| << Front page | Arts | October 5, 2007 |
Copeland�s Film Depicts 9/11 in Terms of Art
Roger Copeland, Oberlin professor of theater and dance, screened his film The Unrecovered in New York on September 12 in honor of the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The film has been received as an intellectual and academic representation of the chaos that followed in the wake of that day. Prompted by dissatisfaction with the media�s representation of 9/11 in the years following the attack, Copeland sought to augment the bipartite discussion of �victimhood� and �heroism.�
The impetus of the film was a comment by the German composer
Karlhein Stockhausen, who told a reporter that the attacks in New York and Washington amounted to �the greatest work of art in Western History.� At the time, the attacks were both inconceivable
and unanticipated, which allowed them to span the chasm between the horrifyingly unpalatable
and the artistic. �It was a true leap of human imagination, no matter how perverse,� described Copeland.
The film was written, directed, produced and, at times, filmed by Copeland who began the project with little funds or equipment. Over the course of the five-year project, Copeland was able to gather funding, a cast and a staff to assist him in the development of the project. He considers The Unrecovered to be an understandably ambitious project that has proved �more satisfying than slick, unambitious successes.�
The film has been screened several times across the nation, including here at Oberlin in 2005. Most recently, it was shown during the NewFilmmakers Summer Series sponsored by the Anthology Film Archives in New York City, which is the third time the film has been shown in New York (previously screened at Columbia University and the Philoctetes Center).
Copeland found little problem with the screening itself; however, its coincidence with Rosh Hashanah proved to limit attendance. He noted that for the first time �no one walked out of the film.� He describes his three screenings in New York as �by far the most satisfying,� primarily due to a noticeable interest from the audience who engaged in �stimulating� and �gratifying� discussion following the film.
The film has been met with critical acclaim�most notably when it was reviewed by the Vanity Fair blog. James Wolcott, contributing editor to the magazine, gave an overwhelmingly positive review of the film: �Articulate and quirkily analytical, The Unrecovered suggests a cross between a Spalding Gray monologue and the digital scrapbooks of late period Jean-Luc Godard� For a word guy, Copeland knows how to tease the maximum meaning out of images and juxtapose them to achieve magic-realism.�
It was the aim of the filmmaker to provide for the audience a glimpse into the psychological travails that stemmed from the omnipresent paranoia that filled the minds of Americans in the wake of the attacks. In order to achieve this, Copeland utilized documentary footage in concert with a dystopian narrative. He relied on various experimental techniques to convey the assorted mental states of the three main characters. In order to delve into the thoughts of the three characters, Copeland divided the film into three parts, entitled �Sound and Silence,� �Wings and Roots� and �Fog and Fiction,� respectively. They tell the story of a young composer dealing with the notion of the attacks as art, a mother and daughter dealing with memories of an absent father and a conspiracy theorist attempting to make sense of the event. The narratives are intercut, furthering the fractured psychology of the work as a whole. Copeland acknowledges that the film is �brainy and difficult,� but strived to still make a work that is pleasing.
The film�s fractured psychological disposition has garnered accolades from major media sources such as The New York Times Magazine. In it Darcy Frey wrote, �it may be �experimental� and �non-narrative�, but somehow (and this is the film�s great achievement, in my opinion) it still provides a kind of traditional moviegoing thrill.� Robert Brustein of the New Republic referred to it as �the best thing yet about 9/11�s assault on our psyches.�
It is a film that attempts to intellectually and aesthetically engage its audience, telling a story that is as much about the tragedy itself as it is about the mind�s reaction to the unimaginable and the shocking. For Copeland the impact of the film is that the �the audience is left to ponder some rather striking similarities between creativity and paranoia. More specifically, The Unrecovered sets out to explore the way in which irony, empathy, and fear interacted with one another in the wake of 9/11.
The film was written, directed, produced and, at times, filmed by Copeland who began the project with little funds or equipment. Over the course of the five-year project, Copeland was able to gather funding, a cast and a staff to assist him in the development of the project. He considers The Unrecovered to be an understandably ambitious project that has proved �more satisfying than slick, unambitious successes.�
The film has been screened several times across the nation, including here at Oberlin in 2005. Most recently, it was shown during the NewFilmmakers Summer Series sponsored by the Anthology Film Archives in New York City, which is the third time the film has been shown in New York (previously screened at Columbia University and the Philoctetes Center).
Copeland found little problem with the screening itself; however, its coincidence with Rosh Hashanah proved to limit attendance. He noted that for the first time �no one walked out of the film.� He describes his three screenings in New York as �by far the most satisfying,� primarily due to a noticeable interest from the audience who engaged in �stimulating� and �gratifying� discussion following the film.
The film has been met with critical acclaim�most notably when it was reviewed by the Vanity Fair blog. James Wolcott, contributing editor to the magazine, gave an overwhelmingly positive review of the film: �Articulate and quirkily analytical, The Unrecovered suggests a cross between a Spalding Gray monologue and the digital scrapbooks of late period Jean-Luc Godard� For a word guy, Copeland knows how to tease the maximum meaning out of images and juxtapose them to achieve magic-realism.�
It was the aim of the filmmaker to provide for the audience a glimpse into the psychological travails that stemmed from the omnipresent paranoia that filled the minds of Americans in the wake of the attacks. In order to achieve this, Copeland utilized documentary footage in concert with a dystopian narrative. He relied on various experimental techniques to convey the assorted mental states of the three main characters. In order to delve into the thoughts of the three characters, Copeland divided the film into three parts, entitled �Sound and Silence,� �Wings and Roots� and �Fog and Fiction,� respectively. They tell the story of a young composer dealing with the notion of the attacks as art, a mother and daughter dealing with memories of an absent father and a conspiracy theorist attempting to make sense of the event. The narratives are intercut, furthering the fractured psychology of the work as a whole. Copeland acknowledges that the film is �brainy and difficult,� but strived to still make a work that is pleasing.
The film�s fractured psychological disposition has garnered accolades from major media sources such as The New York Times Magazine. In it Darcy Frey wrote, �it may be �experimental� and �non-narrative�, but somehow (and this is the film�s great achievement, in my opinion) it still provides a kind of traditional moviegoing thrill.� Robert Brustein of the New Republic referred to it as �the best thing yet about 9/11�s assault on our psyches.�
It is a film that attempts to intellectually and aesthetically engage its audience, telling a story that is as much about the tragedy itself as it is about the mind�s reaction to the unimaginable and the shocking. For Copeland the impact of the film is that the �the audience is left to ponder some rather striking similarities between creativity and paranoia. More specifically, The Unrecovered sets out to explore the way in which irony, empathy, and fear interacted with one another in the wake of 9/11.
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