Bill Morrison: Compositions

Filmmaker Bill Morrison (American, b. 1965) has spent more than two decades integrating archival footage in various states of decay into new artworks, frequently collaborating with contemporary composers who create scores for the resulting work. Morrison’s robust and diverse filmography—more than 30 projects to date—has been presented in museums, theaters, galleries, and concert halls around the world.

Morrison uses the physical decomposition of 35mm nitrate film as the catalyst for his existential narratives, creating work that investigates the tension between archives and memory. His 1996 film The Film of Her, for example, while not his first to use found footage, was the first to concern itself with the direct metaphor of the fragility of motion picture film, using its inherent predisposition towards chemical decomposition to express the ephemeral nature of love.

Bill Morrison: Compositions is a comprehensive view of the filmmaker’s work at mid-career, with a full retrospective of more than two dozen shorts and feature films, along with three live film/musical performances, including Spark of Being (2010), a retelling of the Frankenstein story, with a live performance by composer Dave Douglas & Keystone; cellist Maya Beiser performing live with a suite of Morrison’s short films, including All Vows (2013); and a closing-night presentation of Morrison’s epic retelling of the Mississippi River flood of 1927 in the feature-length film The Great Flood (2013), with a searing original score composed by Bill Frisell, featuring musicians Frisell, Ron Miles, Tony Scherr, and Kenny Wollesen.

A monthly, changing selection of single-channel work spanning Morrison’s career will be on view in the Museum’s Lauder Lobby from mid-September through March.

All films are from the U.S. and directed by Bill Morrison.

Organized by Anne Morra, Associate Curator, and Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, Department of Film.

Prints courtesy of Bill Morrison and Icarus Films.

INTRODUCTION

Dave Douglas & Keystone Perform Live with Spark of Being

Spark of Being, a close adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein, explores the thematic interchangeability of three of the novel’s characters: the Captain, the Doctor, and the Creature. Spark of Being, which, as with all of Morrison’s films, is dialogue-free, features Frank Hurley’s original footage of Ernest Shackleton’s fated Antarctic expedition, along with a range of footage from other sources. Live music for this program, performed by jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas as part of a six-piece electric jazz ensemble, was initially developed by Douglas and Morrison during a yearlong residency at Stanford University.

TUE, OCT 14 8:00, T1

Spark of Being. 2010. Music by Dave Douglas. 68 min.

LIVE PERFORMANCE

Spark of Being. 2010. Performed by Dave Douglas & Keystone at Memorial Auditorium, Stanford University, April 24, 2010. Photograph © 2010 Laurie Olinder

Video: 1996–2012

FRI, OCT 17 4:00, T2

TUE, OCT 21 7:00, T2

Morrison’s video work has explored everything from his cat Gene’s ruminative wanderings to the last days of Al Capone inside the Eastern State Penitentiary. For Outerborough—commissioned by MoMA on the occasion of the 2004 re- opening of the newly expanded Museum—Morrison applied a mathematical formula to his editing, blurring the path of an 1899 train as it crosses the Brooklyn Bridge.

FILMS

Moda. 1996. Music by Jim Farmer. 7 min.

City Walk. 1999. Music by Michael Gordon. 6 min.

Outerborough. 2005. Sound version. Music by Todd Reynolds. 8 min.

East River. 2006. Music by Michael Gordon. 7 min.

Porch. 2006. Music by Julia Wolfe. 9 min.

Every Stop on the F Train. 2008. Music by Michael Gordon. 5 min.

Release. 2010. Sound design by Vijay Iyer. 13 min.

A Trip to the Beach.2012. Music by William Basinski. 12 min.

DURATION67 min.

FILM PROGRAM

City Walk. 1999

16mm: 1990–1996

This group of 16mm prints—the majority of which were created as visual components of performances produced by the Ridge Theatre—marks the start of Morrison’s career as a filmmaker, and highlights his narrative preoccupation with journeys, science, the process of making motion picture film stock, and the visual effects of decomposing film.

DURATION66 min.

FILMS

Night Highway. 1990. Music by John Moran. 9 min.

Lost Avenues. 1991. Music by Zoar. 6 min.

Photo Op. 1992. Music by Conrad Cummings. 5 min.

Footprints. 1992. Music by Jim Farmer. 6 min.

The Death Train. 1993. Music by John Moran. 17 min.

The World Is Round. 1994. Music by Jim Farmer. 5 min.

Nemo. 1995. Music by Zoar. 6 min.

The Film of Her. 1996. Music by Henryk Gorecki, Bill Frisell. 12 min.

FRI, OCT 17 7:00, T2

SUN, OCT 19 5:00, T2

FILM PROGRAM

The Film of Her. 1996

35mm: 2000–2005

Perfecting his aesthetic of reusing archival materials in various states of decay, Morrison redeployed footage from the 1926 feature The Bells, directed by James Young, to create two vastly differing shorts: in Light Is Calling, a chance meeting between a young cavalry officer and a young maiden is enhanced by the roiling of emulsion on celluloid base; in The Mesmerist, a gruesome murder is revealed as a lucid dream on pristine celluloid, while waking life is seen through the lens of deteriorated emulsion.

SAT, OCT 18 4:00, T2

SUN, NOV 2 7:30, T2

DURATION67 min.

FILMS

Trinity. 2000. Music by Michael Montes. 12 min.

Ghost Trip. 2000. Featuring Slink Moss. Sound by Michael Montes. 23 min.

The Mesmerist. 2003. Music by Bill Frisell. 16 min.

Light Is Calling. 2004. Music by David Lang, Michael Gordon. 8 min.

Outerborough. 2005. Silent version. 8 min.

FILM PROGRAM

Light Is Calling. 2004

Nitrate: 2012–2014

35mm nitrate film was the industry standard from the late 19th century through the early 1950s. The flammable nitrocellulose film base was used to make film stock more flexible. Given the inherent instability of nitrate film, projection booths were outfitted to resist fires but, inevitably, fires in theaters resulted in numerous deaths over the decades. The use of nitrate films in public screenings today is exceedingly rare, but Morrison’s reuse of scenes from the films brings them back to public light. In these short films, Morrison selects footage from nitrate reels that examine religion, science, and war, ultimately constructing a universe in which nothing is certain.

SAT, OCT 18 7:30, T2

FRI, OCT 24 4:00, T2

FILMS

Beyond Zero: 1914–1918. 2014. Music by Aleksandra Vrebalov. 39 min.

All Vows. 2013. Music by Michael Gordon. 10 min.

Just Ancient Loops. 2012. Music by Michael Harrison. 26 min.

DURATION75 min.

FILM PROGRAM

Just Ancient Loops. 2012

Dystopia: 2004–2008

The “city symphony” film became ubiquitous in the 1920s, with iconic films such as Manhatta (1921) and Berlin, die Sinfonie der Grosstadt (1927) celebrating the rise of the metropolis. Yet as the cities rose, the individuality of man was subsumed into the masses. With Gotham and Dystopia, Morrison created a pair of 21st-century city symphonies. The Highwater Trilogy is a cautionary tale about the power and glory of nature.

SUN, OCT 19 2:00, T2

TUE, OCT 28 7:00, T2

DURATION86 min.

FILMS

Gotham. 2004. Music by Michael Gordon. 25 min.

Dystopia. 2008. Music by Michael Gordon. 30 min.

The Highwater Trilogy. 2006. Music by David Lang, Michael Gordon. 31 min.

FILM PROGRAM

The Highwater Trilogy. 2006

Modern Mondays: An Evening with Bill Morrison

For this Modern Mondays discussion, Bill Morrison focuses on his use of archival and found footage, tracing the ideas that surfaced in some of his earliest titles (Footprints [1992], The Film of Her [1996]) and continue in his most recent work (Light Is Calling [2004], All Vows [2013], Beyond Zero: 1914–1918 [2014]). The range and diversity of his manipulation of found footage reveals his profound use of film as a metaphor for reflections on the historical and existential nature of time.

DURATIONApprox. 90 min.

MON, OCT 20 7:00, T2

SPECIAL EVENT

The Film of Her. 1996

Cellist Maya Beiser Performs Live with All Vows, Just Ancient Loops, and Light Is Calling

THU, OCT 23 8:00, T1

DURATION43 min.

FILMS

All Vows. 2013. Music by Michael Gordon. 10 min. New York premiere

Just Ancient Loops. 2012. Music by Michael Harrison. 26 min.

Light Is Calling. 2004. Music by Michael Gordon. 7 min.

LIVE PERFORMANCE

Above: Just Ancient Loops. 2012. Performed by Maya Beiser at Bang on a Can Marathon, Winter Garden at the World Financial Center, June 17, 2012. Photograph © 2012 Thomas Steenland

All Vows. “All Vows” is an English translation of “Kol Nidre,” a Yom Kippur incantation that nullifies any future vows made without intention. The film uses archival film scenes to show a dissolving historic document that represents an unknowable future.

Just Ancient Loops. High resolution scans of archival nitrate film scenes are combined with newly created CGI renderings of the planets to depict different views of the heavens.

Light Is Calling. Two minor characters from The Bells, a 1926 crime film by James Young, become the central focus of Light Is Calling as they forge an impossible relationship out of a chance encounter.

Following spread:Release. 2010 (screening during Video: 1996–2000, and on view in the Museum’s Lauder Lobby)

The Great Flood

The Great Flood is based on actual footage of the powerfully destructive Mississippi river flood of 1927—levees broke in over 100 places, engulfing thousands of square miles— and the revitalization of African American music that evolved as black southerners migrated Northward to escape the devastation. Using previously unseen outtakes from newsreel footage, Morrison reveals a society in the midst of a massive cultural, political, and ecological upheaval. Guitarist Bill Frisell’s score embodies the catastrophic events, and serves as the emotional narrator of the film.

SUN, OCT 26 2:30, T1

DURATION78 min.

2013. Music by Bill Frisell. Composite film screening

FEATURE FILM

Above: The Great Flood. 2013

Following spread:The Great Flood. 2013

FEATURE FILM

Above:Spark of Being. 2010

Following spread:Spark of Being. 2010

TUE, OCT 28 4:30, T1

DURATION68 min.

2010. Music by Dave Douglas. Composite film screening

Spark of Being

Spark of Being, a close adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel Frankenstein, explores the thematic interchangeability of three of the novel’s characters: the Captain, the Doctor, and the Creature. Spark of Being, which, as with all of Morrison’s films, is dialogue-free, features Frank Hurley’s original footage of Ernest Shackleton’s fated Antarctic expedition, along with a range of footage from other sources.

WED, OCT 29 4:30, T1

SAT, NOV 8 8:00, T1

DURATION67 min.

2002. Music by Michael Gordon

Morrison’s groundbreaking, transfixing film consists of fragments of decades-old silent film footage and decomposed nitrate film stock, sourced from multiple archives across the United States, with a haunting symphonic score by Michael Gordon. The score was first performed live by the Basel Sinfonietta in 2001. The film begins with the image of a whirling dervish, reels of film being developed, and an explosive cloud of smoke, followed by beautiful patterns of nitrate decay that replicate and reveal the emerging patterns of figures, landscapes and other scenes that lie underneath. As Morrison states: “I was seeking instances of decay set against a narrative backdrop, for example, of valiant struggle, or thwarted love, or birth, or submersion, or rescue, or one of the other themes I was trying to interweave. And never complete decay; I was always seeking out instances where the image was still putting up a struggle, fighting off the inexorability of its demise but not yet having succumbed.”

DecasiaFEATURE FILM

Above:Decasia. 2002

Following spread:Decasia. 2002

Hymns

If a hymn is a song or poem in praise of a deity or a nation, perhaps this suite of Morrison works honors both. By exploring the loss of a nation’s identity through the closure of coal mines and the eradication of the British colliery culture in The Miners’ Hymns, Morrison brings to the fore a narrative that is about to be forgotten. His use of film footage that is suffering from decomposition begets images that are veiled and obfuscated. Who by Water, taking its title from a passage in a Rosh Hashanah prayer, uses newsreel outtakes of passengers on a steamship. Tragedy is automatically assigned to the imagery given the ubiquitous assignment of ocean travel and the failed Titanic. Re:Awakenings repurposes footage shot of patients under the care of Dr. Oliver Sacks. Back to the Soil revisits footage Morrison’s grandfather, James H. Becker, shot in Jewish farming colonies in Eastern Europe in 1927.

SAT, NOV 8 4:30, T1 SUN, NOV 16 2:30, T1

FILMS

The Miners’ Hymns. 2011. Music by Jóhann Jóhannsson. 52 min.

Who by Water. 2007. Music by Michael Gordon. 18 min.

Re:Awakenings. 2013. Music selected by Philip Glass. 18 min. World premiere

Back to the Soil. 2014. Music by David Lang. 18 min. World premiere

DURATION106 min.

FILM PROGRAM

Who by Water. 2007

Bill Frisell, Ron Miles, Tony Scherr, and Kenny Wollesen Perform Live with The Great FloodThe Great Flood is based on actual footage of the powerfully destructive Mississippi river flood of 1927—levees broke in over 100 places, engulfing thousands of square miles—and the revitalization of African American music that evolved as black southerners migrated Northward to escape the devastation. Using previously unseen outtakes from newsreel footage, Morrison reveals a society in the midst of a massive cultural, political, and ecological upheaval. Guitarist Bill Frisell’s score embodies the catastrophic events, and serves as the emotional narrator of the film.

FRI, NOV 21 8:00, T1

The Great Flood.2013. Music by Bill Frisell. 78 min.

LIVE PERFORMANCE

The Great Flood. 2013. Performed by Bill Frisell at the Moore Theatre, Seattle, March 2, 2013. Photograph © 2013 Daniel Sheehan

SUN 26

2:30 The Great Flood 2013. 78 min. T1

TUE 28

4:30 Spark of Being 2010. 68 min. T1

7:00 Dystopia: 2004–2008 Program 86 min. T2

WED 29

4:30 Decasia 2002. 67 min. T1

SUN 2

7:30 35mm: 2000–2005 Program 67 min. T2

SAT 8

4:30 Hymns Program 106 min. T1

8:00 Decasia 2002. 67 min. T1

SUN 16

2:30 Hymns Program 101 min. T1

FRI 21

8:00 Bill Frisell, Ron Miles, Tony Scherr, and Kenny Wollesen Perform Live with The Great Flood 2013. Music by Bill Frisell. 78 min. T1

TUE 14

8:00 Dave Douglas & Keystone Perform Live with Spark of Being 2010. Music by Dave Douglas. 68 min. T1

FRI 17

4:00 Video: 1996–2012 Program 67 min. T2

7:00 16mm: 1990–1996 Program 66 min. T2

SAT 18

4:00 35mm: 2000–2005 Program 67 min. T2

7:30 Nitrate: 2012–2014 Program 75 min. T2

SUN 19

2:00 Dystopia: 2004–2008 Program 86 min. T2

5:00 16mm: 1990–1996 Program 66 min. T2

MON 20

7:00 Modern Mondays: An Evening with Bill Morrison Program approx. 90 min. T2

TUE 21

7:00 Video: 1996–2012Program 67 min. T2

THU 23

8:00 Cellist Maya Beiser Performs Live with All Vows, Just Ancient Loops, and Light Is CallingProgram 43 min. T1

FRI 24

4:00 Nitrate: 2012–2014Program 75 min. T2

NovemberOCTOBER CONTINUEDOctober Bill Morrison: Re-Compositions

Lauder Lobby, floor 1Through March 2015

In conjunction with Bill Morrison: Compositions, a retrospective selection of films by Bill Morrison will be presented as a flat-screen installation in the Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Building Lobby. This selection includes short, single-channel films, usually created from a single source, in a looping program of thematically linked work. The programs will rotate on a monthly basis through March 2015, and will include original material, silent documentaries, archival work, split-screen or mirrored compositions, as well as new projects made specifically for this exhibition. Of the more than two-dozen titles, two split-screen, single-channel works in the opening program include Outerborough (2005), commissioned by the Museum for its 2004 reopening, based on a 68mm film shot in 1899 of a trolley traveling over the Brooklyn Bridge,

which Morrison edited and montaged to endlessly travel back and forth across the bridge; and Release (2010), which uses a 1930 cinematographic record by cameraman Jack Painter of a crowd expectantly waiting for the release of Al Capone from the Eastern State Penitentiary, manipulated by Morrison to reflect their unfulfilled expectations. A later program includes Light Loop (2004/14, from Light Is Calling, 2004) and Ascension (2012/14, from Just Ancient Loops, 2012), where Morrison creates short, looping narratives of scenes from his films that are meaningfully altered by decomposition within the film image. The full schedule will be listed in the Lauder Lobby and on MoMA.org.

Organized by Sally Berger, Assistant Curator, Department of Film.

THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART11 West 53 StreetNew York, NYMoMA.org/film

Cover: The Great Flood. 2013. USA. Directed by Bill Morrison