2 options
Film / by Samuel Beckett ; directed by Alan Schneider ; produced by Evergreen Theatre, Inc.
- Format:
- Video
- Author/Creator:
- Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989, author.
- Standardized Title:
- Film (Motion picture : 1965)
- Language:
- No linguistic content
- Subjects (All):
- Perception (Philosophy)--Drama.
- Perception (Philosophy).
- Ontology--Drama.
- Ontology.
- Genre:
- Short films.
- Experimental films.
- Fiction films.
- Silent films.
- Drama.
- Video recordings.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (22 minutes)
- Other Title:
- Film by Samuel Beckett
- Place of Publication:
- Harrington Park, NJ : Milestone Films, 2015.
- System Details:
- data file
- Summary:
- Nobel Prize-winning playwright Samuel Beckett's lone work for projected cinema was entitled archetypally, Film, and grew from Berkeley's pronouncement, essi et percipi: "To be is to be perceived." Yet Beckett's ontological concerns have less to do with the plastic medium than the nature of recorded and projected images. Film is in essence a chase film; arguably the craziest committed to celluloid. It's a chase between camera and pursued image that finds existential dread embedded in the very apparatus of the movies. The link to cinema's essence is evident in the casting, as the chased object is none other than an aged Buster Keaton, who was understandably befuddled at Beckett and director Alan Schneider's imperative that he keep his face hidden from the camera's gaze. The archetypal levels resonate further in the exquisite cinematography of Academy Award-winner Boris Kaufman, whose brothers Dziga Vertov and Mikhail Kaufman created the legendary self-reflective masterpiece Man With a Movie Camera (with the latter in the titular role). Commissioned and produced by Grove Press's Barney Rosset, Film is at once the product of a stunningly all-star assembly of talent and a cinematic conundrum that asks more questions than it answers. -- Ross Lipman.
- Participant:
- Buster Keaton, Nell Harrison, James Karen, Susan Reed.
- Notes:
- Title from resource description page (viewed June 21, 2017).
- "Preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive through the National Film Preservation Foundation's Avant-Garde Masters Grant program funded by The Film Foundation".
- Other Format:
- Original version:
- OCLC:
- 994062496
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.