I LIKE THIS FILM - ANYONE ELSE???

YES!!!!



**** SPOILER ALERT ****




























I saw this movie a few years ago. Can you imagine - during the wee hours of the morning, I was not sleeping well. I decided to get up and watch some TV for a few minutes. I was looking for a boring distraction to help me fall back to sleep.

After some channel surfing seeing action movie re-runs, I stopped in my tracks in the middle of Decasia. I could not stop watching. It was like seeing a nightmare. So much so, I wondered if perhaps I had really fallen asleep, and this was some kind of bad dream...

I went to bed after it finished and reading all the credits. It was much later than I had originally intended to return to bed. I was unsure of how I felt about this movie. There was some shock seeing it like that without warning... A little like driving by some accident scene on the road. It was not a good thing to see right before going to sleep.

Some days later, I found myself thinking again about this movie, and what it all meant. What it was conveying to the viewers? What was the point? But most of all, after so many days why did I care - - why was I still thinking about Decasia?

Clearly, this movie left a deep impression on me, whether I liked it or not!

I recorded Decasia several weeks later and showed it to some very talented and artistic friends of mine. (I am neither of those things.) My friends told me they thought Decasia was beautiful. They loved it. I agree with them that it is beautiful, though I also find it sad. And eerie. My more artistic friends disagree with the second and third points. Obviously, they like Decasia for the looks, and don't see any deeper message. Perhaps there is no "message"? I get a feeling from Decasia; it is making a point. Or maybe I am reading something that is not there?

I believe that I understand the point of Decasia: The people we see acting in this movie are dead and gone for good.

Okay, so what? Most old movies we watch are full of people who are no longer living. Why is Decasia different?

The answer is because in Decasia, we don't know who these people were; they were not famous. They truly were anonymous, and are now forgotten. The decayed celluloid also makes the actors look like ghosts. Very symbolic, and eerie! The images are often difficult to discern, so it would be difficult to find out who the actors were in real life, even if we made an effort to find out.

In short: Decasia shows us ghostly people who are truly gone.

And that eerie soundtrack! The music is bizarre and somehow obscene, and yet it is absolutely perfect for this movie. Something about the images and music mixed together give us a full running montage of missing life stories. We are watching a single "movie", crafted from several, that tells us that these people, their lives and histories, their loves and losses, are gone from us forever.

I would like to know more about these people, but never will.

Now for a follow up question: When we watch a movie like this, are we really looking at ourselves? Decades from now, a perfect stranger may be looking at our current photos (or digital images, or whatever) and wonder who they are looking at. Think about it! Unless we are famous, no future stranger, looking at our picture, would know who we were. How could they?

I feel sadness when I see this movie. I guess it is the inevitability of death and obscurity. At least famous people, when they die, are remembered! People know what Abraham Lincoln looked like, even if they don't have a photo of him handy.

Hm. As a final thought, I would concede that being famous for something good is preferable to being famous for something bad.

John Turley

YES

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Greetings, all,

YES!!!

I think Decasia is absolutely extraordinary. Before I purchased the DVD, I had read enough about the film to know that it basically assembled very old and deteriorated film segments.

What totally surprised me was the effect age has on nitrate(?) stock. In one of the film classes I took in college The Great Train Robbery was screened. Due to the age and number of dupes, the gunshots were black rather than white as a B&W film would normally capture gunfire. The spotting and partial destruction of some elements of frames was also something I expected. The physical distortion of some elements such as people's limbs, vehicles,et. al. was totally unexpected and surprising. By the way, I read somewhere that essentially all the stock used to assemble Decasia was destroyed by its use. Confirmation anyone?

I also got the soundtrack CD which is equally extraordinary. This is likely not news to any of you. however musically the score is most unusual. The score Michael Gordon composed is for actually two orchestras. The entire string sections of each were altered from standard concert tuning. One orchestra's strings were tuned one quarter tone above standard and the other was one quarter tone below standard. Hence a dissonance that truly is not dissonant since when played together the strings of each orchestra results in an overall standard pitch. And yet the dissonance is clearly audible and adds considerably to the general, indefinable sense of unease the entire film conveys. I just love it!

Interestingly I showed the film to a friend who is very open to avant-garde film in general. While she enjoyed the visuals, she said she had a highly unpleasant, internal visceral or nervous reaction to the score. Her eighteen year old daughter however though the visuals and the soundtrack were breathtaking. Any other similar responses anyone is aware of out there???

I also read on a film blog somewhere that at least one person plays the soundtrack to help his infant daughter go to sleep !??! It ain't Brahms' Lullaby to be sure. Go figure.

bye,

s

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