Projects
City Symphonies with film maker Bill Morrison
Throughout film history, composers and film makers have embraced the art of combining music and film — from Ballet Mécanique by George Antheil and Fernand Léger to Koyaanisqatsi by Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass. In 1999, a particularly fruitful marriage between film and music commenced with the premiere of City Walk by Bill Morrison and Michael Gordon.
'I shot a film from a car driving up Flatbush Avenue and across the Manhattan Bridge without having heard the music,' Morrison relates, 'and [Michael] wrote the music without having seen the film...I’m not sure we had even met each other before it was performed.'
Throughout their near decade of collaboration, Gordon and Morrison have premiered (depending on how one counts them) 13 collaborations, including Decasia (2001), Gotham (2004), Light Is Calling (2004), and Who By Water (2006).
Film and music both exist as temporal expressions. In some respects it is this fleeting, momentary experience that binds the two artforms. 'As soon as you see it, it becomes part of the past,' Morrison suggests in reference to his films, 'at no point can we freeze a moment and hold on to it.' For Morrison, his art embodies this experience: 'I try to make films that can be understood in the moment, in which any given shot contains the greater concept. At the same time, I want the collection of scenes and their ordering [to] be understood as a whole, if not necessarily a sequential whole.'
This temporal quality extends further into the relationship. Morrison feels his and Gordon’s art connect on a level beyond the moment — a timelessness which they both contain.
'There is a great majesty in Michael’s work,' Morrison explains, 'It is enormously forceful. And while it is unmistakably contemporary music, there is a timeless quality to it. It perseveres. I believe that this quality may relate to, and enhance, the old decaying footage I employ.'
Their most recent collaborations, Dystopia (2007) and Gotham (2004) are half hour symphonies that draw their inspiration from a specific American city. In Dystopia, 'as with Gotham,' Morrison explains, 'I am using both archival and original footage...Unlike Gotham, which was set in New York, I don’t live in Los Angeles. So the piece naturally has an outsider’s sensibility to it.' However, for Morrison, many of the same issues apply. As with New York (Gotham), he is informed by the changing nature of Los Angeles (Dystopia). 'I see [LA] as a melting pot of extremes. But...I am not trying to make a political film that would distract from Michael’s music or make it the soundtrack to my LA diatribe. I am trying to support the music, and at the same time respond to a very complicated city.'
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