Father Movie

“Made spontaneously with news of my father’s death – I kept a friend’s Instamatic Super 8 in my coat pocket as I headed to Winston-Salem and the rest home where my father died of a sudden stroke overnight. I filmed on highway, in his abandoned rest home room, then drove weeping & filming at the same time, one hand on wheel, one holding camera, past the houses – my sister’s, his own – he and my mother had lived in after retirement from life’s work abroad.” — Gordan Ball.

“In his two films about the last days and death of his father and the life and death of his mother, Gordon Ball has accomplished something unique in the autobiographical genre of motion pictures. He has reconciled ‘still’ (as the mind would have it remembering) with ‘movie’ AND ‘document’ (in the form of ‘home movies’) with the ‘myth’ of his voice track.” — Stan Brakhage.