward.”
Deirdre Boyle - Video Classics
Eddie Berg - Artistic Director - British Film Institute
“Where Apocalypse Now was bloated and pretentious, Smothering Dreams is lean and harrowingly to the point.”
John J. O’Connor - New York Times
Smothering Dreams does in 23 minutes what Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter tried to do in 3 hours, “One of the most compelling, eloquently visual denunciations of war in any medium. This powerful autobiographical reflection on the Vietnam War is a
cathartic burning anti-war statement and a searing analysis of the mass media's role in inculcating violence and aggression from childhood onward.”
Deirdre Boyle - Video Classics
Winner of three Emmy Awards, Blue Ribbon USA Film & Video Festival, Lee Garmes Award for Excellence at the Athens Film & Video Festival, San Francisco Video Festival winner, Museum of Modern Art Collection, Nine national broadcasts worldwide.
1981 Smothering Dreams, single channel video (23 min.)
Drawing on the commentary of Wilfred Owens antiwar poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est,” and revisiting America's "television war" through the technology of its disengagement, this film is an autobiographical reflection on the Vietnam War, "a cathartic recollection, burning anti-war statement and searing analysis of the media's role in inculcating violence and aggression from childhood onward" (Deirdre Boyle). With dramatic re-enactments of the ambush of his platoon during the Tet Offensive of 1968 and of childhood memories, Smothering Dreams is a collage of fantasies of battle and adult nightmares of the atrocities of war.
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Winner of Three EMMY Awards, New York (1981)
·Permanent Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Exhibitions / Featured:
·Museum of Modern Art, New York, ”The Path of Resistance” (2001), “Highlights from our Collection", (1991), "Video and Dreams" (1990), "The Independent Documentary in The United States" (1988) ·Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston ·American Film Institute's National Video Festival, Washington, DC (1982) ·Featured in "Art and Memory", New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York ·Featured in "War and Memory", Washington Project for the Arts (District of Columbia)·UK National Broadcast, Channel 4 (London), 1986 ·PBS broadcast, “Alive from Off Center” (July,1985) ·national broadcasts on Austrian and Swedish television, 1986
Awards:
·Blue Ribbon Winner, Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah (1982)·Lee Garmes Award for Excellence, Athens Video Festival, Ohio (1982) ·Winner, San Francisco Video Festival (1982) ·Winner, 8th Annual Ithaca Video Festival, (1982)
Smothering Dreams on Vimeo
Smothering Dreams from Daniel Reeves on Vimeo.