After watching the Decasia Excerpt 1, I noticed that someone in the comments had mentioned “I really want to watch the full film, but it’s just too much nightmare fuel.” This reminded me of our class discussion on this film, when Erin said that she felt uncomfortable watching Decasia, or felt like she shouldn’t be watching it at all, because the mundaneness of the scenes made her feel as if she was observing something that she shouldn’t be witnessing in the first place. Personally, both these perspectives are quite different from what I experienced watching Bill Morrison’s films, and in fact, I think I felt quite the opposite.
The excerpts of Decasia to me were hauntingly beautiful, and really motivated me to want to find the full film and take a look, because they are such an insightful mirror into a different place and time. To me, the films are a dreamlike reminiscence into a world long-forgotten by modern society, and the mundaneness of the activities depicted really bring the film alive. They seem as if they are part of a collective consciousness, a bank of memories that is accessible to all of us and in many ways peripherally comprehensible, yet so distant in our actual understanding of them. The commonness of the people and their action juxtaposed with how foreign they appear, is what allows us to cross the bridge of time, and see ourselves reflected in this unseen, decaying space.
The article on walkerart.org describes Morrison’s work as “mak[ing] us aware of the irreversibility of time – the existential fact that everything, whether living, chemical, or plastic, dies.” Naturally, the nitrate-decayed images and foreboding soundtrack in Decasia both play integral roles in shaping this perspective for the audience. The decay is an explicit allusion to this idea, and the music develops an atmosphere that is conducive to making reflections on the ephemerality of the world. However, I believe this film also explores time in interesting ways. The first being as I mentioned before, providing a glimpse into a world that couldn’t be more distant from ours today – one that appears to be a lot more temporal in Morrison’s films – the contrast thus highlighting time as an inevitable existential force. The other (arising from the use of decayed archival footage itself, i.e. Morrison’s material choice), is by allowing the modern audience to insert themselves into the stories. Being portrayed I believe this occurs as the images, some partially blurred and others distorted beyond recognition, are a nod to the very nature of memories themselves as transient and dynamic, and thus invite the viewer to place themselves into the everyday scenes depicted in the film, or at least relate to them on some level. In this way, the historical and personal notions of time intermingle with each other in the viewing of Decasia.
Overall in watching the extracts of this film, there were three moments that stood out to me, that I think encapsulate my understanding of Decasia. These are:
The sufi dancer at the end of Decasia Excerpt 1 (2:03 – 2:30)
Fig 1 – Sufi Dancer from Decasia Excerpt 1
I found this clip to be meaningful as the combination of the sombre music at this moment and the act depicted in the video come together to provide a very powerful reflection of the purpose of the film. The act of Sufi whirling is intended to be a highly repetitive form of active meditation in which the repetitive movement is intended to bring one closer to the source of all perfection. To me, in the context of Decasia, this act seemed to imply something deeper about the desire to preserve that which inevitably gets lost.
The baby in Decasia Excerpt 3 (0:31 – 1:02)
Fig 2 – Baby from Decasia Excerpt 3
Another segment that I found quite powerful, honestly for not a very profound reason at all, was the clip of a baby who is being bathed by its mother. The baby, crying at first when it is dipped into water, slowly calms down and takes on a much more ambivalent expression. I think this moment is what evoked the idea for me that in some way Morrison is attempting to connect this century old footage to the modern world, as the imagery of a baby, and its subtle changes in expression in such a primitive and universal image that everyone can relate to regardless of when and where they are watching.
The people who turned to smile at the camera, particularly the man who smiled and then stopped and sighed in Decasia Excerpt 3 (4:11)
Fig 3 – Man from Decasia Excerpt 3
This moment was extremely impactful for me as it almost seemed like the man in this moment knew what his fate would be (or rather the fate of the film). His expression of hope, and then the sullen sigh that follows as he stares directly into the lens of the camera, was powerful imagery that alluded to the decay that would follow. Again, I think this moment really connects the people of before to the modern audience as the emotional impact of such scenes is quite universal.
Fig 4 – Stills from Decasia Excerpt 3
Additionally, the visual imagery of the nitrate decay in each of the extracts to me was also reminiscent of petri dishes and the way in which bacteria / fungi grow in them and envelope the entirety of its surface (Fig 5), reinforcing the notion of death as and inescapable aspect of both natural and constructed entities (on a side note, it also reminded me of this time-lapse clip of a peach rotting – especially the way the peach seems to shift and “breathe” with the growth of the mold).
Fig 5 – Fungal Petri Dishes
Finally, Light is Calling was another powerful film to watch and one of my favourite aspects about it was that it was imagery taken from another film called The Bells which was released in 1926. I think this dual purpose of the film, and the fact that the footage has been used to create two very different plots (Light is Calling being about the reunion of two lovers, and The Bells being about a man and his crimes) with different intentions, decades apart is quite profound in a way that I do not think I am able to properly articulate. Nevertheless, this adds to the poignance of Light is Calling as in some way it is an allusion to the fact that no matter the extent of the decay, traces of the past always remain, whether that is in the form of memories or deteriorating film. In this way, I think the message that Morrison is conveying in Light is Calling is quite different to the one in Decasia. While I believe the former is about perseverance and perpetuity, the latter consistently emphasises the inevitability of decay and destruction.
Provided References:
Decasia Excerpt 1
Decasia Excerpt 3
Light is Calling
The Works of Bill Morrison
Work from:
3rd Nov 2020 – Daily Vitamins Assignment
Time with Professor Mike Rader
