Schwechater

1957
Country: Austria
Duration: 4 mins
B&W,
Sound: Optical
Available Format/s: 16mm

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“In 1957, Peter Kubelka was hired to make a short commercial for Schwechater beer. The beer company undoubtedly thought they were commissioning a film that would help them sell their beers; Kubelka had other ideas. He shot his film with a camera that did not even have a viewer, simply pointing it in the general direction of the action. He then took many months to edit his footage, while the company fumed and demanded a finished product. Finally he submitted a film, 90 seconds long, that featured extremely rapid cutting (cutting at the limits of most viewers’ perception) between images washed out almost to the point of abstraction — in black-and-white positive and negative and with red tint — of dimly visible people drinking beer and of the froth of beer seen in a fully abstract pattern. This ‘commercial’ may not have sold any beer in the twenty years since it was made, but I (as someone who hates beer) have woved that if I’m ever in Austria I’ll drink some Swechater, in tribute to what i consider one of the most intense, most pure, and most perfect minutes of cinema anyone has ever achieved.” – Fred Camper

More works by Peter Kubelka

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