First up in the Golden Book series features Francesco Gagliardi’s performance Film: Rope, presented during Images Festival 2013, with an essay written by Andrew J. Paterson. Film: Rope explores the relationship between cinematic space and the space of live performance, and our ways of interpreting and recollecting the experience of movement within the film frame.
In Dangling that Rope, Andrew James Paterson writes, “In Film: Rope, Gagliardi has accentuated the simultaneous clash and fusion of different disciplines by using as source material a film that has been controversial at a number of different levels: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). Rope is something of an anomaly within the Hitchcock canon, as it is directed to appear as if consisting almost entirely of one continuous shot. In this respect it breaks the modernist dictum that film should not appear simply to be recorded theatre. The film eschews montage altogether.”
Golden Book 1: Film; Rope (2013) Author: Andrew James Paterson Editor: Chris Gehman Design: Lisa Kiss Publisher: FADO Performance Art Centre Series: Golden Books, 1st 16 pages; 4.24 x 6 inches ; Print Book, English
Curated and produced by FADO Performance Art Centre, and presented in the context of the 2013 Images Festival.
Film: Rope explores the relationship between cinematic space and the space of live performance, and our ways of interpreting and recollecting the experience of movement within the film frame.
In Dangling that Rope, Andrew James Paterson writes, “In Film: Rope, Gagliardi has accentuated the simultaneous clash and fusion of different disciplines by using as source material a film that has been controversial at a number of different levels: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). Rope is something of an anomaly within the Hitchcock canon, as it is directed to appear as if consisting almost entirely of one continuous shot. In this respect, it breaks the modernist dictum that film should not appear simply to be recorded theatre. The film eschews montage altogether.”
Rope (1948) is considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most experimental films. Containing only four unmasked cuts, it was shot in single ten-minute takes (the length of a camera roll), tracking in and out of black surfaces (the back of a jacket or a piece of furniture) to create the illusion of even longer continuous shots. This virtuoso technique, which required the constant shifting of stage walls, furniture, and props to make way for the camera, was partly developed by the director in order to convey the illusion of theatrical real time and continuous space.
By paradoxically attempting to re-embody and transpose the movements and positions of the characters in the film in relation to a live audience, Film: Rope perversely exposes and explores the discontinuities and incongruities between cinema and live performance.
CREDITS Created by Francesco Gagliardi Performed by Cara Spooner, Francesco Gagliardi, Marcin Kedzior and Michael Caldwell
PROGRAM & EVENTS
Performances April 12–14, 2013 @ 3:00pm April 16, 2013 @ 7:00pm & 8:30pm The Theatre Centre Pop-Up, 1095 Queen Street West, Toronto
FADO Artist Talk, moderated by Andrew James Paterson April 14, 2013 @ 4:30pm The Theatre Centre Pop-Up, 1095 Queen Street West, Toronto
Images Artist Talk: Performance and Media Art: Tools with Which to Deconstruct With Francesco Gagliardi, Tanya Lukin Linklater and Duane Linklater April 15, 2013 @ 4:00pm Urban Space Gallery, 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto
This fragrance opens us to the question, has the show started? It's winter, the theatre is colder than the street and the room is filled with people and all their winter smells: wet faux leather, down, too much shampoo, and beer breath. The atmosphere is a trickster. Am I late, am I early?