"I had an idea for quite some time for a film based on an essay by Lewis Thomas taken from a book that Will had lent me. Yes, the essay was ... I was sure … written just for me. It was called 'The Selves' […]" (SH)

Hindle's prize-laden work of cataclysmic visual and mental schisms stands as one-of-a-kind. Human universals crammed into a moment (infinity?) in one small enclosure (the universe?). The identifying viewer will judge.

A wordless impressionistic 'documentary' about a boys' camp.

Presaging details and intent of the Charles Manson's cult and actions was not meant to be one of this film's greater attributes. It was, however, filmed uncannily months before the facts were known. The resemblance is oblique. The film: the mysticism of a "calling," a journey to be made, a vision in mid-desert to behold and oneness with it all. Filmed in Death Valley.

Abstract visual poem celebrating the freedom of bodies moving through water. A filmmaker unconcerned with plot films the practice of an olympic swimming team and creates a visually stunning work.

PASTORAL D'ETE is one of the nation's first works of the Personal Film movement. Hindle dovetails the lyrical images of a singular high summer's day heat. A poignant first work. Initially used camera settings and lens operations. Evidences the mastery of editing to come. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Pacific Film Archive in 2012.

Hindle's first all-southern-made work, filmed shortly after moving his studio from San Francisco to the lower Appalachians. Jackie Dicie sings the song in disruptive out-of-synchronization. It is Hindle's first-water attempt to express the southern country mode of existence ... the alone woman and the lonesome land. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with Pacific Film Archive, in 2012.

This remained in limbo for 24 years. The only people to have ever seen it were a few handfuls of Hindle's and, later, Shellie Fleming's students. Working from the only surviving print and Will's original magnetic sound masters, the Academy Film Archive has restored the film. Additional Will Hindle films are also in the process of being restored. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

Renewed income and the ability to work on one's own produced this feeling and work. A Promethean awakening, de-bonding of the human spirit ... reaching for the unfiltered blaze of Light and Life. The driving sounds of heart beat, fanfare for the Common Man and devotional chants. A time of sharing ... a touch of vision in the night.

A rude and abrupt departure from Hindle's two early visual poems. Between those early works and MERCI, Hindle was sought to film the Winter Olympics, 150 short works for Westinghouse/CBS, and the South Sea voyages of Sterling Hayden's schooner, "Wanderer." The inability to get on with his own work produced MERCI. A poignant comment concerning the film artist's dilemma. Aftermaths of Western Civilization. Including never-seen-elsewhere Nazi footage inserts.