Series: New Television
Program: New Television
Episode: 607
Date: 1990-01-01
Duration: 00:01:21

Subject: Friendship; Ghosts; Murder
People: Silver, Shelly
Copyright Holder: Shelly Silver

Clip Description
"The Houses that Are Left" refers to a statement by Gustave Flaubert suggesting that what is most telling about a historical period is not what it leaves behind, but what it tears down or loses. The story concerns two sets of characters, the living and the dead, and examines the influence they have over one another.

Program Description
This episode of "New Television" features "The Houses that Are Left" by Shelly Silver.

This dramatic work concerns two sets of characters, the living and the dead, and examines the influence they have over one another. Anne and Chris, whose world is filmed in black and white, are girlhood friends who belong to the "land of the living." At the opening of the work, Chris is arguing heatedly at a pay phone, denying culpability for an undefined act. Chris comes to stay with Anne and her husband Bob, and finds work doing market research in the form of "man on the street" video interviews. Anne, increasingly dissatisfied with her job, quits and serves as Chris' cameraperson. The two friends are alternately intimate and tense with one another. Their closeness is not romanticized, and we see that their relationship is not at a loss for conflict. Meanwhile, another story is unfolding. In a small room, in color, two men and a woman prepare for an assignment. Their talk is gruff and recalls the hardened professionalism of hard-boiled detectives. As the story advances, we realize they are dead and their duty is to watch over Anne, Chris, and their friends. They do so via a video monitor, in case one of them should die. They are joined by a young boy and a woman, Patty, who comes to them after being stabbed in the back. As Patty participates in this mysterious surveillance, we learn that she has a hidden agenda. Confiding in "the Kid," she begins a campaign of intervention and malice in Chris' life. Patty claims that Chris is responsible for her death and sets out to drive her to the brink of madness and suicide, sending messages to her through broadcast mediums, such as the television set in Chris' room or a boom box carried by a youth in a subway station. Could Patty's murder be the event referred to in Chris's phone call at the beginning of the work and the troubling secret she has left undisclosed? The pieces seem to fit, and yet elements of Patty's story are contradictory, suspicious, and unconvincing. At one point, Patty scrambles the results of the market research interviews, leading to a confrontation between Chris and Anne. At last, the other dead recognize Patty's scheme, which is revealed in secret diary entries. Yet the mystery remains unresolved in this work, which recalls film noir with its overlying themes of melodrama and ambiguity.

The title refers to a statement by Gustave Flaubert suggesting that what is most telling about a historical period is not what it leaves behind, but what it tears down or loses. "The Houses that Are Left" was written and directed by Shelly Silver and produced in association with New Television.

Series Description
The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.

As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/Houses70.HTML