A journey’s journey. Movement and development. Pattern and chaos.

This was filmed while travailing around Europe in the winter of 1989 and summer of 1990. It was shot on Super 8 (that’s right: those are real bits of dust and scratches!) with a cheap, plastic movie camera I got in a thrift store. It’s safe to say a roll of film cost more than the camera, which was called a “Bentley” — a rather fancy name, but it did have a glass lenses. I use this camera as an “ambient journal” – I’d used it when i caught myself transfixed or just absorbing a scene in front of me. In total I think I shot only 4 or 6 rolls of film. I had them transferred to BetaCam (in 1991) and then edited them (in a non-non-linear “editing suite”). I did drop some segments, but restricted myself to maintaining the sequences in the order they were shot. I then set it to P. Gabriel’s incredible score to’ Last Temptation of Christ,’ a book I read while on this trip. The music has been altered a bit and is a medley of several tracks.

As I kept company with this small movie camera that was always stashed in a shoulder bag or pack, I let it develop its own voice based on what I liked shooting with it. In a way, it was kind of like a musical instrument one might carry around like a harmonica or or ukulele. You’d only decided to play theses instruments when the ‘mood’ was right and then only with the type of song that fit its qualities. That is what the “Bentley” was for me on this trip, and that was the only ‘plan’ as to what might come of a final film- no set story or plot – just a relationship to the camera.

After over a year of wondering, I had short just a few rolls of film ($14 a roll after all – and i was a student!). The very first roll was processed before all the others where even shot. In this time, I used to “present” the film to friends on a super 8 projector on a small, low coffee table and shine the image on to a small movie theater stage made out of cloth and cardboard – like a model of a theater. The screen was about twelve inches wide. I’d put on some music and then play back the whole reel while playing with the play control lever–18 fps, then slow motion, back to full speed, then step frames and pauses– much like the first section is in the video here. It was part performance piece!  And actually I had no other way to show people my films.

With the additional rolls shot and developed, I decided to transfer to videotape and edit together a finished piece. There wouldn’t be any more ‘live performances’ for a huddled group of friends around a model theater; nor would there be the intimate ambiance dark room and the ticking projector smelling of burning dust and most of all the wonderful illumination of projected film. Quite honestly, the film couldn’t survive too many more trips through the sprockets and gates – though it has added a sought-after patina that endures in the video.

What’s it about?

Well, I didn’t plan it to be about anything other than the those isolated, in-sequence moments that I felt were “Bentley Moments.” That said, I feel that in retrospect there is always an underlying thread to human endeavors be they grand or casual–a subconsciousness. And since there was a certain deliberateness to the process, if not to the story, I felt a unknown theme might emerge. I feel several did and have been pleased by the conversations that occur after people have seen the film, and ask to see it again.

For me the film shows a journey or progression – progressions of patterns; simplicity to complex; nature to man-made; of the individual to the public. I did add one element to the film in editing: color. The blueish cast at the beginning gives way to a warm tone. The blue, which is not unlike the cool tint of the actual film stock, was added to back up the winter, and the cold alpine valleys at the start, while the sepia echos the heat radiated from the stones of the Italian cities.

Some Photos from the time or view on Flickr:

USSR embassy in East Berlin, 1990

Russian embassy in Berlin, 1995

I took these two photos of the Soviet/Russian embassy in Berlin five years part. The first, featuring the head of Lenin, was in the summer or 1990. The embassy is located on the famous Unter den Linden boulevard in, at the time, East Berlin. Five years later in 1995 I found myself again in Berlin and spent a few days wondering around. The city was now just “Berlin,” no east or west. Indeed, it was difficult sometimes to tell by sight if one was in the “former east” on not. Much of the spectacular new architecture and renovations that Berlin is now known for were just starting to take shape in a jungle of scaffolding and forest of cranes. Change was in the air. By this time not only did the GDR not exist but the USSR had begun to divide up into its constituent parts. As I walked down the embassy lined, linden tree covered Unter den Linden again, I was curious what would become of the Soviet embassy, obviously a change of flags, but to what – Russia? The Commonwealth of Independent States? And surely the Lenin head must be gone.

Thanks to the wrought iron fence in front of the building I was able to take my second photo from almost the exact same potion as before. But know my only question was “Is Lenin’s head under the box? Just in case??” Next time I’m in Berlin,  I have a mission.