Innocence and Despair (2001): A Decade Later
Phil Solomon
(4:40, Color, Sound)
One week after 9/11, independent
filmmakers Jay Rosenblatt and Caveh Zahedi put out a call to over 150 experimental and
documentary filmmakers asking for contributions to a collective film project (Underground
Zero) addressing those tragic events and their aftermath. My five-minute
contribution, Innocence and Despair, provided me with an opportunity to
make my first digital video (with material culled from 16mm footage, both
archival and my own) and to make something of a public work, something I had
never done before.
The title is copped from a favorite
album of mine (The Langley Schools Music Project) that was originally
recorded by Hans Fenger in 1976-77 with his grade
school students singing popular songs of the day. I was meditating on ideas of
before and after, of how the summering people in my little film could never
have imagined looking up at the sky at a world such as existed on the day…
Note:
this video was intentionally rendered to be on the darkest edge of visibility.
It helps to shut off lights and close curtains when viewing.
Boulder, 2011