I saw this film projected many years ago at the Whitney Museum in NYC, in uncomfortable seats while I was sandwiched between two friends. I almost immediately heard the snores of one of my cohorts, unable comprehend the verbal and visual assault that we were engaged in. There's very little opportunity to see this film, simply because it won't work on video and because of its four and a half hour length. What we do have here is Michael Snow presenting us with an essay on the multiples of twenty-four. Film runs at twenty-four frames per second, and in this essay we have 24 individual sequences interrupted by the brief use of multi-colored flickers to break up the syntagmatic axis. Not all of these sequences work; some are completely forgettable, but I did find Snow's use of backwards dialogue and super-imposition to be quite intriguing. The opening was quite funny, where the title of the film is broken up into multiple anagrams, running in a scroll across the screen for what seemed like an eternity. I also recall an ongoing shot of people copulating with bizarre commentary on the soundtrack. However, the most fascinating sequence involved video artist Nam June Paik in a demonstration of sound and light as people in a room created verbal sounds as lights flashed across their bodies. I remember this as being a very slowly paced part of the film, yet it was the most peaceful and seemed to be the centerpiece of the film, perhaps serving as an intermission of sorts. Certainly, this is not on the same level as 'Wavelength,' or 'La Region Centrale,' but it certainly is unique...especially if you have the tolerance for long experimental films.
3 Reviews
For the suicidially inclined
PeterMH25 September 2002
I have walked out of two films in my entire life, this was the first. It's the most horrendous use of film stock I have ever seen (and I have to sit through tons of bad student and independent films for a living). His film where he spins the camera on the tripod for 45 minutes is a masterpiece compared to this piece of...
Twenty-Five Demonstrations of Sound and Image Relations
Tornado_Sam20 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Within "Rameau's Nephew by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen" Michael Snow presents us with something truly unique: an overwhelming succession of sequences which serve to demonstrate the relationships of sound with image in cinema, as well as numerous literary elements creating a series of philosophical puns that provoke and interest the viewer. Four hours and fifteen minutes is the viewer engaged in this montage of gags and effects, and there is so much to be found within that run-time, so many different things to analyze, that the film becomes more of a series of episodes, each one to be studied in its own right, than one film. The only thing that connects each segment is the consistent theme: that sound and image do not always have to be together, and can in fact be separate in a way that confuses and unsettles the audience. To catch every joke, every reference, one would have to see the film many times, and even then the attention of the viewer would be more focused if they were to watch each sequence on its own.
Some segments in the film are short and sweet, only a minute or two with basic ideas that remain interesting ("Whistling", "Focus", etc.). Others run for a half an hour or even longer, and they carry a lot of the meaty stuff that really gets both interesting and humorous at the same time ("Plane", "Hotel" and others). Some of these longer sequences do get old after awhile, especially considering many of them come later in the film, and my attention was waning by the time the well-known Hotel scene, which contained some of the deepest and most profound and interesting ideas in it, came around. The last five segments were so brief they all took place with just a few minutes, and served as a fitting ending.
The humor can be broad at times (take for instance the "fart scene", where an air-freshener bottle spraying sounds like a person passing gas), but it can also be subtle, such as the literal and literary uses of the table in the Hotel segment. Granted, one can't catch everything, which is why the movie certainly deserves more than one viewing, but that's part of the whole beauty of the thing. Additionally, one also sees Snow making use of shock value in a rather unnecessary way, including the use of explicit scenes of nudity that bring nothing analytical to the table. Personally, I find that this movie could be easier to digest if one watched each segment on its own as an episode in a twenty-five part series, since several of these scenes are deep enough to constitute their own film. Nonetheless, "Rameau's Nephew" is an interesting work from Michael Snow, and I would say it's worth watching at least once if you can catch a screening of it.
Some segments in the film are short and sweet, only a minute or two with basic ideas that remain interesting ("Whistling", "Focus", etc.). Others run for a half an hour or even longer, and they carry a lot of the meaty stuff that really gets both interesting and humorous at the same time ("Plane", "Hotel" and others). Some of these longer sequences do get old after awhile, especially considering many of them come later in the film, and my attention was waning by the time the well-known Hotel scene, which contained some of the deepest and most profound and interesting ideas in it, came around. The last five segments were so brief they all took place with just a few minutes, and served as a fitting ending.
The humor can be broad at times (take for instance the "fart scene", where an air-freshener bottle spraying sounds like a person passing gas), but it can also be subtle, such as the literal and literary uses of the table in the Hotel segment. Granted, one can't catch everything, which is why the movie certainly deserves more than one viewing, but that's part of the whole beauty of the thing. Additionally, one also sees Snow making use of shock value in a rather unnecessary way, including the use of explicit scenes of nudity that bring nothing analytical to the table. Personally, I find that this movie could be easier to digest if one watched each segment on its own as an episode in a twenty-five part series, since several of these scenes are deep enough to constitute their own film. Nonetheless, "Rameau's Nephew" is an interesting work from Michael Snow, and I would say it's worth watching at least once if you can catch a screening of it.
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