separate aesthetic plains, both invoke the identity of the original
historical objects that serve as their inspirations while imposing new
meanings on the basis of their historicity. Forgive the verbose
thesis, which came to me as I contemplated the relationship between
both films screened in last week's class and then considered them in
light of this week's reading. In "Change Mummified," Philip Rosen
considers William Morris's argument in favor of architectural
preservation over restoration, concluding that preserving an object
and allowing the wear of time to remain intact "brings the spectator
into engagement with the corrosiveness of the ever-continuing
temporality" (Rosen 53). Both of these films confront temporality
head-on with distinct strategies. As Andy Urich notes in an earlier
post, "The Mesmerist" has a closer relationship to Ray's notion of the
baroque than Bordwell's persistent need for empiricism, which is
satisfied by Gregorio Roccha's archival detective work in "Pancho
Villa." However, Morrison does rely on precise historical data to
inform his creative tangents, making "The Mesmerist" closer to a
Bordwellian vision of film history than a cursory viewing reveals.
Morrison appropriates the original content of "The Mesmerist" by using
preceding a title card containing the actors' names with another one
containing his own. As a result, he creates an equation of the past
and present, imposing his authorship onto the film while identifying
(and thereby separating) the source material from his retroactive
interpretation of it. Thus, while the anti-Semitic qualities of the
fragment at hand presage the Holocaust, we are constantly aware that
this foreshadowing emerges from Morrison's innovative use of
deteriorating film. He retains an important dichotomy between his own
agenda and the ambiguous intentions of the original product.
Rocha follows this same trajectory in a more explicit fashion. He aims
to take images of the past and "make them mine," a feat accomplished
through his lengthy quest. The elusive Pancho Villa film endured
several forms of historical value over the course of century: It was
intended as documentation when Villa commissioned it, meaning that its
core definition resulted from Villa's personal outlook. As the film's
production history became an object of familial speculation, a kind of
folk tale passed through the generations, Villa's own needs mattered
less than the severe wartime conditions under which the film was
produced. Rocha's interest in the film involves Villa's perspective,
the "folklore" aspect, and the filmmaker's own archival obsessions. As
a result, "The Lost Reels of Pancho Villa" reflects the imposition of
Rocha's own historical yearning on the preexisting value of the
material at hand, a description equally applicable to Morrison and
"The Mesmerist."
-Eric Kohn
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