The Pilgrim (1916, Frank Borzage)
A little western two-reeler with a good piano and violin score, starring Borzage as the humble, good-natured title character. Shadowplay: “I can think of few westerns where a good bit of the plot is devoted to healing a bad guy, who then departs the story without being bad again.” D. Sallitt: “The Pilgrim focuses on expressions, on using cinema to stop time and ponder the feelings that people can only half communicate.”
Jerks, Don’t Say Fuck (2001, Zhao Liang)
A punk-industrial music video with thrashy editing, military images and other weirdness. Video glitches, super-fast motion and repetition.
Bored Youth (2000, Zhao Liang)
Shirtless dude in blurry night vision breaks a lot of windows, just a ton of windows. the sound starts to go out of sync and echo. Editing slows way down, showing off the glorious digital video artifacts in low light. This goes on for seven minutes. Then: repeated shots of a squid catching a fish, the sound of machine-gun fire, and a demolition crew the next morning.
Four Women (1975, Julie Dash)
Music video for a Nina Simone song. Backlit dancer wrapped in a sheet for the intro, then different dances and clothes during the four parts of the piano-and-vocal section, all danced by Linda Young.
Bauca (2009, Albert Serra)
Fullscreen washes of color, edited to a symphonic piece. Cutting follows the music, but rarely right on the rhythm. Song ends suddenly and picture goes white.
Dignity (2008, Abderrahmane Sissako)
Interviewer asks different people to define dignity, and each does so silently.
Sissako: “I think it’s very difficult to deal with such sweeping concepts as justice and dignity in the allotted two or three minutes, so I looked for an idea that actually asked the question ‘What is dignity’ rather than answering it.”
My Heart Swims In Blood (2011, John Gianvito)
A veteran does not sleep well. Voiceover tells us horrible facts about the current wars while the camera shows everyday scenes and watchful owls. This is his section from the omnibus Far From Afghanistan, which I hope comes out soon. I think Andre (My Dinner With Andre) Gregory played the old man in bed.
Walker (2012, Tsai Ming-liang)
Monk carrying his lunch walks through the busy city in extreme slow-motion. Just wonderful.
EDIT JAN 2021: Katy read something about stillness, then agreed to watch Walker with me. I had Journey to the West and No No Sleep queued up next, but she did not delight in watching the monk walk very slowly, so Tsai-fest was cancelled.