Light is Calling
Bill Morrison's Short Films • 8m 14s
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 Michael Gordon's pieces. We watch a decomposing film reel of a soldier who meets a mysterious woman in the woods. A meditation on the random and fleeting nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of an ancient film. Morrison's short was made through the process of reshooting decomposing black and white film, and the result is a dreamy, melting, light-drenched scene."—The Viennale
"Ecstatic! In which bodies and movements dissolve in swirling waves of golden light, the film's decay radiating as a glorious self-immolation."—Maximilian Le Cain, Senses of Cinema
"Heart-stoppingly beautiful."—Zoetica Ebb, Coilhouse Magazine
Up Next in Bill Morrison's Short Films
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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 Manhatt...
