Decasia (2002)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Bill Morrison

Writer:

Bill Morrison (writer)

Release Date:

3 October 2003 (UK)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score. |

Plot Keywords:

Experimental Film | Surrealism | Nihilism | Decomposition | No Dialogue

Cast

William S. Hart

...

(archive footage)

Runtime:

70 min

Country:

USA

Language:

None

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

UK:U

Trivia:

Nearly all the clips incorporated into this film are from footage that has been damaged due to poor storage, neglect, or ravaged by time and the elements. Nothing was done to accelerate the decomposition process.

Movie Connections:

Features Truthful Tulliver (1917)

All the lonely filmstrips, where do they all belong?

The screening I saw had a very low walkout rate for an experimental movie, although admittedly the audience were mostly students taking Berkeley's avant-garde film course, so they probably had to be there. Poor kids, you might say, but this'll probably be one of the high points of their semester. It'll take you a few minutes to flesh out the decay metaphor (even film doesn't last forever so what chance do we puny humans have, etc.) but surprisingly a large proportion of the imagery continues to be affecting beyond that point.

The game I play when viewing an unannotated found-footage work is to discover what scenes the filmmaker's way of seeing enhances, and why. I could draw up a list of (possibly false) dichotomies - human vs architectural, familiar vs exotic. The one that struck me, though, was documentary vs fiction. Bill Morrison (the same guy who worked on Futurama? Really?) uses excerpts from both categories, but all of the scenes that moved me were unscripted. When I watch a silent fiction film, the image on the screen is evidence that the characters, and thus the stars, are alive. When I watch old documentary footage, the first thought that comes to mind is "These guys must all be dead by now". Perhaps that's why I slightly prefer Gianikian's and Lucchi's all-doco "From the Pole to the Equator", even though that film makes "Decasia" seem as watchable as "Fantasia".

But probably a pertinent reason is "From the Pole to the Equator" has a more useful soundtrack. Gordon's "Decasia" symphony sounds like a parody of Glass, which of course is still better than the score to "The Hours". My favourite bit of "Decasia" is when a long take of nuns 'n' schoolgirls is accompanied by a seemingly infinite collection of continuously descending string lines. Interestingly, Gordon reverses this trick at the end, using ascending lines, and it sounds just like the Beatles' "A Day in the Life". I would've been happier if Morrison had set the film to "Sgt. Pepper", as long as I didn't have to see decaying footage of Peter Frampton.

Obscure references aside, "Decasia" is better than most avant-garde films because the pictures look nice, the same way a body lying in state looks nice, only better. Morrison is an outstanding undertaker.