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Melissa Starker, Creative Content & PR Manager
Nov 11, 2021
On Friday, November 19, Bill Morrison returns to the Wex with his critically acclaimed new film The Village Detective: a song cycle. We're so excited to share this Artist Residency Award-supported work with Columbus audiences and to hear from the filmmaker about his process. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview of what you'll see.
The above trailer is audio described for the visually impaired. The standard trailer is available to view here and a transcript of the described trailer is below. If you'd like an extended audio description transcript, email Accessibility Manager Helyn Marshall.
Description: A view from under the surface of water. Film cans plunge into the water, and the view of water transitions to moving images of damaged black & white film grain
Graphic: In 2016, an Icelandic fishing boat pulled up four reels of 35mm film from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
Subtitles: Last Saturday the crew of the lobster trawler Frodi noticed something unusual in their net.
Description: A man’s hands hold a damaged reel of film
Graphic: Erlendur Sveinsson, former director, National Archive of Iceland
Sveinsson: I put newspaper on the floor and started unwinding the film.
Graphic: The recovered reels were a waterlogged copy of Village Detective (USSR 1969), starring the beloved Soviet actor Mikhail Zharov
Peter Bagrov, current curator, George Eastman Museum: He was known by 99 percent of this country. If we’re talking about Hollywood, it’s the level of popularity of a Humphrey Bogart or a Clark Gable.
Scene from Ivan the Terrible, part 2: “I would give my soul for the Tsar. I would go to hell if need by but remain faithful to the holy word of the Tsar.
Short clips from vintage Russian interspersed with clips of Lenin speaking and citizens demonstrating in the streets.
Graphic: He was the first to sing in Russian on film. He would go on to play some of the most beloved iconoclasts of Soviet cinema.
Description: Clips from Russian films from 1937 through 1943 illustrate this statement. Accordion music starts to be heard in the background and throughout rest of the trailer.
In 1942’s We Will Come Back, Zharov's character is described by another as “The Old Soldier who received so many wonderful honors from the Tsar-father, and suddenly a Bolshevik.”
Zharov to another actor in 1943’s In the Name of the Motherland: “I hate these Bolsheviks. I hate them more than I hate you,”
Zharov in 1942’s Fortress on the Volga: “Will do, Comrade Stalin,”
Description: Over damaged film from Village Detective, the graphic: From Bill Morrison, director of Dawson City: Frozen Time and Decasia
Graphic: Featuring a score by Pulitzer Prize and Grammy award winning composer David Lang
Graphic: The Village Detective: a song cycle
Top of page: image courtesy of Kino Lorber
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