Tributes: Pulse

2011· 65 min★ 6.5·

'Tributes-Pulse' is a collaboration between American filmmaker Bill Morrison and Danish composer and percussionist Simon Christensen. Christensen originally conceived of the project as a tribute to four American composers, Charles Ives (1874-1954), Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997), Steve Reich (b. 1936), and Trent Reznor (b. 1965). Using exquisitely deteriorating nitrate-based archival film, Morrison weaves a story from the remnants of disparate narratives. The episodes appear intermittently between the undulating pulse of the film's decay, the imagery compromised - yet made all the more poignant - by a dying celluloid medium, a rusted vessel carrying ghosts. Contrasting with the previous three sections, the final section is an original single-take contemporary aerial shot of the 'Graveyard of Ships' off of Staten Island, NY. Written by Anonymous

Director: Bill Morrison