Strong vertical stripes depicting dual images in each frame, internal cognitive dissonance, cohabiting dual realities. There's also something from Tati's Playtime (1967) going on here.
First frame, Censor: A favorite family portrait, c. 1971, visiting grandparents in Arizona. Everyone miserable, forced, staring off in different directions. My brother pouts in front of our father. My sister stares absently into the dirt. I am held firmly in place by my mother, and to this day still feel her thighs burning into my back. It is not a happy affair, and my idea of family forms around the disastrous implications that dour collection of faces evoke.
This photo interlaced with the Norman Rockwell painting "Freedom from Want" (1943), which has always read to me to be a saccharine idealization of the nuclear family. Cut against my own family, the eye struggles to realize the conflicting messages, both unrealistic extremes. Thanksgiving always a personal low in holidays, intentionally spent alone.
In the overlapping of images, choices are made on which part of each narrative are revealed, something we all do when creating our own reality. In this comic, my sister has been cut out of the family portrait. When I saw this, I realized it had deeper implications: some family members are always invisible in the story when it is told.
Anxiety: an image of Carl Boehm from Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960) with his character positioning the 16mm camera. This is cut against a diagonal latticing of fishnet stockings. Duality of filmmaking vs. film consuming, active vs. passive, objectifier vs. objectified. Unintended, but still satisfying: Boehm's oddly-rendered left eye, which seems detached; the dual lens on the camera that reminds me of an assault rifle w/ grenade launcher.
Quantification: two logic gates: "and" gate in white on black / "or" gate in black on white. Exclusive processes coexisting in the same space.
Resolution: two films important from my relationship with my father. Bergman's Seventh Seal (1957) and Crichton's The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). Two classics: one heavy with symbolism and brooding, the other, a light,uplifting Ealing studio comedy.
Strong vertical stripes depicting dual images in each frame, internal cognitive dissonance, cohabiting dual realities. There's also something from Tati's Playtime (1967) going on here.
ReplyDeleteFirst frame, Censor: A favorite family portrait, c. 1971, visiting grandparents in Arizona. Everyone miserable, forced, staring off in different directions. My brother pouts in front of our father. My sister stares absently into the dirt. I am held firmly in place by my mother, and to this day still feel her thighs burning into my back. It is not a happy affair, and my idea of family forms around the disastrous implications that dour collection of faces evoke.
This photo interlaced with the Norman Rockwell painting "Freedom from Want" (1943), which has always read to me to be a saccharine idealization of the nuclear family. Cut against my own family, the eye struggles to realize the conflicting messages, both unrealistic extremes. Thanksgiving always a personal low in holidays, intentionally spent alone.
In the overlapping of images, choices are made on which part of each narrative are revealed, something we all do when creating our own reality. In this comic, my sister has been cut out of the family portrait. When I saw this, I realized it had deeper implications: some family members are always invisible in the story when it is told.
Anxiety: an image of Carl Boehm from Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960) with his character positioning the 16mm camera. This is cut against a diagonal latticing of fishnet stockings. Duality of filmmaking vs. film consuming, active vs. passive, objectifier vs. objectified. Unintended, but still satisfying: Boehm's oddly-rendered left eye, which seems detached; the dual lens on the camera that reminds me of an assault rifle w/ grenade launcher.
Quantification: two logic gates: "and" gate in white on black / "or" gate in black on white. Exclusive processes coexisting in the same space.
Resolution: two films important from my relationship with my father. Bergman's Seventh Seal (1957) and Crichton's The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). Two classics: one heavy with symbolism and brooding, the other, a light,uplifting Ealing studio comedy.