Directing
Dorothy Wiley
Acting credits
Behind the camera
“We started with some dream images, a few actors, friends, and relatives. Slowly the film evolved into sequences or images that expressed the emotional discoveries of an aging woman… Standards of Perfection applied to all the selves, the relationships, the layers of memory.” — G.N./D.W.
Before Need
1979
4.0A lyrical, surreal film populated by an assortment of human beings, creatures, places and events.
Fog Pumas
1967
7.5A hilarious, grotesque and grave attack on the public ideal of the American housewife.
Schmeerguntz
1965
NRThe cosmos in a cabbage.
Cabbage
1972
NRA feature-length documentary directed by Dorothy Wiley and Gunvor Nelson about five working San Francisco artists: William T. Wiley, Robert Hudson, William Allan, William Geis and Robert Nelson-- A profile of five friends and their creative processes.
Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob
1971
NRDorothy Wiley's film portrait of her mischievous son Zane, with soundtrack by William T. Wiley and Jim Hockenhull.
Zane Forbidden
1972
NRSilent, meditative film of an everyday object, a “cosmic love letter to coffee”.
Coffee
1977
NRDorothy Wiley films four letters - a letter from her friend, a letter from worms, a letter from bugs, and a letter from her son. She and Bob and Diane Nelson whistle popular favorite classics for the soundtrack.
Letters
1972
NR"MISS JESUS FRIES ON GRILL is a mysterious striking evocation of pain and the short-circuiting sensations of living in this predicament of death. It is a short film and again the color is fine and sharp as a good paring knife. "Beginning with a newspaper clipping, written in a remarkably detailed manner of a bizarre accident in which a Miss Jesus was killed when a car smashed into the cafe where she was eating. The impact threw her on the grill, heated to 500 degrees.
Miss Jesus Fries on Grill
1973
5.5After doing Before Need, Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley embarked on a new creative process. They revisited the film, reworked it and reassembled it creating a shorter new version, called Before Need Redressed. A way to express how the passing time, reflection and accumulating experiences can affect the form and vision of a film. —Ulf Kjell Gür
Before Need Redressed
1994
NR"I first saw these creatures at the Bodega Bay Marine Biology Lab. I was amazed - I lived on this planet so long not knowing I was sharing it with weenie worms. They only live a few places in the world. Victor had been working with them for several years doing DNA experiments."
Weeny Worm or the Fat Innkeeper
1972