Nocturne

Film made by Phil Solomon in 1980 (revised in 1989).

Film notes
'Finding similarities in the pulses and shapes between my own experiments in night photography, lightning storms, and night bombing in World War II, I constructed the war at home. --Canyon Cinema catalog 1992

'A screaming comes across the sky. --Gravity's Rainbow

'NOCTURNE strongly evokes one of Brakhage's most exquisite films, FIRE OF WATERS (1965). Its setting is a suburban neighborhood populated by kids at play and indistinct but ominous parental figures. A submerged narrative rehearses a type of young boy's nighttime game in which a flashlight is wielded in a darkened room to produce effects of aerial combat and bombardment. A sense of hostility tinged with terror seeps into commonplace movements... Fantasy merges with nightmare, a war of dimly suppressed emotions rages beneath a veneer of household calm... In NOCTURNE, found footage is worked so subtly into the fabric of threat that its apperception comes as a shock ploughed from the unconscious. --Paul Arthur

Author: 

Year: 

1980
Technical data

Original format: 

16mm

Speed: 

18FPS

Aspect ratio: 

1.37:1

Colour: 

B&W

Sound: 

Silent

Length: 

10 minutes

Distribution/sales: 

Copies for rent:
Canyon Cinema
Light Cone

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