Bill Morrison (Selected Works 1996 - 2014) - 3-Disc Box Set ( The Film of Her / City Walk / Ghost Trip / Decasia / The Mesmerist / Light Is Calling / Outerborough / Porch / The Highwater Trilogy / Who by Water ) ( Spark of Being / Release / Just Ancient Loops / Re: Awakenings / The Great Flood / Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 / Back to the Soil )

Bill Morrison (Selected Works 1996 - 2014) - 3-Disc Box Set (Blu-Ray) (*)

~~$87.99~~ $75.95

Original Title: The Film of Her / City Walk / Ghost Trip / Decasia / The Mesmerist / Light Is Calling / Outerborough / Porch / The Highwater Trilogy / Who by Water
Alternate Title: Spark of Being / Release / Just Ancient Loops / Re: Awakenings / The Great Flood / Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 / Back to the Soil
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
English ( Dolby Linear PCM )
English ( DTS 5.1 )
English ( DTS-HD Master Audio )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( Blu-Ray/Region B )

Running Time:
460 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
3-DVD Set
Box Set
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Black & White
Booklet

Movie filmed in 1996 - 2014 and produced in:
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
Bill Morrison

Written By:
Bill Morrison
Deborah Artman
Emile Erckmann
James Young
Mary Shelley
Oliver Sacks
Aleksandra Vrebalov
James H. Becker

Actors:
Guy de Lancey ..... The Narrator
Stephen Kellam ..... The Custodian (The Vault Sequence)
Bob McGrath ..... The Clerk (The Vault Sequence)
Bill Morrison ..... The Curator
Rachel Perkoff ..... Lily Gaze (The Vault Sequence)
Kofi Darko ..... Attendant
Herman Dennis ..... Preacher
Slink Moss ..... Driver
William Schwartz ..... Hitchhiker
Arthur Smith ..... Singer
Margaret Cullington ..... Maggie Jiggs (archive footage)
William S. Hart ..... (archive footage)
Lionel Barrymore ..... The Innkeeper (archive footage)
Boris Karloff ..... (archive footage)
Laura La Varnie ..... (archive footage)
E. Alyn Warren ..... (archive footage)
Eddie Phillips ..... Christian (archive footage)
Lola Todd ..... Annette (archive footage)

Synopsis:

Over the past twenty years, Bill Morrison has built a filmography of more than thirty striking and original works which have been presented in cinemas, museums, galleries and concert halls worldwide. Making use of rare archival footage, which has often been decayed by the passing of time, Morrison explores the power of film as a medium which is evocative of memory and gives rise to a sense of collective mythology. Morrison's exquisite and timeless films are scored by the cream of the US underground / avant-garde music scene, including Dave Douglas, Henryk Górecki and Bill Frisell.
Disc 1
The Film of Her
City Walk
Ghost Trip
Decasia
The Mesmerist
Light Is Calling
Outerborough
Porch
Disc 2
Highwater Trilogy
Who By Water
Spark of Being
Release
Just Ancient Loops
Disc 3
Re:Awakenings
The Great Flood
Beyond Zero: 1914-1918
Back to the Soil

The Film of Her (1997)
Morrison's THE FILM OF HER is based on the story of a Library of Congress clerk who saved a vault full of paper reels, documenting the earliest days of cinema, from the incinerator.
City Walk (1999)
From the opera "The Carbon Copy Building", produced by Bang on a Can.
Ghost Trip (2001)
A man is shown his car, which he drives until it can be driven no more.
Decasia (2002)
A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.
The Mesmerist (2003)
Made by re-editing a deteriorated nitrate print of The Bells (1926), starring Lionel Barrymore and Boris Karloff, this work shows the fragility of the film image while foreshadowing the Holocaust.
Light Is Calling (2004)
A scene from The Bells (1926) is optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon¹s 7 minute composition. A meditation on the fleeting nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of a film.
Outerborough (2005)
Outerborough explores the narrative power of reframing images from vintage films. Redeploying footage from Across Brooklyn Bridge (1899), Morrison commemorates the iconic 19th-century structure through 21st-century artistic reconsideration.
Porch (2006)
A family's front porch evolves into another interior room of their House, in turn reflecting their relationship to a changing community.
The Highwater Trilogy (2006)
Bill Morrison's 31-minute documentary short The Highwater Trilogy utilizes evocative newsreel footage of floods, icebergs and storms to underscore the precarious meteorological state of the world and create awe in the viewer.
Who by Water (2007)
Who By Water is a collection of archive footage of boat passengers, much of it rare or thought lost. Its soundtrack is composed by Michael Gordon, and performed by the Tactus Modern Ensemble whose repertoire of brass, drums, and tambourine has an almost Industrial feel.
Spark of Being (2010)
A re-imagining of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', using images culled from archives around the world.
Release (2010)
On March 17, 1930, a crowd assembled outside Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary to witness Al Capone's transfer to Chicago, where he would stand trial. Filmmaker Bill Morrison and composer Vijay Iyer worked with a single panning shot, and accompanying soundtrack, to create this 12-minute film on the nature of spectacle.
Just Ancient Loops (2012)
Just Ancient Loops employs high resolution scans of ancient nitrate footage, as well as newly created CGI renderings of space to depict different views of heaven. Original musical score by Michael Harrison, performed by cellist Maya Beiser.
Re: Awakenings (2013)
During the early 1920s, a rare form of encephalitis lethargica swept the world, afflicting hundreds of thousands of people. Of those who survived, many were left in mysteriously frozen, nearly immobile states resembling catatonia, and presently remanded to long term institutions. By 1969, this odd illness--front page news in the 1920s--had been largely forgotten. But a young Dr. Oliver Sacks, coming to work at Beth Abraham, a 'home for incurables' in the Bronx, realized that among the hospital's inmates were eighty survivors of that original epidemic, still frozen in time, decades later. Using the new drug L-dopa, Sacks was able to 'awaken' many of them, but following an initially near-idyllic period, the patients began experiencing ever more tormenting responses to the drug.
The Great Flood (2012)
The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in American history. In the spring of 1927, the river broke out of its banks in 145 places and inundated 27,000 square miles to a depth of up to 30 feet. Part of it enduring legacy was the mass exodus of displaced sharecroppers. Musically, the Great Migration of rural southern blacks to Northern cities saw the Delta Blues electrified and reinterpreted as the Chicago Blues, Rhythm and Blues, and Rock and Roll. Using minimal text and no spoken dialog, filmmaker Bill Morrison and composer - guitarist Bill Frisell have created a powerful portrait of a seminal moment in American history through a collection of silent images matched to a searing original soundtrack.
Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 (2014)
Sourcing original 35mm nitrate footage, filmmaker Bill Morrison pieces together a unique visual exploration of WWI from footage that has never been viewed by modern audiences, and will never be seen again outside of this film. Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov created the haunting score, commissioned and performed by the Kronos Quartet.
Back to the Soil (2014)
In 1924, in collaboration with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the Soviet government offered parcels of land in the Ukraine, Belarus, and Crimea to former merchants, whose work had been outlawed under Communist rule. The JDC provided financial, legal, and agricultural support. Jewish families left the ghettos, and resettled in these new rural colonies, where they learned how to farm. In May 1927 the colonies were documented by James H. Becker of Chicago, my grandfather, who shot the 1000 feet of 16mm film that comprise this film. By 1938, more than 250,000 Soviet Jews would settle in 215 colonies, across 2.5 million acres of land. Their fate has been well documented elsewhere. This is a story of their journey back to the soil.

This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 16 March, 2016.