Ericka Beckman, Mike Kelley Blind Country (1989)

Writes Kelley: BLIND COUNTRY is a collaboration between myself and filmmaker Ericka Beckman. It was inspired by the H. G. Wells short story The Country of the Blind, which was a favorite of mine as an adolescent. I was both fascinated and repulsed by this tale of a man having to give up his eyes to live in an alien sightless society. In rereading it as an adult I was struck by the obvious fact, which I was oblivious to as a boy, that it is a castration story, and by the thinly veiled sexual and racial fears within it. Blind Country bears no discernable reference to the Wells story but instead plays with these subtle underlying Script, Performance Music: Bruce Darby. Online Editor: Enrique Aguirre. VCR Operator: Joe Briganti. Production Assistants: Bruce Fiene, Adam Gilmore, Jan Callahan. Characters: Bob Gibson, Aura Rosenberg, Lolly Lincolm, Amanda Katz, Ian Bearce, Kim Keown, Lori Desantis. EAI