Nathaniel Dorsky

Nathaniel Dorsky (born 1943) is an experimental filmmaker and film editor who has been making films since 1964. He intends that his 16mm silent films "create a state of prayer" not by treating Buddhism as a subject but by expressing "the view that comes from Buddhism". Dorsky was born in New York City, attended Antioch College and New York University, and has lived in San Francisco since 1971. In his book Devotional Cinema (2003), Dorsky writes of the long-standing link between art and health as well as the transformative potential of watching film. He also writes of the limitations of film when it is subservient to theme or dependent on "the ornament of language", which can describe a world but not see it. According to critic and historian Richard Suchenski, in Dorsky's films objects are “decontextualized and sometimes unmoored from their surroundings, allowing connections to develop which resonate not only between shots but also across the films as a whole, encouraging more active...