Sabzian Selects (Again): Week 3

Sabzian Selects (Again): Week 3

The three filmmakers in this week’s selection are making films as they are keeping a diary. As they turn the camera outwards to represent the way they perceive the world, coincidently the perspective flips backward and shows glimpses of intimacy. In these films, ethnography and introspection intersect and filming as a way of living is exemplified. As Ross McElwee, the director of Sherman’s March puts it: “It seems I’m filming my life in order to have a life to film.”

How to Live With Regret (John Wilson, 2018)
As he walks on his own through his hometown of New York, John Wilson collects images of passers-by, buildings, signs or garbage in the street. In a voice-over, he describes what he sees, while often a discrepancy creeps between his words and the images he talks about, creating an inventive play with associations. The shots serve as an illustration of the words, and yet the story is guided by the images, so it’s never clear what came before, the images or the narration. His films are like diary-scrapbooks that give an intimate self-portrait, not so much because of details of his personal life, but through his way of making sense of the world. You can watch How to Live With Regret for free below. A new series of How to With John Wilson is now aired on HBO.

Sherman’s March (Ross McElwee, 1985)
Filming is for John Wilson his method of relating to the outside world and to other people. Ross McElwee likewise clings to his video camera as his alibi for initiating interactions, while at the same time using it as a barrier, a shield to protect him from reality. Commissioned to make a film about General Sherman’s March to the Sea, a military campaign of the American Civil War, McElwee follows Sherman’s trail of destruction, but now in the search of love. His utmost intimate quest nevertheless results in a poignant memoir on American consumer society in “A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation”, as the subtitle of the film says. Sherman’s March is available for rent on Tënk.

Five Year Diary: Reel 22 (Anne Charlotte Robertson, 1982)
Anne Charlotte Robertson is on a quest for true love as well; but instead of it leading her outside, the film-diary folds into itself, enveloping a mental space that spirals out of control. Robertson’s thirty-six-hour chronicle, Five Year Diary, is a method of dealing with her mental health issues, combining obsessive inner dialogues with inventive staging. In Reel 22 she falls in love and out of reality. Parts of Five Year Diary were screened on October 10 in Cinema Nova in Brussels. Thanks to the Harvard Film Archive, you can now watch Reel 22 for free here.

Online Selection
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23 Nov 2020 - 29 Nov 2020