Medien This Kind of Thing - He and Us (Bruce Baillie)

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This Kind of Thing – He and Us (Bruce Baillie) is a filmed portrait of Bruce Baillie, a mythical figure from the northern Californian experimental film scene. Produced without a script or shooting schedule, the film lies somewhere between a home movie and documentary. It integrates chance and discontinuity, repeats the same sequences in loops, alternates between color and black and white, and is interspersed with frames that are empty, blurry, or reversed. The soundtrack consists of an improvised monologue by Bruce Baillie which unfolds without interruption, following his discontinuous flow of thought. Though there is no direct relation between sound and image, the elements mirror each other through their composite structures. The repetitive and at times erratic sequence of shots finds a counterpoint in the filmmaker’s halting speech, which speeds up and slows down while he hastily raises his tone, clears his throat or laughs. The monologue involves wolves, crows, supermarkets, the history of Christ and his powers of disappearance, yoga, perfection and indivisibility, presence and hope… The filmmaker’s speech never ceases to oscillate between metaphysical considerations and prosaic remarks. A flow of images accompanies him in a counterpoint that at first seems arbitrary, but in reality answers to meticulously precise editing. In the beginning of the film, for example, when Bruce mentions his wife Lorrie, the film switches to black and white, signifying a temporal rupture or a change in the image’s modality (a passage from the present to the past, from reality to the life of the mind). A little later, when the filmmaker evokes his son, he is seen pushing a child in a wheelbarrow. A continuous and simultaneous shifting of speech and images, and from speech to images, produces the effect of a bouyant entanglement made from visual and auditory repetitions and alternations. [...]

(Text: Philippe-Alain Michaud, Translation: Tamar Tembeck, Source: http://www.anderwald-grond.net/index.php?idcatside=50)

Kategorien: Film und Video

Produktionsland

AT : Österreich

Produktionsjahr

2000

Ton

engl. Ton

Ursprungsformat

Super 8mm

Format

4:3

Farbe

Farbe
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