>(1) Oh, come on, it does make sense - as a film.
As a film, physically. Maybe yes, but the subject matter seems to become
increasingly subjective the more its watched. And that’s the thing with
Report, its about the confusion that comes out of having too much
information…
>it was the eighties, I remember that - so I'll have to check the date of
>that particular one in the Cinematheque library.
Check the IMDB, that’s what I did. Because you said `86 and I was out of
school by then, I saw Report at SVA, the School of Visual Arts in NY in `82
at the latest.
Heres the IMDB comment on Report:
'Report' is an eerily affecting associative film that contains no original
footage--it was entirely made at the editing table. Conner recreates within
viewers the feeling of having been at JFK's assassination--among other
things, he loops the same few seconds of actual Kennedy footage with the
running commentary of radio announcers--you can feel the confusion, and it
triggers that desire to SEE the President, or anything--a very human
response to tragedy, and what America must have felt--by the fifth minute of
straight black, strobing black and white, and seemingly endless uncompleted
countdowns of the Academy leader. But not even the reporters being heard can
see what is happening.
The film is laden with images of death and draws comparison between the
absolute shock at the assassination, and the death motif of the images and
descriptions preceding--Kennedy rides by in his 'gunmetal gray' limousine,
the police fight back adoring school children to the footage of World War I
warfare.
'Report' undermines our faith in the image and its ability to deliver truth
and meaning--the two exact things that the country has been searching for
since Kennedy's death. We still ask 'what really happened?' and 'why?', and
we still have no answers. It is a film about loss, an ironic juxtaposition
of images that at first may seem random, but in the end makes for a uniquely
powerful experience.
Now this movie is almost impossible to get hold of, at school the professor
borrowed it from MOMA, the museum of modern art.
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