Bill Morrison's Short Films
Morrison's work is characterized by his sensitive approach to found, often decaying film footage, and his close collaboration with contemporary conmposers, including Vijay Iyer, Johann Johannsson and Bill Frisell.
"The only major directors with a comparably original ear are probably Jean-Luc Godard and Peter Greenaway." —LA Times
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City Walk
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2003 • 6 minutes
The subject of Bill Morrison’s CITY WALK is the urban landscape and the movement within it. Utilising high contrast black and white footage, Morrison records busy urban life with a camera situated in a moving vehicle. The often-blurred, ...
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The Film of Her
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 1996 • 12 minutes
"Morrison's THE FILM OF HER is based on the story of a Library of Congress clerk who saved a vaultful of paper reels, documenting the earliest days of cinema, from the incinerator. A gorgeous tribute to the art form's origins, this 12-m...
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Ghost Trip
Directed by Bill Morrison • Drama • 2000 • 23 minutes
Ghost Trip is a rare example of live-action fictional filmmaking from Morrison. This supernatural road-movie follows an unidentified driver (played by singer-songwriter Slink Moss) as he moves through highways, railways, abandoned homesteads ...
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Highwater Trilogy
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2006 • 31 minutes
A short film that was part of the evening-length program "Shelter".
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Just Ancient Loops
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2012 • 26 minutes
A short film based on research by Walter Murch, relating orbits to harmonics.
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Light is Calling
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2004 • 8 minutes
"In Light Is Calling, a deteriorating scene from James Young's The Bells (1926) was optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon's seven-minute composition. The aesthetic of Morrison's film is inexorably intertwined with many of Mich...
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The Mesmerist
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2003 • 16 minutes
The film is a re-edit of a deteriorated nitrate print of "The Bells" (1926), starring Lionel Barrymore and Boris Karloff.
Bill Frisell, guitar; Tony Scherr, bass; Kenny Wollesen, drums.
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Outerborough
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2005 • 9 minutes
In 1899, a photographer at American Mutoscope & Biograph mounted his camera on the front of a trolley traveling over the Brooklyn Bridge. The three 90-foot rolls he created were edited to together to complete the journey from Manhattan t...
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Re-Awakenings
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • With Oliver Sacks • 2013 • 18 minutes
Original Super 8 footage shot by Dr. Oliver Sacks of his patients at Beth Abraham Hospital, Bronx, NY. Made famous by the movie Awakenings, starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro, Sacks administered the drug L-Dop...
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Release
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2010 • 13 minutes
On March 17, 1930, a crowd assembled outside Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary in hopes of witnessing Al Capone's release from prison. (He in fact had already been released the night before.)
Filmmaker Bill Morrison and compos...
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Who By Water
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2007 • 18 minutes
Inspired by the Jewish Rosh Hashanah prayer, “Who shall live, who shall die… who by water, who by fire,” this short film deals with that which has been preordained—a future that will unfold before us, much like the faces of passengers o...
