The first "film" was actually a collection of four short films from Alan Berliner, who has directed a handful of very famous, very well respected documentaries over the past twenty years. These short films predate his feature-length doc work and establish his controlled, purposeful editing style in a really remarkable way. All four of the films are a hodgepodge of seemingly unrelated images linked together with sound and editing. Most are related to themes of urban sprawl, the destruction of nature, human history, technology, life and death.
The first of the four films was my favorite, and I think it was the strongest. "City Edition," made in 1980 manages to sum up all of 20th Century American history through headlines from the morning newspaper. Striking black and white images of nuclear explosions, religious ceremonies, sports legends, political marches, protests, wars, violence, destruction, natural disasters, musical icons, great film moments, and urban sprawl blend with sounds of the last 100 years in a very poetic way.
Berliner is very playful in his editing style, creating stark tonal shifts without giving away too much. It seems as if he reached into a footage grab bag and pulled out a few rolls of film and was told to splice everything together. In fact, there are pieces of footage that appear in all four of his films. Yet somehow, Berliner manages to create very interesting stories by exaggerating sounds, placing things where they don't belong, building melodies and music out of disharmonious noises and sounds from nature, and editing with a strong, clear vision.
Editing has always been a fascinating subject to me, and Berliner's use of Soviet montage is inspiring. I won't claim to understand every cut he makes or every sound he chose, but Berliner's techniques are beautiful, remarkable, clever, and often terrifying. This guy knows what he's doing.
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