Face-Script: Part 1

This work is structured around a brief moment in a documentary film (Let There Be Light, 1946) in which an unnamed man looks back at the camera. The documentary intentionally foregrounds the multi-racial make up of returning soldiers suffering from psychiatric trauma of war at a time prior to desegregate of the army and showing actual patients emotional responses. This close up image of a face is held and repeated in multiple variations of duration and accompanied by an improvised and minimalist guitar soundtrack. A shifting grid pattern registers and defines this face in relation to the screens surface and the audiences gaze. Pressing the audience into a face to face relationship with the unknown subject in the psychiatric hospital, to reflect upon the ethics of seeing and being seen. This emotional encounter is fundamental to the construction of empathy and a sense of responsibility for the subjects. This is a two part work exploring what lies between a close up image of an unknown man and the instantly recognizable face of the celebrity actor recreating him?

https://filmfreeway.com/Face-ScriptPart2