Bill Morrison

A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.

A scene from The Bells (1926) is optically reprinted and edited to Michael Gordon's 7 minute composition. A meditation on the fleeting nature of life and love, as seen through the roiling emulsion of an film. (imdb plot summary)

Originally written by Alexandre Chatrian and Emile Erckmann in 1871, Le Juif Polonais was first adapted into a feature length silent film by James Young, who directed The Bells in 1926, starring Lionel Barrymore and newcomer Boris Karloff. The copyrights to this film fell into the public domain in 2001. A deteriorated print of The Bells was re-edited into this short film, The Mesmerist. (Bill Morrison)

This is an excerpt from the 60-minute film commissioned for Conrad Cummings's opera of the same title, which was produced by Ridge Theater and staged at La Mama, NYC, in June, 1992.

Bill Morrison's animated film originally produced for the opera "The Manson Family."

The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in American history. Using minimal text and no spoken dialog, filmmaker Bill Morrison and composer - guitarist Bill Frisell have created a powerful portrait of a seminal moment in American history through a collection of silent images matched to a searing original soundtrack. (imdb)

A re-imagining of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', using images culled from archives around the world. (imdb)

The Miners' Hymns celebrates social, cultural, and political aspects of the extinct industry. Focusing on the Durham coalfield located in northeastern England, it depicts the hardship of pit work, the role of Trade Unions in organizing and fighting for workers' rights, the years of increased mechanization and the annual Miners' Gala in Durham. (Icarus Films)

'Just Ancient Loops' employs high resolution scans of ancient nitrate footage, as well as newly created CGI renderings of space to depict different views of heaven. Original musical score by Michael Harrison, performed by cellist Maya Beiser. (Anonymous)

Sourcing original 35mm nitrate footage, filmmaker Bill Morrison pieces together a unique visual exploration of WWI from footage that has never been viewed by modern audiences, and will never be seen again outside of this film. Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov created the haunting score, commissioned and performed by the Kronos Quartet. (imdb)

Dawson City: Frozen Time, pieces together the bizarre true history of a collection of some 500 films dating from 1910s - 1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory, in Dawson City, located about 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle. (imdb)

Drawing from Portugal's rich heritage of shipping, trade, and exploration, 'The Dockworker's Dream' takes the viewer on a journey downriver, into port, into factories, towns, and families, and out into the great unknown. (imdb)

A split-screen extrapolation of 1899's Across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Based on the story of Howard Walls, a clerk at the Library of Congress who saved a collection of early paper reel films from the incinerator, director Bill Morrison embellishes the tale a bit in this inspired short work.

Singer-songwriter Slink Moss plays an unidentified driver in this short film by director Bill Morrison. Traveling in a Cadillac hearse, Moss explores the country until his car will go no more in what ultimately can be described as a warped road movie. (filmstruck.com)

Summertime is fun time for director Bill Morrison, who shows footage of families enjoying summer activities with a melancholy musical accompaniment written by Julia Wolfe in this unsettling short film.

A Bill Morrison short film with music composed by Michael Gordon, this reflective work shows archival footage of passengers on ocean liners staring back at the camera in stark black and white. (filmstruck.com)

Hoping to catch a glimpse of notorious gangster Al Capone as he was being transferred from Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary to Chicago, IL on March 17, 1930, a crowd gathered outside the state institution and was subsequently filmed by a camera crew. (filmstruck.com)

An early Bill Morrison short, in this work he traverses an urban landscape utilizing high contrast black and white footage. The bustling nature of the setting is complimented by the energetic music by Michael Gordon. (filmstruck.com)

One of the high-water marks of director Bill Morrison's career, in this short film told in three parts he shows natural disasters as seen in archival footage. Displaying the devastation enacted by icebergs, hurricanes and floods, the striking period imagery is complimented by music composed by David Lang and Michael Gordon. (filmstruck.com)

Commissioned by New York Live Arts, this Bill Morrison short film with music by Philip Glass shows the work of Dr. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist who spent time working with those suffering from encephalitis lethargica, a debilitating illness that leaves the infected in a near catatonic state. (filmstruck.com)

Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland, July 9, 2016. The surprising discovery of a canister —containing four reels of The Village Detective (Деревенский детектив), a 1969 Soviet film—, caught in the nets of an Icelandic trawler, is the first step in a fascinating journey through the artistic life of film and stage actor Mikhail Ivanovich Zharov (1899-1981), icon and star of an entire era of Russian cinema. (themoviedb.org)