BIG SUR: THE LADIES
LAWRENCE JORDAN
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3m 5s
An "in-camera" document or journalistic writing on film with no subsequent deletions or re-ordering. The first partly-pixilated "diary film" of which the filmmaker is aware.
As with RODIA-ESTUDIANTINA, only one shot (which probably was the result of lapse in concentration), deleted from the original camera roll. BIG SUR was intended to extend Lawrence Jordan's experiments with the "in-camera" film and is probably one of the most successful. Against the coastline of Big Sur, the camera catches swiftly shifting fragments of the nude women at the baths, playing the guitar, cutting their hair, sleeping. In this case, Jordan attempted to use the camera movement to slightly smear the images onto the film emulsion in a manner similar to its use in music or painting. The filmmaker was always interested in the dynamic parallels that existed once photography in its still form was released into time (the parallel with music) and into motion (the parallel with the brush stroke). Tomorrow never knows, indeed.
"For much of this joy and exuberance is transmitted to us not through the images themselves, but through the rhythms, through the movements of the camera, that is, the movements of the filmmaker as he shoots-one could say, through the rhythms of his heart. Exactly the same way as the feelings of joy or sadness are determined and transmitted to us in music: through the rhythms, through the pacing, through the timbre." - Jonas Mekas
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