The exquisite corpse is a combination of art form and parlor game developed by the surrealists in the early part of the last century. Originally a written art form that has expanded to visual art, the idea is to collaboratively build a story out of pieces, each person contributing to the work based on what the last person did.
Longtime Houston art legend Jack Massing (of The Art Guys) found himself with a lot of free time when COVID-19 hit. Massing has always loved the exquisite corpse and uses it with students to break tension.
“When you don’t have a lot invested in it, there’s more excitement in participation,” he says. “It’s easy to work collaboratively without pressure.”
He teamed with Chip Lord and Sean Owen Miller to produce “The Exquisite Moving Corpse,” screening June 30 at MATCH. The three of them reached out to 57 filmmakers, and each of them would produce a one-minute short film based on the last frame of the previous participant. The final product includes artists from all over the world in a variety of disciplines, including puppetry, animation, and even a segment where a video game elf casts a variety of spells.
“For me it set up a strange tension every minute,” says Massing. “You know the form is going to change, so you’re anticipating it. Most movies are dedicated to a standard writing form, a beginning, middle, and end. There is a narrative here, but it’s a fractured narrative. There’s a richness because of the variety.”
When: 7 p.m. June 30
Where: MATCH, 3400 Main
Details: Free admission, but donations encouraged; 713-521-4533; matchouston.org
The movie’s structure is undoubtedly fractured, but it creates strange, feverish moments of odd coherence. Near the beginning, Gustavo Vasquez films a luchador descending the stairs in the vestibule of a church, clearly on the way to a conflict. It shifts abruptly to Norbert Meyn and Claus Bach’s stark shot of a person fervently praying for aid in a fight, before moving to a brilliant piece of prop magic by Mel Chin that makes it appear the prayers for the wrestler have been pushed through a tube-like mechanism, emerging on the other side as a disembodied eyeball.
Even the crafting of the final version was chaotic. Massing deliberately left spots open in the sequence so that he could incorporate new artists. These included a pair of Irish filmmakers, Ali Farrelly and Aoife Ward, who wrote Massing a fan letter that led to being invited to join the fun. They sent in a strange, choreographed series of discordant notes played on a walking piano.
It’s all highly subjective and weird as heck but, then again, so have all the experiences of everyone over the last two years of death and social upheaval. In a legion of forms, “The Exquisite Moving Corpse” captures the frantic minds of many artists during COVID.
“I think a lot of artists benefitted from the pandemic in that they were really able to focus on their work,” says Massing. “Artists don’t make a lot of money. Their most valuable resource is time. Reducing the distractions led to a lot of inspiration.”
Jef Rouner is a Houston-based writer.
Article From & Read More ( ‘Moving Corpse’ film project at MATCH comes alive with creativity - Houston Chronicle )https://ift.tt/GuWPDNX
Film
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "‘Moving Corpse’ film project at MATCH comes alive with creativity - Houston Chronicle"
Post a Comment