The films of Bill Morrison presented in this program present his three decades of work with particular attention to how the culture of the moving image has changed since the advent of cinema in the 19th century. to the current astronomical or police body cameras and their recordings. The program starts with a movie "Traces" (1992) is a short film elegy, in which the most famous film lion from "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer" screensavers disappear from the ribbon just like unknown faces or sounds. "Just old loops" (2012) film is a somewhat ironic meditation on how the cinema eye saw the sky, when people longed to see an eclipse, telescopes filmed astronomical bodies or silent cinema saw an eclipse. "Who travels on water" (2008) is a montage of people about to embark on a boat trip looking straight at us: their roles, their awkwardness and their camera-friendly self-perceptions. "Buried news" (2021) conducts a study of one episode in the history of racism in the United States, showing what and how cinema saw and captured it in the 1920s. 2023 movie "Incident", based on "Forensic architecture" (Forensic Architecture) collected by the group from street surveillance and body camera footage of police officers, simultaneously reconstructs the 2018 of the Chicago police killing of a black pedestrian, and reflects our altered, multi-screened skills for perceiving moving images.
Bill Morrison is an American director who has been named the "Poetic Laureate of Lost Films" (The New York Times, 2021) for creating films that reinterpret long-forgotten moving images. Bill Morrison is renowned and widely recognized for his innovative approach to filmmaking, particularly his use of decomposing and archival footage.
Curator of the program is Natalija Arlauskaitė, professor, researcher of visuality and cinema.
FILMS
Footprints
Dir. Bill Morrison / documentary / USA / 1992 / 7 min.
The evolution of cinema as the evolution of modern man (and vice versa)
Just Ancient Loops / Just Ancient Loops
Dir. Bill Morrison / documentary / USA / 2012 / 25 min.
Using high-resolution scans of vintage nitrocellulose tape and newly computer-generated imagery, Bill Morrison conveys different visions of paradise in this film. Michael Harrison's original soundtrack is performed by the excellent cellist Maya Beiser.
Who By Water / Who By Water
Dir. Bill Morrison / documentary / USA / 2008 / 18 min.
"Who Goes on Water" is based on archival footage of the ship's passengers staring wordlessly into the camera lens through a veil of disappearing emulsion. We explore these anonymous faces: rich, poor, young, old, famous or random. Looking at them, we contemplate our own destiny.
Buried News / Buried News
Dir. Bill Morrison / documentary / USA / 2021 / 12 min.
in 1929 In Dawson City, Yukon Territory, a bank manager buried hundreds of silent film reels in a defunct swimming pool to safely dispose of them. After 49 years, in 1978 a construction crew unearthed the reels and this collection of silent films became known as the Dawson Film Find. Among the 533 reels eventually restored were 114 film chronicles, each containing 5-6 separate news reports of about a minute in length.
Incident / Incident
Dir. Bill Morrison / documentary / USA / 2023 / 30 min.
in 2018 The Chicago police shooting and the events that followed are recreated from different points of view using surveillance, security, body camera and dashcam footage.