The Story of “Decasia” – Catherine Wayland

The Story of “Decasia”

Catherine Wayland
 

Rather than fumble so amateurishly in the face of more adept critics, I would rather leave you with the story that Bill told me at our meeting at the Empire Diner. “The Story of “Decasia,” as I will call it. Bill was first a painter. He entered Cooper Union as a student of painting and left feeling frustrated with the “static quality of paintings.” During his schooling he met one of our American treasures, Robert Breer, a filmmaker, who likes to speak of his own film animations as “24 paintings a second.” It was there that Bill began his own language with moving images, working mostly with distressed film and marrying it to music with a multitude of composers. By night, Bill washed dishes at the Village Vanguard, and by day, worked with the Ridge Theatre who gave him a space and a budget in their multimedia performances for filmic backdrops. There Bill met his wife Laurie Olinder, Artistic Director for Ridge Theatre, where they both continue productions today.

In 1991, one of Bill’s films, “Footprints,” that was in the Ridge Theatre piece of “Jungle Movie” was entered into the Chicago International Festival and The Black Maria Festival (a touring festival) and won top awards. Bill found that this confirmation of his work settled him into the medium, and he was content to say that he was “a very strange filmmaker,” but a filmmaker nonetheless. When I asked Bill to categorize his work, he said that although he does not mind the categories of avant-garde or experimental, he prefers “visual music” to describe his filmwork. In the years following, he continued to receive recognition with a Bessie award in the theatre world and an invitation by MOMA in 1995 to have “An Evening with Bill M.” showing his collected works. To date, MOMA has acquired 7 titles of Bill’s.

It was in 1996, that Bill made “The Film of Her.” This landmark film came about from a prolonged stay in Italy, and his inexhaustible research into the “Paper Print Collection.” Bill was working with the “Paper Print Collection” as a body of distressed film footage from 1896-1912. This very interesting collection of works was reanimated and printed on paper as a way of copyrighting the material. It was at that same time that Ken Jacobs, a contemporary of Morrison’s mentor Breer, produced the acclaimed, “Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son.” In Jacob’s synopsis of “Tom,Tom” Jacobs talked about a Kemp Niver who had originally reshot old film from the “Paper Print Collection” for contemporary usage.

Morrison became interested in Niver and sent away to George Washington University to read a thesis written on Niver. Niver had received an Oscar for his work with the “Paper Print Collection.” But Morrison in his tireless search found that the true hero in the recovered “Paper Print Collection,” was a man named Howard Walls who worked with the poet Archibald MacLeish, head librarian at the Library of Congress, to revive the “Paper Print Collection.” From this historical unraveling, comes “The Film of Her.” “The Film of Her,” tells the romanticized tale of Howard Walls and his pornographic movie star muse, “Her,” who assists him in his search and rescue of the “Paper Print Collection.”

Bill toured with “Film of Her” in 1997-1998. In 1998, the Ridge Theatre and “Bang on a Can” became a collaborative force. “Bang on a Can” is a downtown musical collective here in New York that has 3 principal composers, a record label, “Cantaloupe,” underwrites an annual composer grant and an annual festival. “Bang on the Can” is well funded, prolific. The marriage of music to Bill’s work continued and heightened in this union. In 1999, Bill made “Carbon Copy Building,” using comics of Ben Katchor for a short operatic piece with Ridge called “Chaos,” and won a Village Voice Obie. He returned again to Italy where he toured the piece. The Basel Sinfonietta from Basel, Switzerland saw the piece and commissioned Michael Gordon, the composer to do a full symphonic orchestra piece with Bill Morrison as the filmmaker. Their only directive was that Bill’s filmic work support the music.

In 1999, simultaneous to the commission by Basel Sinfonietta, Bill Morrison was involved with “Film of Her”, in representing this work at a symposium entitled the Orphan Film Symposium, University of Southern Carolina (USC). Bill, the tireless historian began to use his time there in research of film footage at the university library. Because of some barter deal with Hollywood, USC and their old southern artillery fort, had become home to decaying, film footage from Twentieth Century Fox’s Movietone newsreels. Bill first uncovered a boxer that looked at some point in history as though he might be boxing a punching bag, but now with the process of aging, looks as though he is fighting an amorphous mass of decay. And so, “Decasia.”

My time with Bill Morrison was coming to a close. He had finished his muffin and I, my omelette. But I cannot end this story of “Decasia” without telling you about its one live performance by the 55 piece Basel Sinfonietta in Basel, Switzerland. Bill is a thoughtful, soft, detailed speaker. He leaned closer so I would get every word. It was November 2001, just a short time after our American tragedy of September 11. The venue in Basel was a triangular theatre with the orchestra sitting behind drops of see-through scrim in which “Decasia” was projected. The orchestra looked like ghosts, rather than live, men and women. The audience stood so there would be no inhibition to their movement and listening. The audience stilled, and the film and music began its stream of visual, musical, consciousness. At every word, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, reverent to the prophecy. Again, thank you, Bill.

For more details, please visit Decasia.com.