A tireless archive tracer, Bill Morrison has practiced diverse formulas for redoing primitive images. Along with the systematic work on the material nature of film, which he ennoble in the colossal Decasia or in shorts like Light Is Calling, in the last few years he’s been trying out some content with more narrative, such as the intelligent re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein he did in Spark of Being or the canonically documentary record that is The Great Flood. The latter is a fascinating approach, with music by jazzman Bill Frisell and echoes of the “Ol’ Man River,” to the Mississippi flood of 1927 that forced more than 600 thousand people to leave their homes. Even though the excellent images compiled by Morrison refer to a very concrete catastrophe, other events reverberate, from the recent Katrina disaster in New Orleans to the historical wound caused by the discrimination and exploitation of the black population. The fact that the chapter entitled “Migration” opens with the joy of dance is, in that sense, eloquent enough. MP
Section: PanoramaD, E, DA: Bill Morrison
G: Bill Morrison, Bill Frisell
DA: Bill Morrison
S: Claudia Englehart
M: Bill Frisell
P: Phyllis Oyama, Bill Morrison
Hypnotic Pictures. Bill Morrison
T +1 917 445 8529 E bill@billmorrisonfilm.com
W billmorrisonfilm.com - icarusfilms.com
He was born in Chicago, US, in 1965, and is currently based in New York. He is a member of the Ridge Theater and founder of Hypnotic Pictures. Among other features, he directed Decasia (2002), Dspark of Being (2010) and Tributes: Pulse (2011).
05 May 2015
25 April 2015
25 April 2015