Richard Serra throwing sculptures around while everyone talks over each other? Art school fever dream.
The protagonists’ astounding verbal gymnastics and often incomprehensible interactions tend to descend into nonsense, and with the syncopated rhythm of its action and dialogue, this film is reminiscent of the playful and parodying elements of the Beat fantasy Pull My Daisy. The interweaving of documentary and fiction with the syncopated rhythm of its action and dialogue presents an absurd buzz of activity reminiscent of Beckett’s abstract comic grotesque.
Direction
Robert Frank treating chaos like a compositional element.
Practical Effects
Richard Serra literally hauling lead around like it's nothing.
Editing
Syncopated cuts that refuse to let you settle in.
Director
Robert Frank
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This is basically the visual equivalent of a jazz riff—Frank, a photographer, adapting the Beat spontaneity of 'Pull My Daisy' to the SoHo art scene of the mid-70s.
Serra was already famous for his massive steel works; here he's performing the inverse—fragile, throwable, almost anti-sculpture.
US
