Reverse Wild Bunch - excerpt from JAVRIL on Vimeo.
Reverse Wild Bunch, 2015
Scenes of bloody shootouts are a common cinematic trope. Their prevalence has perhaps led to a certain obliviousness to the finality that death produces. In Reverse Wild Bunch the deaths are dramatically reversed. By showing an elaborate shootout scene from a classic film, but in reverse, we see a miracle occurring: the dozens of casualties are re-animated and brought back to life. The action in this video demonstrates the drama of Hollywood, of cinema, the physical drama of the human gesture. The movements are transformed into a dramatic choreography, where the magic and the fakery of Hollywood are laid bare. All the action is amplified in this impossible scene that reverses a representation, a sort of temporal mirror. It is recognizable, yet completely strange.
The original material for this video work is taken from Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 production The Wild Bunch. The epic Western movie depicts gangs of hard men surviving on the Mexico/US borderlands as they try to adapt to the modern world that is growing up around them.
The duration of this video is 14'26. A preview is shown on this page.
Scenes of bloody shootouts are a common cinematic trope. Their prevalence has perhaps led to a certain obliviousness to the finality that death produces. In Reverse Wild Bunch the deaths are dramatically reversed. By showing an elaborate shootout scene from a classic film, but in reverse, we see a miracle occurring: the dozens of casualties are re-animated and brought back to life. The action in this video demonstrates the drama of Hollywood, of cinema, the physical drama of the human gesture. The movements are transformed into a dramatic choreography, where the magic and the fakery of Hollywood are laid bare. All the action is amplified in this impossible scene that reverses a representation, a sort of temporal mirror. It is recognizable, yet completely strange.
The original material for this video work is taken from Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 production The Wild Bunch. The epic Western movie depicts gangs of hard men surviving on the Mexico/US borderlands as they try to adapt to the modern world that is growing up around them.
The duration of this video is 14'26. A preview is shown on this page.