Big Sur: the Ladies

1966
Country: USA
Duration: 3 mins
Colour,
Sound: Sound
Ratio: 4:3
Available Format/s: DVD
Original Format: 16mm film

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As with “Rodia- Estudiantina” only one shot, which probably was the result of lapse in concentration, was deleted from the original camera roll. This film was intended to extend my experiments with the ‘in-camera’ film, and is probably one of the most successful. Against the coastline of the Big Sur country the camera catches swiftly shifting fragments of the nude women at the baths, playing the guitar, cutting the hair, sleeping. In this case I attempted to use the camera movement to slightly smear the images onto the film emulsion in a manner parallel with the use of broad different medium from music or painting, I have always been interested in the dynamic parallels that existed once photography in its still form was released into time (the parallel with music) and into motion ( the parallel with the brush stroke). “Fast-moving impressions of the Big Sur, the water, the bay, and the Ladies, as part of the landscape, swimming, or running, against the sun, or part of the sun. The movements of the camera are impregnated with such happiness that they pull you into a world of exuberance, of light, of joy of living. And here is where one could speak, if one wants, about the techniques of the Underground. For, much of this joy and exuberance is transmitted to us not through the images themselves, but through the rhythms, through the the movements of the camera, that is, the movements of the film-maker as he shoots- one could say, through the rhythms of his heart. Exactly the same way as the feelings of joy or sadness are determined and transmitted to us in music: through the rhythms, through the pacing, through the timbre.” – Jonas Mekas. “Why do People Like Morbid Movies?” the New York Times, August 3, 1969

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