Fiction

AMERICAN FALLS

Phil Solomon
USA 2010
55 min
V'11

American Falls was inspired by a trip that I took to Washington at the invitation of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1999, where I first encountered Frederick Church’s great painting “Niagara”; took note of a multichannel video installation by Jennifer Steinkamp, projected onto the walls of the Corcoran rotunda. (...) The architecture of the rotunda in the vicinity of “Niagara” invited me to muse on creating an all-enveloping, manmade “falls”. (Phil Solomon)

Phil Solomon chemically alters photographic imagery to create a thick celluloid impasto that infuses footage with profound emotional resonance. For American Falls, Solomon rifles through a collective memory fashioned from both fact and fiction, mixing elements from newsreels, actualities and narrative films in a monumental retelling of American history which draws parallels with and reflects upon the current state of the nation. Houdini, Harold Lloyd, Keaton and King Kong commingle with presidents, gold-diggers, railroad barons and the civil rights movement. Originally conceived as a 360-degree installation around the walls of the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s rotunda, the work has been reconfigured for the cinema as a panoramic view in triptych, with surround-sound mix by composer Wrick Wolff. (Mark Webber)

This film is part of the program Films by Martin Arnold.

Credits
  • Phil Solomon
  • Phil Solomon
  • Wrick Wolff
  • Robert Rich
  • Phil Solomon
  • Wrick Wolff
  • Phil Solomon
Phil Solomon

Phil Solomon

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