William Segal lived nearly the whole of the twentieth century — magazine publisher, self-taught painter, and a direct pupil of both Gurdjieff and Jeanne de Salzmann. In the last decade of his life he befriended the filmmaker Ken Burns, and together they made a trilogy of short, unhurried films. This is the second.

Burns follows Segal, then in his nineties, to the Romanesque basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay in Burgundy — a site that has drawn pilgrims for nine hundred years. There is almost no narration. What there is instead is light moving across stone, an old man looking, and a few spare sentences about what it costs to actually see. Segal spoke of attention as something renewed moment by moment, never possessed.

What does it mean to truly see?

Want to let us know you're coming? RSVP appreciated but not required: info@gurdjieffasheville.org