Avant-garde filmmaker Bill Morrison has been making films that combine archival footage and contemporary music for decades, and he has recently begun to receive substantial recognition: he was the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and his 2002 film Decasia was selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. This is the first book-length study of Morrison's work, covering the whole of his career. It gathers specialists throughout film studies to explore Morrison's "aesthetics of the archive"—his creative play with archival footage and his focus on the materiality of the medium of film.
| Acknowledgements |
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9 | (2) |
| Aesthetics Of The Archive: An Introduction |
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11 | (20) |
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1 Drafts And Fragments: Reflections Around Bill Morrison And The Paper Print Collection |
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31 | (20) |
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2 The Film Of Her: The Cine-Poet Laureate Of Orphan Films |
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51 | (18) |
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3 Ghost Trip: Searching For Potential Myths |
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69 | (15) |
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4 Decasia: the Matter|Image: film is also a thing |
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84 | (13) |
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5 The Mesmerist: Illustrating The Return Of The Repressed |
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97 | (12) |
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6 Light Is Calling: Celluloid Dreams |
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109 | (14) |
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7 Gotham: Zoetrope: Block By Block |
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123 | (14) |
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8 Outerborough: Early Cinema Revisited |
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137 | (14) |
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9 The Highwater Trilogy: Thinking The Liquid -- On The Ethics Of Water And The Material Ecologies Of Disaster And Ruination |
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151 | (16) |
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10 Porch: Archives, Collective Memory, And The Poetics Of Home Movies |
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167 | (10) |
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11 The Future Lasts Long: The Romanov Lost Family Archives |
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177 | (10) |
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12 Who By Water: Variations On Matter, Figures, Memory, And Mythology |
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187 | (12) |
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13 Every Stop On The F-Train: Beyond And Within The Restless Netherworld Of (Manhattan's) Mind |
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199 | (12) |
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14 Spark Of Being: Bachelor Machine |
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211 | (16) |
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15 The Miners' Hymns: Acts Of Resurrection |
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227 | (14) |
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16 Tributes -- Pulse: A Requiem For The 20th Century: Death | Drive | Image |
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241 | (12) |
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17 Just Ancient Loops: The Loops Of Life In Intonation |
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253 | (12) |
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18 The Great Flood: Water Is Transparence Derived From The Presence Of Everything |
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265 | (12) |
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19 Re-Awakenings: Bill Morrison In Conversation |
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277 | (12) |
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| Index of Film Titles |
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289 | (2) |
| Index of Names |
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291 | (4) |
| Index of Subjects |
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295 | |
Bernd Herzogenrath is professor of American Studies, Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main. Publications include: The Films of Bill Morrison (AUP 2017), Practical Aesthetics (Bloomsbury 2020), and Concepts (Bloomsbury 2022). He is (with Patricia Pisters) the main-editor of the series thinking
