"Decasia": The Beauty of Film Decay

tregoweth writes "The New York Times has a story about 'Decasia,' a film created entirely from deteriorating nitrate film footage. Ya can't beat analog for interesting disintegration."

Ha.... at least its still viewable.

[purduephotog]

Because if it was my digital VCR tapes from 8 years ago, the only thing they are good for is imitating sparklers when tossed in a fire.

Analog fails gracefully, digital fails catastrophically.

All they offer is a VHS copy

[Quazi]

I know it would defeat the whole point of the video, but I'd like it in DVD format. You don't want your own copy of this film to end up like all the ones it's portraying, do you?

Weird, but oddly appealing

[Zerbey]

This Morrison guy is clearly bonkers. Who would make a film out of disintegrating film stock? It's like filming a compost heap.

On the other hand, in the same way everyone (go on, admit it) slows down to take a look at a major road accident you just can't resist seeing how bad it really is.

I, for one will be tuning into Sundance when it airs - just for the pure morbid curiousity.

Re:Ha.... at least its still viewable.

[purduephotog]

One or Zero - your choice?

Interesting thought- now randomize them. Or make them .5 - as in can't tell the level. Leave a bunch out. Skip a few. Now throw in a compression algorithm. Whats this, missing pixels? Whacked Code Values (CV). Or worse yet,corrupt data that can't be read.

One or Zero indeed.

Re:Weird, but oddly appealing

[FattMattP]

Who would make a film out of disintegrating film stock?

Why would someone write the most obfuscated or smallest C code? Because they can. On top of that, it might turn out to be interesting or a learning experience.

People attempt to do something interesting and experimental and observe the results. Most of the time the results aren't great, but sometimes they are. You don't know until you try.

Most art is just visual hacking. Once you realize this it's easy to judge something on its merits and see through any pretense or bullshit that the artist has of himself. You'll also become less patient of prima donnas and have more respect for a modest, yet talented, artist.

Re:i don't see the point

[Qender]

It's not a science experement, It's an art film, I've seen it.

To translate it to a level of geek understanding, know anything about chaos theory? fractals? the art of a natural process? There is beauty in the way a chemically built image dies. The film is quite hypnotic. And anyone who says it can be done digitally has never seen truly decayed film.

It's like saying, Film a waterfall? can't they just use special effects to make fake water? I know they just want to test nature, and see if water actually falls.

Re:Ignorance of copyright

[Qender]

Speaking of ignorance...

Many films are no longer copywrited. Even more are totally lost. There are great film archives, several stories high, with rows upon rows of film canisters, mostly unmarked. If you open one up you can find a reel of flim, or you can find half a reel of film, the rest eaten away by insects living in the canister. Sometimes you open a film canister and find nothing but dust, the film deteriorated into a powdery and flammable substance.

Many of these old films are on silver nitrate film. Silver Nitrate isn't used anymore because of it's tendancy to burn down theaters when it catches fire when run through a hot projector.

Most of these films have no owners claiming them, no identifying pieces of information. The bits of film the bill morrison restored and edited into "decasia" are not sequences from old hollywood films. They are from documentaries, they are from personal films. And some of them look like nothing more than weird splotchy flashing covers.

I know this is slashdot, but not everything equates to copyrights.

Re:Ignorance of copyright

[captaineo]

Thanks for the info. Of course there is very little chance Morrison would actually get in trouble for collecting old film, but it's still no less an infringement than, say, distributing MP3s made from a newly-discovered tape of some music group you've never heard of. And here he's charging money for it!

(I dislike strong copyright as much as anyone else, I just think so much of the conduct the RIAA/MPAA/FCC are pounding on is just as harmless as gathering these old film clips...)

I'm sure if movie studios had thought of selling rights to post-decay film prints, they would all have gone to the highest bidder already :)...