fleur de sel.
A 35-minute documentary film, which aims to produce a transcendental mode of viewing. The film could be loosely termed, an island symphony.
- Submitting institution
-
Liverpool John Moores University
- Unit of assessment
- 34 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
- Output identifier
- MARLEY1
- Type
- Q - Digital or visual media
- Publisher
- -
- Month
- December
- Year
- 2020
- URL
-
https://vimeo.com/442074012
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Fleur de sel encourages a particular way of seeing and hearing a documentary. Whereas most knowledge production in documentary is expositional by nature, in this film, image and sound combination is more associated with feeling rather than knowing.
Through the use of slow dissolves and minimal compositions, a more contemplative mode of viewing is encouraged. This approach is informed by the films and writings of Andrei Tarkovsky, whereby he states that the, ‘course of time, recorded in the frame, is what the director has to catch…time imprinted in the frame, dictates the particular editing principle.’ (Tarkovsky 1987:116)
This film also follows the principles of the city symphony makers of the early 20th Century (Vertov, Ruttman, Cavalcanti and Vigo), whose films aim to capture a sense of place, expressed through rhythmic montage, however montage creates disruption and a distracted mode of viewing, whereas the aim here was to capture a sense of stasis, which closely reflected the atmosphere of the island. Hence the use of long dissolves - difficulty in seeing where a particular shot starts and ends, encourages a more sustained gaze in the hope that the viewer becomes absorbed in a new reality and is thus able to feel the island, rather than know the island.
I adopt the principles of slow cinema, such as delaying edits, minimal visual and audio compositions and cameras that remain still, with a focus on the mundane, as a way to create disquiet in the viewer, ‘which then results in a stasis, an acceptance of a parallel reality—transcendence.’ (Schrader 2018: 3). Here documentary transcends the cognitive realm in order to produce a film that ‘seeks to communicate with the unconscious and the ways in which the unconscious processes memories, fantasies, and dreams.’ (Schrader 2018: 5).
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -