Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
decasia
At 67 minutes Decasia is Morrison’s found footage/’ruined’ cinema magnus opus. And while barely feature length, the overall experience is of such great intensity –with Michael Gordon’s incredibly loud, throbbing symphonic soundtrack threatening to melt the imagery- that one loses the sense of any objective time. As the film’s credits begin we hear what sounds like whirring Steenbeck plates. The film moves from a shot of a dervish dancer to a film lab, reflexively suggesting the birth and creation of the ‘film within a film.’ The film’s circular structure begins and ends on the same image of a dancing dervish, which links up the many recurring motifs of birth, death, and the apocalypse. In between there are images that range from ominous beauty (falling bomb-like parachutes) to painterly beauty (panoramic silhouette long shots of men on camels walking across a desert landscape).
light is falling - bill morrison - destruction of the image
http://www.vimeo.com/1
017110
3
http://www.offscreen.com/index.php/pages/essays/postmortem_evolution/
0171103http://www.offscreen.com/index.php/pages/essays/postmortem_evolution/In The Light is Calling all that we can make out from the extreme deterioration are shots of officers on horseback riding through the woods, and a young woman with long braids who is found and aided by the officers at the end of the film. An interesting observation I had while watching the three ‘deteriorated’ films is that no matter how great or advanced the distortion and deterioration, there is one inevitable constant: the distortion is always in the foreground of the image. This leads to an equally interesting ‘formal’ and stylistic quality, because regardless of how flat the original footage may have been, the distortion introduces an element of ‘depth’ and ‘texture’ to the frame. This is especially noticeable in The Light is Calling, where the characters (the horseback officers and the woman) always appear to be ‘behind’ something. For example, in one scene we see the woman in long shot and, because of the formation of the deterioration, she appears to be peering through what looks like a fire or a cloud formation.
 “Depth” in Light is Calling | “Depth” in Light is Calling |
The greatly deteriorated passages where the film stock seems cindered and scorched, at times appearing like a moving Rorschach chart or Mandelbrot set, recalls Stan Brakhage’s hand painted films as well as his theory of “closed eye” vision. The visceral nature of the imagery also reminded me of a live performance piece by two German multi-media artists (Alchemie) during the 1997 FCMM, where they literally poured chemicals and compounds onto a film loop before it passed by the projector lens, throwing an unpredictable and volatile series of light and color patterns onto a wall, and culminating with the projector catching fire.
Hand-painted or deteriorated? Light is Calling |  “Depth” in The Mesmerist |
The extremely different music which accompanies these two films is representative of both the aesthetic range and importance of music in Morrison’s films. For The Mesmerist Morrison uses two existing Bill Frisell songs (“Tell you ma, tell your pa” and “Again”); and for The Light is Calling he uses a composition written exclusively for the film by Michael Gordon. What these two choices broadly represent are scores which have an organic relationship to the image track (The Light is Calling, Trinity, Ghost Trip, City Walk) and scores which interact with or against the image track (The Mesmerist, The Film of Her, with Decasia operating on both levels). Bill Frisell is a contemporary guitarist-composer who is no stranger to film music, having written several interpretative scores for Buster Keaton films. His musical style is an intellectual blend of jazz, blues, folk, country, and rockabilly, a postmodern eclecticism which, on the one hand, can be seen as a parallel to Morrison’s own re-appropriation of film history. But the clearly modern, contemporary feel of his music makes it feel as if it is playing to the film rather than alongside the film, and emanating from without the film rather thanwithin the film. On the other hand, the pitch and rhythm of Gordon’s haunting combination of an undulating electronic loop and high pitched violin is a perfect harmony to the The Light is Calling’s overall sense of a spiritual or transcendental rise.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
zapruder film in ACE - 1998 - home movie technology
by Eric Rudolph
Poor-quality copies of the Zapruder film have been available through various sources since the late Sixties, but up until recently this astonishing document has never been commercially available to the general public. That situation changed this summer when Chicago-based MPI Home Video released Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film on videocassette and DVD. This new digital version of the film was struck directly from Zapruder's camera original and contains the controversial visual information recorded between the film's sprocket holes. The lack of availability of this additional information in high-quality form has spawned a host of theories about the film's veracity.
In actuality, the Zapruder film has quite prosaic origins. In November of 1962, Abraham Zapruder purchased a Bell & Howell model 414 PD Zoomatic Director's Series 8mm movie camera, fitted with a Varimat 9-27mm f1.8 zoom lens, at Peacock Jewelry on Elm Street in Dallas. Zapruder's dress company — Jennifer Juniors — was also located on Elm Street, directly across the road from the Texas School Book Depository and Dealey Plaza.
On the fateful day of JFK's slaying, Zapruder did not bring his movie camera to the office. He went home and retrieved it only after an assistant convinced the amateur cameraman that he would want to show his grandchildren a film of the Presidential procession.
As Kennedy's motorcade approached Dealey Plaza, Zapruder found an elevated filming position atop a concrete abutment close to the famous grassy knoll (near the spot where most denouncers of the Warren Commission Report claim that several of the shots, including the fatal one, originated).
According to Martin Shackelford's paper A History of the Zapruder Film, Zapruder was standing 185' from the southwest corner of the Depository building (from where the Warren Commission said lone assassin Oswald fired upon the President) and 65' from the center of Elm Street, the spot where Kennedy was killed.
Marilyn Sitzman, the same assistant who urged her boss to go home for his camera, stood behind Zapruder on the concrete pedestal, and held onto him to allay his fears of losing balance if he happened to become dizzy. With the lens of his high-end home movie camera set at maximum telephoto range and loaded with a partially used roll of Kodachrome II film, Zapruder set about capturing one of the most wrenching incidents in American history.
The Image of an Assassination project began when Zapruder's heirs decided that an archival copy of the film should be made. (The family regained control of the film from Life magazine in April of 1975, one month after a poor-quality copy was first aired on national television.) A decision was made that the copy should take advantage of advances in digital imaging, which would include eliminating the need for the 35-year-old film to be subjected to potentially damaging runs through a mechanical film gate.
After it had been determined that the best approach would be to shoot large-format still transparencies of each frame to be scanned and re-animated digitally, the Zapruders' attorney contacted Joe Barabe of McKrone Associates, an Illinois firm wihich specializes in photo microscopy.
Barabe packed up his gear and shipped it to the National Archive II in College Park, Maryland, where the camera original of the Zapruder film is kept under temperature and humidity-controlled archival conditions as a courtesy to the Zapruders.
Barabe devised a simple polyester film-holding system that doubled as a frame-numbering mechanism, as well as an easel made of microscope slides which held the film as flat as possible under the camera. Barabe hastens to note that no glass existed between the 8mm original and the copying camera's lens; the special easel was designed with a half-inch hole in the center.
Using a 4 x 5 format copy camera fitted with a Zeiss Luminar 40mm f4.5 lens which magnified each frame 12 times, Barabe made six-second time exposures of each of the approximately 480 frames of the film itself, which was illuminated by a light box fitted with a transparency copying bulb.
The stills of each frame were made onto Kodak 6121 color transparency sheet film taken from the same emulsion batch. The 8mm film was photographed from edge to edge in order to include the area between the sprocket holes.
The five-day photographic process did present several problems. "Shooting stills at high magnification makes the choice of the f-stop important for matters of depth of field and resolution," says Barabe. "We wanted the greatest depth of field to compensate for the fact that film curls. However, to stop down too much at this high magnification would have lowered the resolution because of defraction effects. We had to find the ideal balance, which we determined was to stop down from f4.5 to f6.3. We tested the resolution and depth of field at this setting and found it to be quite good."
A .60 neutral-density filter was included in each of Barabe's stills. "The .60 ND, with the light from our source coming through, photographed as a middle gray. Since each transparency was later checked with a densitometer and by eye, this gave us a solid density reference point," he explains.
After the processed still film was reviewed and reshoots were done, the transparencies were sent to a company which scanned each 4 x 5 transparency at 1,500 DPI resolution. The frames were then sequenced and registered on a computer, using the images of the sprocket holes and frame edges as guides. Scratches and dirt were removed and dark areas opened up via Photoshop; some camera shake was also eliminated digitally.
The still frames were then animated back to the camera's running speed of 18 frames per second, creating a new digital motion picture version of the 480 still frames. (The home video also includes several slow-motion and tightly cropped versions of the Zapruder film, as well as versions showing the area between the sprocket holes.)
One of the Zapruder film's most important features 35 years later is the fact that it was shot on a standard home movie stock of the time — Kodachrome II. This emulsion has long been proven to possess excellent sharpness, color saturation and image stability. What is immediately striking about the revamped Zapruder film is the appearance of its sharp, bright, saturated colors.
The home video version of the film is reportedly the first copy fashioned from the camera original since Kodak struck three copies of it in Dallas on the day of the assassination. Now, the general public can view a pivotal moment in history with a clarity close to that seen by those handful of people present at the initial Kodak screening.
The video release of the Zapruder film facilitates close scrutiny of its images, allowing one to easily absorb the event's truly heartbreaking aspects.
As the Presidential limousine emerges from behind a street sign, Kennedy has both hands at his throat after being shot for the first time. Noticing that something is amiss, Jacqueline Kennedy turns toward her husband with concern. At the same time, Texas Governor John Connally turns in his seat and speaks to the President. An instant later, Connally himself is shot and slumps over.
The vehicle proceeds for a moment, then clearly slows and appears to nearly stop. At the exact instant that the car comes to a halt, the left side of Kennedy's head is blown open in an explosion of blood and gray matter. At the moment of the fatal shot, Mrs. Kennedy had been leaning her head quite close to that of her husband. At first, she gently places an elegantly white-gloved hand around the back of her husband's neck just below his obliterated head. Then, after absorbing what has happened, the First Lady responds in horror and climbs onto the back of the car.
Another astonishing aspect about the film is the fact that Zapruder (who nearly loses the President from the bottom of his frame just prior to the fatal shot) had positioned himself in what appears to be a direct line with the President at the moment of the deadly shot. This instant is also the point at which Kennedy and Zapruder are closest in terms of physical space.
The MPI video also clearly displays the visual information between the sprocket holes, where ghostlike images of the scene are occasionally present. Alterationist researchers state that these images are proof that the entire Zapruder film is a cleverly fabricated fraud. Supposedly, this discrepancy results from a hastily planned overnight alternation of the film by the government, which used ultra-sophisticated filmmaking techniques completely unknown to the motion picture business in late 1963 and for many years to follow. But according to MPI staff member and Image of an Assassination writer/producer H.D. Motyl, "There is nothing in the sprocket area that proves or disproves a [theory] that the film was altered."
Researcher Anthony Marsh maintains that the ghost images are the result of a design anomaly in the aperture plate of Zapruder's camera. A groove next to the actual aperture area permitted the pull-down claw to access the sprocket holes instead of the more conventional notch at the top of the aperture plate: this design, Marsh insists, is responsible for those sprocket area images.
Others theorize that crucial evidence in the scene's imagery was actually recorded between the sprocket holes. However, the video release seems to refute those arguments as well, since no nefarious activity is apparent in this area.
Anyone wishing to see the actual Bell & Howell movie camera with which Abraham Zapruder made his famous film need only visit the Sixth Floor Museum located in the former Texas School Book Depository building. The humble camera, on loan from the National Archive, sits under a museum case in subdued archival lighting, along with 12 other movie and still cameras also in use in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
eternal sunshine american cinematographer
http://www.theasc.com/magazine/april04/cover/index.html
| Forget Me Not | |||||||||||
| Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, shot by Ellen Kuras, ASC, explores a man's fight to retain his romantic memories. by John Pavlus Unit photography by David Lee The plots of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's bizarre movies (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) have always defied easy description. Thus, it might be surprising to some that his latest tale, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, follows the universally familiar romantic pattern of "boy meets girl, boy loses girl" - that is, until the point in the story where "boy arranges to have all memory of girl erased." Eternal Sunshine tells the tragicomic story of Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet), a loving yet hopelessly mismatched couple who, after breaking up, decide to have their painful memories of each other permanently removed. Providing this dubious treatment is Lacuna Inc., whose funky young technicians identify and delete their clients' troublesome recollections. But when Joel accidentally becomes lucid during the procedure and begins to surreally re-experience all of his vivid moments with Clementine, he realizes he has made a grievous mistake, and struggles to mentally preserve the remaining details of his bittersweet love affair. The film's director of photography, Ellen Kuras, ASC, notes that director Michel Gondry, whose acclaimed music videos "often deal with the morphing of time and space," was ideally suited to visualize a story whose primary setting is the boundless realm of its protagonist's memory. However, Gondry was eager to depart from the hermetic, studio-bound experience he'd had on a previous Kaufman project, Human Nature. With its slippery shifts between reality and distorted memories, Eternal Sunshine required a look that could blend location-shoot authenticity with unpredictable flashes of whimsy. Kuras, whose own work often strikes a balance between raw and stylized imagery (notably on Summer of Sam; see AC June '99) proved a perfect match. The cinematographer soon discovered just how challenging it would be to marry the two halves of Gondry's vision. "Starting off, he wanted to shoot the entire movie in practical locations, and he would have preferred me to shoot everything in available light," says Kuras. "He felt that the more real the film looked, the more you would believe it when the memories melted into reality. It was important for him not to get overburdened by the lighting, which I agree with in theory. But in practice, you have to be able to light so the camera assistants have a stop to work with to get the movie in focus! I said, 'Michel, even on a documentary, I wouldn't shoot exclusively with available light.'" But running parallel to the director's desire for naturalism were his decidedly "unnatural" ideas for the film's transitions between reality and memory. "Much of the syntax of the dramatic action leads you to believe that you're in a memory, or a memory of a memory, but the reality of where you are in time and space is not exactly clear," Kuras explains. "One of the ways Michel wanted to suggest this visually was by calling back to early cinema, where magicians were using live-action practical effects in order to change time and space. He didn't want them to feel or look completely seamless. In one of the scenes, he wanted me to shake the camera so we could see it was a handheld effect in camera, as opposed to a locked-off superimposition effect or double exposure. That was the enigma of the film to me: we would have these unconventional, trompe l'oeil transitions that were not transparent film language, but the lighting sources had to be naturalistic at the same time." Kuras and Gondry used most of their six-week prep to determine the feasibility of these ideas, as well as scout locations in and aroundNew York City for the wintertime shoot - "one of the coldest winters on record," Kuras recalls. Although most of the picture was filmed in practical locations, the filmmakers knew that some studio work was unavoidable. "We always had two cameras running, so it was impossible to do some of these effects [in a practical location] because there wasn't enough room," says Kuras. Production designer Dan Leigh recreated key locations - including Joel's Yonkersapartment and an oversized, 1950s-style kitchen from Joel's childhood memories - at a former U.S. Navy base in New Jersey. Eternal Sunshine was Kuras and Gondry's first collaboration, and the cinematographer says that the first three weeks of production were devoted to developing a lighting strategy that would combine an extensive use of practicals with a handful of movie lights. "On the first day of shooting, I wasn't allowed to use any real movie lights because Michel wanted me to light to eye," she says. "For a night exterior, for example, I had to clip some sodium vapors onto telephone poles to augment the existing sodium vapors. On stage, Michel wanted to recreate the conditions we had encountered on location. After they'd built Joel's apartment set, Dan [Leigh] pulled me aside and said, 'All of the ceilings have been nailed down, so you won't be able to light from above.' That made me laugh - the last nail in my coffin!" Complicating matters further was the fact that two handheld cameras were filming near-360-degree coverage most of the time. "There were no marks and very few rehearsals, so we didn't have any kind of gauge for where the actors would be," recalls Kuras. "Ultimately, that meant we were lighting the room, not the actors. Sometimes they were in the key light, and sometimes not. If I knew where the actors were going to be, I'd try to put something in, but it wasn't as though we had electricians hanging around with Chimeras for beauty lights. Although I understood the kind of movie Michel wanted to make and tried to give him what he wanted, there were moments when the cinematographer in me just cringed, especially when the actors danced in each other's key light. In one scene, when Clementine brings Joel to her apartment for the first time, we had two cameras covering the scene from start to finish, and because we were seeing the entire room, I had to use the practical lamps as the only source of key light; I couldn't get any other kind of ancillary light low enough to look natural. We ended up cutting holes in the lampshades and hiding light bulbs around the set to illuminate the scene. Unfortunately, what happens in this situation - and what happened in this scene - is that one actor ends up shadowing the other." Throughout the shoot, Kuras and her longtime gaffer, John Nadeau, strove to jerry-rig units that would provide ample illumination but would also fly under Gondry's definition of a "film light." Kuras explains, "We had different assortments of lightbulbs - refrigerator bulbs, or small bulbs on hand dimmers - that we'd hide behind furniture or lampshades in order to give ourselves some stop. In Joel's apartment, we fabricated a light we jokingly called the 'Mini-Musco,' which was essentially a C-stand with four clip lights and blackwrap on it. We ended up lighting all the interiors with either available practicals or those clip lights, which had 150-, 250- or 500-watt bulbs. It was a game of hide-and-seek, determining how and where we could hide our little kit of light bulbs.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
long takes, cont. in Bruges
In the 2008 film In Bruges, the opening shots of Touch of Evil can be seen playing in the background during the scene when Harry (Ralph Fiennes) instructs Ken (Brendan Gleeson) to kill Ray (Colin Farrell) - in a six minute continuous take.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
online multi-screenform with google
http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
greg miller just sent this to me - if you don't remember your childood address, just put in your current one, just to get the full effect -
greg miller just sent this to me - if you don't remember your childood address, just put in your current one, just to get the full effect -
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
six povs on a concert - walkmen & others
http://pitchfork.com/tv/pov/the-walkmen/#2-blue-as-your-blood
this courtesy of friend, colleague and actor Angela Dee - thanks, angela. this is a website that offers the chance to see six camera angles on a rock or jazz concert. you can choose among the angles ORRRRR --
the center button of the six cameras is 'all' and hitting this gives you an ongoing multi-cam six-grid, three up three down. blogger won't let me upload this as a .mov - darn.
but it's reminiscent of course of the baseball mosaic options from MLB for online viewers -
this courtesy of friend, colleague and actor Angela Dee - thanks, angela. this is a website that offers the chance to see six camera angles on a rock or jazz concert. you can choose among the angles ORRRRR --
but it's reminiscent of course of the baseball mosaic options from MLB for online viewers -
pennies from heaven - some briefly split dancing in 1981 movie
inspired by dennis potter's british TV series.
directed by herbert ross, steve martin learned tap dancing in six months in order to perform the role of a miserable song salesman in the depression who wants to believe in the lyrics of the songs he sells.
in the money scene in the bank, which is split horizontally at the very beginning.
superimposition in the 'pennies from heaven' dance - done very slowly in the rain against a backdrop of an old diner, which becomes a stage of shimmering gold and walker evan's photos of the era.
doubling with fred astaire & ginger rogers:
and the male stripper dance by Christopher walken on the bar is amazing, a great moment in American film. 
and of course, just for reference, the great take-off on hopper's nighthawks.
directed by herbert ross, steve martin learned tap dancing in six months in order to perform the role of a miserable song salesman in the depression who wants to believe in the lyrics of the songs he sells.
in the money scene in the bank, which is split horizontally at the very beginning.
superimposition in the 'pennies from heaven' dance - done very slowly in the rain against a backdrop of an old diner, which becomes a stage of shimmering gold and walker evan's photos of the era.
doubling with fred astaire & ginger rogers:
and the male stripper dance by Christopher walken on the bar is amazing, a great moment in American film. and of course, just for reference, the great take-off on hopper's nighthawks.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
faux newsroom as pretext for multi, cont.: fly away home - dir. by carroll ballard
carroll ballard said in an interview that he had so much material on the girl flying south with her geese that he put it into a fictional newsroom monitor wall - here's one tiny version of a it. 
split screen video - cold water by frances - two screen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKYmhq0K-Z8&
this is a fairly standard double-screen video which i'm having to click on rather than embed because the music immediately starts up whenever the blog opens.
but worth a look.
end credits for Body of Lies - by ridley scott
are a series of split screens of four-grid satellite surveillence footage, interspersed with titles. have to see how i can get a copy of this, since below isn't it - except for a flash at end
you can see a bit of this at the end in this trailer.
also the flag flying behind di caprio in the window in one of his scenes shown here - very multi.
can't find a good copy of the end credits. not even a still.
you know, it seems to me that the title and end credit designers still aren't credited, even in the end credits now, but i need to check this.
you can see a bit of this at the end in this trailer.
also the flag flying behind di caprio in the window in one of his scenes shown here - very multi.
can't find a good copy of the end credits. not even a still.
you know, it seems to me that the title and end credit designers still aren't credited, even in the end credits now, but i need to check this.
jody zellen on spring multichannel viewing 2010
http://artwrit.com/VOL3/11.html
Narrative Fragments
Spring has brought warm as well as cold weather to Manhattan and with the change in air there has been a change in attitude toward digital media. The presentation of digital works ebbs and flows, it is present, then conspicuously absent from the commercial galleries that dot Manhattan. This Spring there have been numerous exhibitions that have invited viewers to sit and look and listen to communications from multiple screens. The awkwardness of walking into the middle of a single screen projection is compounded when entering a space that presents many. Rather than dwell on the pros and cons of scheduled time and a cinema-like setting in a gallery (for example in Eve Sussman's curated film series at Winkleman Gallery (March 27-May 2)), it is the nature of the fragmented narrative that is ripe for discussion. It is curious to note that almost all of the multi-screen works on view are political in nature, i.e. content driven works which begs the questions: Why fragment the narrative across multiple screens if there is meaning to be gleaned from the viewing of the work? and How can a fragmented narrative embellish content?
When imagery is split across multiple screens there is a fracturing that occurs. The advent of two three or more simultaneous projections becomes a distraction for the viewer as they often do not know where to look, when. Amongst the many multi-screen works on view in New York museums and galleries This Spring included: Barbara Kruger "The Globe Shrinks" at Mary Boone Gallery (March 27 - May 1); Adrian Paci "Gestures" at Peter Blum Chelsea (April 2 - May 15); Michelle Dizon "Civil Society" at Cue Art Foundation (March 23 - May 12); Amar Kanwar at Marian Goodman Gallery (March 16 - April 24); "Ouroboros: The History of the World" at Ise Cultural Foundation (March 9 - April 23) and William Kentridge "Five Themes" at MOMA (Feb 24 - May 17). What ties these shows together is the fact that in all the presentations, multiple projections fill a room, requiring viewers to think about how the fragments coalesce as a whole.
Barbara Kruger is a master at choreographing the sequence of projections that fill a given space. For her installation "The Globe Shrinks" she "engages with the kindness and brutality of the everyday, the collision of declaration and doubt, the duet of pictures and words, the resonance of direct address, and the unspoken in every conversation" (Boone gallery press release) through the sequencing of floor to ceiling projections that encircle the darkened space. Viewers can sit on the benches positioned in the center and sides of the gallery but must then turn their heads or bodies to take all the screens during the twelve minute loop. Within the projections, actors speak to the audience and to each other matter of factly, describing real-life situations where they acted badly. Intermittendly textual fragments fill the walls. The larger than life sized talking heads relate carefully scripted scenarios. A head occupies one wall, then moves to another creating a conversation across the space. Sometimes its a monologue other times a dialogue, others a recreation of an event, nevertheless, the experience is one of bombardment, of being talked at and through. Kruger syncopates the fragments with the utmost care, allowing the dark moments in between to resonate. In Kruger's signature style the in betweens are filled with phrases including "Blame it; Buy it; Kiss it; Fear it; Believe it; Love it; Blind it; Temp it; Share it" flash on the walls, guiding the interpretation of the work. As always there is a societal critique embedded in the presentation. The work is nasty, yet realistic. Kruger's installation is purposely fragmentary. She understands the attention span of her audience and creates a looping sequence that can be entered and exited at any point. There is no beginning, middle or end. The floor to ceiling projections engulf the viewer and immerse them in the narrative. The audience is not merely watching but is being assaulted by the projections and the texts. This strategy, often employed by Kruger is consistent with her desire to bombard the viewer.
How a narrative can be read across numerous screens becomes something of a challenge. With simultaneus projections one often does not know how to look or in what order to watch the videos. When watching the eight screens in Amar Kanwar's "The Lightning Testimonies" it is necessary to moving from seat to seat around the room in order to take in all the screens. Once can watch one video for a period time, or through its sequence, then move to anther, but more often than not, one's eyes drifted from one screen to another. In works like this trying to engage with the content of the narrative(s) requires finding a point of entry, without one it is impossible to fully grasp the project's integrity. Sometimes this is the point, but in a work like "The Lightning Testimonies" the combination of fragments are meant to give meaning to the whole. "The Lightning Testimonies" is a haunting work that relates the experiences of female victims of sexual violence. Kanwar collected these woman's stories during his travels through India and Bangladesh weaving them into factual accounts as well as into poetic meditations. The work is about the memories of the traumas, and the power of the will to move on, but not to forget. The work addresses the question: How can one come to terms with such brutality and how can one visualise it? When the works was first shown in Documenta 12 it was at once praised and criticized, less for the subject matter than the commitment required from the viewer. Presented in a small claustrophobic space requiring more than 32 minutes of viewing time, the fragmented presentation of what was for the most part a documentary left many viewers frustrated because they wanted to glean the meaning rather than indulge in the aesthetics. In Kanwar's new work at Marian Goodman Gallery he further fragments his narrative creating an installation that plays across 19 small screens. The required hours of viewing becomes less the point than taking in what becomes a moving collage. The display that holds the works takes precedent over the content. In an installation of moving images, especially in one presented as a montage, it is never assumed that the viewer will actually watch all the videos from beginning to end. If this is the case, then what is the artists intention and when is enough, enough to understand the work. In Kanwar's "The Torn First Pages" it is virtually impossible to see the entire work from beginning to end, so one relies on the textual description. While the installation is stunning, does it do service to the content of the work?
In an exhibition such as Adrian Paci's "Gesture" The multi-screen project is an element within the larger context of the exhibition. Although "Last Gestures" can stand alone it is informed by the other works on view. "Last Gestures—a rear projected 4-channel video installation—shows four different scenes of the Albanian wedding ritual in which the bride spends the last moments with her own family before she leaves to start her new life. Unaccustomed to the presence of a video camera, the family positions themselves as if for photograph, allowing the camera to capture some unintentionally tender and awkward moments." (Gallery press release) The intimacy of the silent piece allows one to recreate the scene in their mind's eye, thinking about the past, present and future life of the family. If shot as a single channel work the simultaneity of the gestures and expressions would be lost. Ths work, because of its short duration can be seen again and again and on multiple viewings the nuances of the moment shine through. There is a difference between standing and glancing at the screens and the commitment made when sitting. Each of the four screens is suspended from the ceiling and illuminated by a rear screen projection. The viewer's body does not interfere with the projections upon close examination making the installation something akin to a moving painting. The four screens work in concert with each other, presenting a slightly different point of view or a shifted moment of a particular event observed in realtime but presented in slow motion.
Although Michelle Dizon's triptych "Civil Society" loops indefinitely, it has a beginning, middle and end. The elegantly choreographed piece flows between the three screens allowing the action to unfold individually as well as collectively. "Civil Society" is a meditation on urban violence, using text and images that depict the global crisis. Beginning with the LA Rodney king beatings in 1992 and moving to the unrest in Paris in 2005, Dizon creates a work that speaks about displacement and loss drawing from both documentary and experimental film traditions. The use of the triptych allows her to not only show three scenarios at once, but also to take advantage of the larger wide screen format. The pacing and use of projected texts guides the journey of unrest. The use of voice over directs the narrative, but it is the beauty in Dizon's imagery that while depicting images of violence carefully avoids the trap of aestheticizing it. "Civil Society" is a powerful work, one that resonates beyond its three screens embedding itself in memory. What sets Dizon's three screen work apart is that it is meant to be watched as a whole. The single bench positioned in front of the screens and the films eighteen minute duration ask the viewer to commit to its duration rather than floating in and out of fragments.
In addition to seeing multi-screen works in galleries, the Museum of Modern art was full of projected imagery. Was it coincidental that Joan Jonas had an exhibition at MOMA, Location One and Yvonne Lambert simultaneously; and that her work was on view at MOMA concurrent with William Kentridge and Marina Abramovic? Jonas creates installations that combine numerous projections, monitors, objects and drawings that surround viewers and immerse them in her world. The duration of the works vary and often when viewing her installations it becomes about taking in multiple fragments that hopefully become a whole when digesting the experience. Kentridge creates single channel as well as multi-channel works that become immersive environments. In his MOMA exhibition audiences could see the works chronologically and trace how the ideas evolved to become installations that encompass multiple projections. In works like "7 Fragments for Georges Melies" the action unfolds across seven screens. How to view the installation becomes a question. Is it necessary to watch each projection all the way through or is it enough content gleaned when wandering from one to another? Because Kentridge's visual are so seductive, it is easy to get lost in his installations.
Art viewing that requires a time commitment is often rebuked by audiences who are used to taking in a wall full of painting a few seconds at a time. Installation/video artists who fragment their works perhaps are referencing the traditional mode of presentation where one looks are multiple works a bit at a time, but more likely they are pushing the boundaries of the form. More often than not, when greeted by a darkened space a viewer will choose not to engage with the works, siting it would require too much time and they'd rather get the DVD later and watch it at home. Perhaps this excuse could work for single channel pieces but never for an installation. Looking at multi-channel multi-media work isnothing like taking in a show of paintings.Today most boundaries have already been pushed to their limits, so the display of multi-screen works is not about how to seduce a viewer, but rather about how to display provocative and intelligent content in a way that maximizes its effects. That this takes time is given. In an era that embraces the new, it is curious that the taking in of a video installation is not celebrated. Most art audiences are experienced viewers, yet they are often amongst the laziest. The commitment to the new, is a commitment of time. The investment more often than not is rewarding. The challenge is in the reconstruction, albeit in the minds eye and the making sense of the disparate fragments that brighten a room.
letterboxed ads & series
of course, there's my lecture on letterboxing, which lives i'm not sure where. the basic point is the irony of wide-screen having been developed to compete with television, itself having been created with the exact same aspect ratio as fimls in 1939 had: 4:3.
just randomly watching the natinoal geographic channel -
i'm seeing four different kinds of letterboxing -
the show itself "journey to the center of the universe" has an aspect ratio of looks like 16:9.
the chase ad actually has a Cinemascope aspect ratio - at least 2.85:1.
then the america online has a hand-drawn line and white letterboxing in an animated commercial
and a Nat'l Geo promo has another aspect ratio
and then there's a funny direct tv ad where all the guys in a diner are watching a ball game on their iphones.
let's see if i can find them. hm. actually these are not online. i might ahve the ad wrong.
this is the widest I've seen: logitech, although i suspect it's for the web, which is the widest aspect ratio of all as per the billy elliot ad which i think i posted already.
just randomly watching the natinoal geographic channel -
i'm seeing four different kinds of letterboxing -
the show itself "journey to the center of the universe" has an aspect ratio of looks like 16:9.
the chase ad actually has a Cinemascope aspect ratio - at least 2.85:1.
then the america online has a hand-drawn line and white letterboxing in an animated commercial
and a Nat'l Geo promo has another aspect ratio
and then there's a funny direct tv ad where all the guys in a diner are watching a ball game on their iphones.
let's see if i can find them. hm. actually these are not online. i might ahve the ad wrong.
this is the widest I've seen: logitech, although i suspect it's for the web, which is the widest aspect ratio of all as per the billy elliot ad which i think i posted already.
leo di caprio interview
i just think it's kind of amazing that Di Caprio can go from Revolutionary Road to ridley scott's body of lies in the same year -- both of which i watched only because i have HBO for the summer. the description of how ridley scott shoots is informative. I first saw him in Marvin's Room and it was obvious he was going to be one of the great actors of his generation:
from http://newsblaze.com/story/20081011050212mill.nb/topstory.html
from http://newsblaze.com/story/20081011050212mill.nb/topstory.html
This espionage operative you play in Body Of Lies is a pretty mysterious guy. So what can you let on about Ferris?
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: To put it simply, there's this dilemma that this character has, of where he's asked consistently to do things he doesn't believe in, for the betterment of his country and this war on terror. He's being manipulated by both sides. And so besides this being a great political piece that's pertinent to this time, it's this fantastic cat-and-mouse, espionage thriller that works on its own.
Did you find out stuff from real spies?
LD: I got to talk to some people who worked in that field. But unless you're talking about the CIA in the context of history and what they've done historically, which we are only now starting to learn about, the fact is that it's shrouded in secrecy. So there is a certain leap of faith that you take with all of this stuff. And it takes on a life of its on.
Okay, but what about all the physical ordeals Ferris has to go through, did you do all those stunts yourself?
LD: I did most of my own stunts.
You mean like dialing up all the time on your cell phone for further instructions on dodging danger?
DICAPRIO: That, I didn't do, I didn't do any of the dialing! Yeah, I absolutely refused. But we had beautiful hand doubles!
And I guess you skipped the finger smashing too. Were the stunts you did really difficult?
LD: Yeah, it was difficult. It was a very, very difficult shoot. But that's the nature of working on a Ridley Scott movie, you have to sort of embrace that. The pace in which he shoots is really intense, really fast-paced, so you have to be prepared for anything at any given moment. And he'll be like, let's not do any of that other crap because this is the moment that I am going to choose .
Like he literally has helicopters on standby, circling around and ready to get an overhead shot of you running through an entire city. And he's like okay, why don't you walk down block and we're going to have three helicopters chasing you down an Arabic street in real time. Of course, we will block off some traffic, so you'll be fine, you'll be great. Okay? You just have to be prepared for that.
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And that was just the biggest adjustment. I had just come from this other movie, called Revolutionary Road, where it was like doing a 1950s play or something. You know, where we were talking about our feelings for months at a time! Then, I end up in Morocco, with missiles being shot at me.
But Ridley's just this filter, this bulls**t filter. And he trusts his instincts on such a gut level, that it's great to work with somebody who will say, okay this entire scene is wrong. Let's get rid of three pages of dialogue, or move this outside. You know, whatever it is, I'm not believing it. Or I am believing it, so push it to the extreme.
So it's amazing to watch him But it was a bizarre transition. Though once you sort of become accustomed to that pace, you would embrace it and enjoy it. And it would start to become this adrenalin fueled work environment that he loved. Oh god, even thinking back, it was tough, but Ridley enjoys that kind of stuff.
People always ask me, was it fun? And I don't know if fun is the operative word. But it was challenging and interesting, and all those other things. But, fun isn't always the operative word!
What was it like to get tortured, even if it was just a movie?
LD: It was one of the more complicated scenes. And it was tense, because we knew we had to knock it out of the park. So, I actually got sick after the scene for three days, because there was so much intensity put into that.
Did they really blow up that stone house behind you, Leo?
LD: Oh, yes, that was a big explosion.
What are you memories of working before with Russell Crowe On The Quick and The Dead?
LD: He had done Romper Stomper, and I had done Gilbert Grape. So we were both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! But Russell couldn't be more professional and more of a normal guy to hang out with. He's a good pal, he's great and all that stuff, blah, blah, blah! And he hasn't changed, and that's it.
And what about getting together with Kate Winslet again, for Revolutionary Road?
LD: Kate has remained one of my closest friends, and is the best actress of her generation. We're these two people in the movie who are basically torn apart. And they feel like they have become cliches of what they're expected to be like, and have lost their identities.
Kate and I basically knew that we could push each other's buttons, performance-wise. And we knew that we could pull stuff out of each other. I mean, we've known each other since we were teenagers. And it was something I felt I wanted the opportunity to do.
Do you and Kate get to be lovers?
LD: Lovers? Do we play lovers! We play husband and wife. So hopefully, we're lovers!
What have you learned about life, hanging around Hollywood?
LD: When I first started out, I had these images of these cliches, of what movie stars are. You know, that they're egomaniacal pricks and tyrants. But, in general, for the most part they're nice people, to tell you the truth.
Leo, everybody knows about your commitment to the environment, but we're getting ready for the biggest bailout in economic history. How do you feel about a lot of the money that was earmarked for the environment, that will now be going to save Wall Street executives?
LD: If you're talking about the environment and our country shifting to alternative technologies and ways to power the country, I've been profoundly disappointed for years. So it's no news to me. We should have started eight years ago to be less dependent on foreign oil, and started to invest in some of these new technologies.
But we are way behind the curve again, and the United States should be the one to set the example for the rest of the world. Brazil is doing it and other countries are adapting these principals. And the only thing I want in this new election , my new thing, is to say alright, look. Obviously people don't want other people to tell them how to think or what to believe, or to tell them what's right politically and what's wrong. But the only point for me in this election, is I just want enough young people to go out to the polls, and to register and vote.
Because then we'll get a real consensus of what this country needs. We'll be able to understand where morally our country is. And these young people will dictate policies for the next fifty to a hundred years. So it's about time we do that. And that's my only wish, that we get a real representation of the future of this country until the next election. Whoever wins.
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