The Seventh Sword

Scoundrel Shimamura is a violent street thug who joins the yakuza & is merciless & unscrupulous on his rise, lacking any sense of either duty or chivalry. When imprisoned, he is repeatedly transferred from one prison to another, because no one can handle him.

Nine Years Later ("Panic... In the three-part series Nine Years Later, Beck revisits video performances he created nearly a decade earlier to music by the British pop band The Smiths. Beck betrays the apparent effortlessness of the original clips by editing them alongside the numerous rehearsals, variously self-conscious and obsessive, they required. With inter-titles and voice-over, Beck recapitulates his performances according to the video technology he used to produce them. As a result, the body, in its correlation with the evolution and obsolescence of technology, is revealed as a purely “enjoying” substance. Whether portraying a vindictive martyr in Bigmouth Strikes Again, a suicidal loner in Panic, or a comatose drag queen in Girlfriend In A Coma, Beck brings the violence and malice implicit in lead-singer Morrissey’s lyrics graphically to life.

Nine Years Later ("Girlf... In the three-part series Nine Years Later, Beck revisits video performances he created nearly a decade earlier to music by the British pop band The Smiths. Beck betrays the apparent effortlessness of the original clips by editing them alongside the numerous rehearsals, variously self-conscious and obsessive, they required. With inter-titles and voice-over, Beck recapitulates his performances according to the video technology he used to produce them. As a result, the body, in its correlation with the evolution and obsolescence of technology, is revealed as a purely “enjoying” substance. Whether portraying a vindictive martyr in Bigmouth Strikes Again, a suicidal loner in Panic, or a comatose drag queen in Girlfriend In A Coma, Beck brings the violence and malice implicit in lead-singer Morrissey’s lyrics graphically to life.

Nine Years Later ("Bigmo... In the three-part series Nine Years Later, Beck revisits video performances he created nearly a decade earlier to music by the British pop band The Smiths. Beck betrays the apparent effortlessness of the original clips by editing them alongside the numerous rehearsals, variously self-conscious and obsessive, they required. With inter-titles and voice-over, Beck recapitulates his performances according to the video technology he used to produce them. As a result, the body, in its correlation with the evolution and obsolescence of technology, is revealed as a purely “enjoying” substance. Whether portraying a vindictive martyr in Bigmouth Strikes Again, a suicidal loner in Panic, or a comatose drag queen in Girlfriend In A Coma, Beck brings the violence and malice implicit in lead-singer Morrissey’s lyrics graphically to life.

Independence of Japan A group image drama set at the end of the war depicting the unknown struggle of Japanese people who faced the difficult issues.

Song Poem (Trips Visits) "Song Poem (Trips Visits) is a single-channel work I created using videotapes I found in second-hand stores, from home movies to hunting how-to tapes. It was created for a show titled Song Poems, which took as its departure a popular 1960-70s mail-order phenomenon, advertised in the back of magazines, offering to set poems to music in an array of styles and return them as 'singles.' The exhibition brought together musicians and video artists to set original poems by a variety of artists and writers to music and images. I created a video for an original poem by the show’s curator, Steven Hull, with music composed by The Pony Express, an alternative New York rock band." -- Robert Beck

Untitled (Dec. 29, 1993) Untitled haphazardly records two lessons: one a father’s instruction to son on the proper handling of a firearm, the other a son’s instruction to father on how to use home-video equipment. The firearm instruction is recorded with the lens-cap accidentally left on, replacing the image with a cryptic bulls-eye symbol of pulsing shadow and light, shifting with the camera’s auto-focus.

The Feeling of Power The Feeling of Power documents a 1989 ACT-UP protest at Trump Tower, offering a self-reflexive manifesto of video activism that brings the ‘70s "guerrilla television" movement into the age of the camcorder.

Pink Carnations An experimental reflection of a Japanese American family’s history at an internment camp during World War II.

Tales from the Margins 12 women disrobe publicly - in protest. For 8 years, a young woman has been on a fast to death demanding justice. Why are these women using their bodies as their last weapon? The film looks at the grim human rights situation in Manipur and the extraordinary protests by Manipuri women for justice.