Parachute, Spring 1999
“A compendium surveying nearly forty film scripts, essays and microstories by renowned filmmaker Mike Hoolboom, Plague Years impressively represents his summa to date. In spite of his frequent use of “I,” it is not, strictly speaking, an autobiography. There remains a strong fictive element throughout – his artistic license, naturally. Hoolboom’s mellifluous prose ranges from the script for his imageless film White Museum to a revealing letter to Madonna to the poignant anti-AIDS Letters from Home. His themes shift from the light and filmic to the sombre and serious. Exquisitely designed, Plague Years includes an annotated filmography , with sources and writers as diverse as renegade philosopher Alphonso Lingis and local critic Geoff Pevere.
