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Filmmaker Bill Morrison visits to introduce and discuss his latest feature, The Village Detective: a song cycle, which was created with the support of a 2018 Wexner Center Artist Residency Award.
Bill Morrison, whom the New York Times called "the poet laureate of lost films," returns to the Wex with The Village Detective, whose creation began with the discovery of a film canister on the ocean floor off Iceland's coast. The contents of that canister, a 1969 Soviet comedy also called The Village Detective, serves as the catalyst for Morrison’s meditation on the arc of Soviet history and cinema through the person of beloved actor Mikhail Zharov. Zharov appeared in scores of films including Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible (1942–44) and as the titular figure in Village Detective. Grammy Award–winning composer David Lang, cofounder of Bang on a Can, created the film’s score.
Morrison is best known for taking found and often seriously decomposed footage and almost alchemically recrafting this material into his own unique and personal cinematic compositions. The Wex-supported Village Detective is no exception. (81 mins., DCP).
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Bill Morrison | Photo by Wolfgang Wesener
The Village Detective | Image courtesy of Kino Lorber
Wex filmgoers might remember Morrison's celebrated 2016 film Dawson City: Frozen Time, which included footage that had been buried under an ice hockey rink in the Yukon in 1929, as well as his 2012 Wex co-commissioned collaboration with composer Bill Frisell, The Great Flood. In 2013, his film Decasia (2002) was added to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Finally, his discovery of rare footage of the 1919 Chicago “Black” Sox World Series was included in our 2014 Rare Baseball Films program.
FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY Cardinal Health Kaufman Development
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Rohauer Collection Foundation
WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY The Wexner Family Greater Columbus Arts Council The Columbus Foundation Ohio Arts Council American Electric Power Foundation Adam Flatto Mary and C. Robert Kidder Bill and Sheila Lambert L Brands Foundation Institute of Museum and Library Services Nationwide Foundation Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease Arlene and Michael Weiss
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Carol and David Aronowitz Michael and Paige Crane Pete Scantland Axium Packaging Bocchi Laboratories Fenwick & West LLP Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams President Kristina M. Johnson and Mrs. Veronica Meinhard KDC/ONE Nancy Kramer M/I Homes Voyant Beauty Huntington Lisa Barton Regina Miracle International Ltd. Washington Prime Group Alene Candles Fuel Transport Russell and Joyce Gertmenian Liza Kessler and Greg Henchel Matrix Psychological Services Paramount Group, Inc. Ron and Ann Pizzuti Joyce and Chuck Shenk Bruce and Joy Soll Clark and Sandra Swanson Business Furniture Installations CASTO E.C. Provini Co, Inc. Garlock Printing & Converting Jones Day M-Engineering New England Development Our Country Home Performance Team Premier Candle Corporation ProAmpac Steiner + Associates Textile Printing Andrew and Amanda Wise
(Bill Morrison, 2016)
Past Film/Video
The Village Detective: a song cycle
