SCFZ

Garden Pieces (Margaret Tait, 1998) vs. White Film (Joseph Bernard, 1978)

Vote for either xTait or xBernard

Round ends: March 1, 2020

Refraining from voting as Bernard is my pick but really love this Tait film, not sure about the soundscape but always interested in this specific type of geographical locating.

xBernard

xTait

i could have Tait's shorts running in the background all day long. So cozy.

is there a link to the bernard film that i missed?

crypt trotsky wrote: ↑Sun Feb 16, 2020 8:56 pm is there a link to the bernard film that i missed?

I'll send you via pm.

cool thanks mario!

i liked some things about the tait film, but the bernard was a revelation

xBernard

how do we watch the bernard? loved the tait

i sent rischka a link -- since the filmmaker posted the film himself, surely there's no reason we need to avoid posting the link publicly? just to be safe, i haven't done that yet.

thx flip i liked it a lot! even watched the next one and liked it even more. but i love tait and her film had a cat

xtait

yesss I knew the cat would get rischka's vote

xTait

i loved the cat as well!

xBernard

enjoyed both (preferred the bernard as a silent, funny huh) but it's so nice to see a black cat instead of a black dog

how vainly men themselves amaze....

xTait

or perhaps elizabeth carter's 1763 'to a gentleman, on his design of cutting down a shady walk'

In plaintive Notes, that tun’d to Woe
The sadly sighing Breeze,
A weeping Hamadryad mourn’d
Her Fate-devoted Trees.

Ah! Stop thy sacrilegious Hand,
Nor violate the Shade,
Where Nature form’d a silent Haunt
For Contemplation’s Aid.

Canst thou, the Son of Science, train’d
Where learned Isis flows,
Forget that nurs’d in shelt’ring Groves
The Grecian Genius rose.

Beneath the Platane’s spreading Branch,
Immortal Plato taught:
And fair Lyceum form’d the Depth
Of Aristotle’s Thought.

To Latian Groves reflect thy View,
And bless the Tuscan Gloom:
Where Eloquence deplor’d the Fate
Of Liberty and Rome.

Within the Beechen Shade retir’d,
From each inspiring Bough,
The Muses wove unfading Wreaths,
To circle Virgil’s Brow.

Reflect, before the fatal Ax
My threatened Doom has wrought:
Nor sacrifice to sensual Taste
The nobler Growth of Thought.

Not all the glowing Fruits, that blush
On India’s sunny Coast,
Can recompense thee for the Worth
Of one Idea lost.

My Shade a Produce may supply,
Unknown to solar Fire:
And what excludes Apollo’s Rays,
Shall harmonize his Lyre.

xBernard

xTait

At first watch, Bernard seems more interested in the general filmic image itself and the ways one can abstract it while Tait places her images in a more composed (structured in three movements) and illustrative construction. There's a similar curiosity that seems to guide both films, an attempt to perceive the world differently than how our eyes are trained to do so. Ultimately I think I'm swayed more by the unchanging foliage Tait contrasts with hand-sketched animation. There's an good piece of writing on the film here as well: https://lux.org.uk/work/garden-pieces

WHITE FILM

not gonna say i don't like this sorta purely visceral cinematic experience, cos just this yr i discovered my affinity for kurt kren... but whereas the rhythm of kren's actionism often mirrors the arc of my emotional reaction to it, this work just kinda annoyed me, cutting and sustaining at points which left me feeling a bit fed up

GARDEN PIECES

pretty charming and at times sly. preferred the live action to the animation parts. wasn't super enamoured with it, but still:

xTait

garden pieces: can you only appreciate this movie if you get a seizure from the middle part? or does that part just hypnotise you into carrying out a political assassination 5 years down the road? anyway, very playful movie that curiously and anachronistically subverted the standard presumptions of form, narrative, and lines and angles or something

white film: . . .

tie

Tait wins 7-5