Above, a still from my second collaboration (136) with Rouzbeh Rashidi on his Homo Sapiens Project (HSP). HSP has recently been granted a Film Project Award by the Arts Council of Ireland. Congratulations, Rouzbeh!
This second film was created out of a 53 second grouping of clips that I filmed on a beach in Malibu with a cell phone mounted on a tripod, one very foggy day. The resulting film is 11 minutes long and includes a dialog from John Cassavetes’ film Minnie and Moscowitz.
It is really interesting to me, as someone who normally has control over what I want my body to express in a film via editing, what Rouzbeh does with the footage that I send to him. Once again in this film, like in the first collaboration that we did together a few months ago, he pulled something out of my expression and movements which I was somewhat aware of, but not explicitly stating. The end of the film, which focuses on my face, is completely silent. Following after a period in which the dialogue from the Cassavetes film is prominent, this lack of sound, and the expression of my face, moving slowly, slowly, is so emphatic and emotional. If you were confused by the film up to this point, you won’t be as this portion of the film unfolds. The undercurrent of the previous dialogue comes through in a definitive and powerful way, in that suddenly, you know in your gut what all the conversation was really about.
Amazing work. Truly.
Video Collaborations, With Rouzbeh Rashidi
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