Rick Patton

After the turbulent 60s Patton embraced the back-to-the-land movement. As presaged in his earlier film, Blue Mountain, he was drawn to a simpler rural life, close to nature. In 1969 he threw in with a group of people to form the Jones Farm on Quadra Island in British Columbia. He lived in a small cabin with no electricity or running water for 3 years. He supported himself as a welder and carpenter. These were good times. During this period basically gave up filmmaking, yet he still managed to shoot bits and pieces of the landscape and characters around him. This footage sat in a box for several years. He moved to Vancouver in 1974 to resume his filmmaking career, In 1976 he returned to Quadra Island with better gear and enough film stock to shoot additional footage. The result is a quirky personal journal in documentary form.

Night of Samhain is a humorous look at Halloween, the holiday with no redeeming social value. A holiday that values outrageous behaviour. A holiday that has been a thorn in the side of organized religion for centuries and one that many wish would disappear.

This is a film made without a camera. The images are painted directly onto 16mm clear leader. Patton was particularly interested in the organic shapes that resulted from mixing chemically dissimilar spray paints.

Patton reflects on his inner city life in psychedelic San Francisco, contrasting that with his attraction to solitude and remote mountain landscapes. An underlying Buddhist perspective attempts to mediate these very different realities.

This is Rick Patton’s first film, made when he was a student at Antioch college. The stylistic premise was that the film would be a self-portrait, like a still photograph, that changed and grew through time. It is not a story, but it does revolve around a love affair gone wrong and a broken heart. Patton did not show this film for 40 years. He found it embarrassing. Now in his 60s, he is OK with it. All filmmakers have a first film.