 |
 |
Another unsettling use of video footage which is actually 'decoded' is The Last Broadcast, the second runner to Blair Witch - actually quite creepy in its use of unemotional video footage at a key moment. The only evidence from a murder is one frame of degraded video tape which is then processed by computer(of course!) in order to find out what it shows... The frame ends up showing the face of the presenter of the (mocu-)documentary who then suffocates the computer engineer who has seen its him. Its all a bit silly in truth but offers an insight into what we are discussing, that video/film offer a utopian promise to reveal all (eg Total Cinema, DV video is democratising the image, etc) but in fact confuses, distorts and offers only more levels of interpretation/discourse which affect its ability to communicate. -----Original Message----- From: Film-Philosophy Salon [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Chris Rose Sent: 15 April 2003 01:45 To: Matt Crowder Subject: Re: Poor-quality images (I've just joined the list so apologies if this has already been covered) Poor quality video images also abound in david lynch's lost highway. the images are often so grainy that foreground and backround merge in a kind of depthless middle, full of static and reminiscent, in their molecular movement, of the earth swarming with insects from that opening scene in blue velvet. you don't know whether you're in the screen or whether perhaps the object is seeping into your perception, edging closer in its own misshapen and unsettling way. and in lost highway these images are very unsettling! this is probably one of the more interesting uses of video, one which deliberately exploits its low res appeal (not to mention its capacity for picking up noise or static, which I think appeals to lynch for obvious reasons) for formal reasons. Chris