Uses - Text 6
An archaeology of the equipment manufactured by Paillard shows a singular family line: from music boxes to typewriters to calculating machines, the ancestors of the modern-day computer, all these devices made possible combinations (of sounds, words or figures) and thus the computational possibilities of these machines in the quest for poetic language. For Notes on the Circus (1966), Jonas Mekas literally plays with an instrument which composes and recomposes photograms according to its own mechanical program. Mekas gives us three successive representations of the Ringling Brothers circus, filming different parts of the show each time. Each shot becomes an opportunity to use a different feature of the camera: he modifies the shooting speed, uses the frame-by-frame shooting feature, rewinds the film to create superimpositions, etc. Apart from assembling the reels shot in this manner, the editing was carried out in camera, by the camera, and Mekas could see the result only after having developed the film.
In the booklet accompanying his film Walden. Diaries, Notes and Sketches (1968), Mekas relates that Notes on the Circus was the favourite film of the children of Stan Brakhage, another experimental American filmmaker. One day, their father took them to the same circus, which they loved so much. They did not recognize it as Mekas’ circus, and were so disappointed that they did not want to stay until the end of the show. After the chance superimpositions and juxtapositions of images derived from the machine’s rigorous program, capturing the circus’ sensations, its headiness, speed and dizzying effect, reality could only disappoint Brakhage’s children. In this way, the Bolex creates marvellous effects out of the simplicity of an amateur camera, which is another way of conceiving our connection to reality. This conception is part and parcel of the Paillard tradition, because one could already easily produce small or large symphonies by rewinding the spring of a music box.
