Made for Denise (1977)

Overview

Through the use of original and appropriated video footage, Auder translates a religious sermon into an expression of love for this strikingly beautiful woman. This lovers tale opens with a photograph of Denise that is alternately caressed and crushed in the palm of her lover's hand; a gesture oscillating between affection and an obsessive and irrational desire for possession. Auder builds on the increasing grandeur of the sermon's metaphors, extending them into the realm of destruction. The mood undergoes a violent shift as what was once fruit and flowers abruptly gives way to catastrophe. Featuring the music of Philip Glass, whose acquaintance Auder made in the early 1970s while producing work for The Kitchen.