From: Mark Toscano (email suppressed)
Date: Fri Feb 20 2009 - 18:42:47 PST
Can't say for certain Bruce never did some variation of the film like what you're describing, but I don't think so. The version you describe sounds like the film as I've always known it. And some descriptions I've read from mid-'70s screenings seem to suggest it's generally been the same throughout the years.
The first soundtrack piece is actually a Patrick Gleeson piece (not natural sound of the bomb or anything) and the second is Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air.
The + is, at least in part, a sort of re-centering device for the viewer, not to mention, I think, a pretty complex and suggestive metaphor. Bruce was always a master of suggestion, playing it both subtly and extremely unsubtly, which I've always loved.
Actually, I've always wondered if Bruce had at all been influenced by the Xs in Snow's La Region Centrale.
Mark T
--- On Fri, 2/20/09, k. a.r. <email suppressed> wrote:
> From: k. a.r. <email suppressed>
> Subject: [FRAMEWORKS] Question about Crossroads
> To: email suppressed
> Date: Friday, February 20, 2009, 5:59 PM
> Hello everyone.
> Last night at the New Nothing there was a Bruce Conner
> screening.
> They screened 8 of Bruce's films, all in 16mm. (yay!
> Thanks Rock!!!!)
>
> Crossroads clocked in at 38 minutes, but it seemed
> different than I remember.
> (I haven't seen it in probably 15 or 17 years, since
> the good old days of UW-Milwaukee
> mandatory weekly screenings.)
>
> Last night Crossroads consisted of 2 parts. The first was
> the bomb explosion footage,
> with the real sound of the planes and explosions.
> The second part was the bomb footage again, some the same,
> but some different,
> and with some mellow instrumental music.
> In the beginning, and before the second part there was a
> bit of black leader with a white +.
>
> What I remember is a part that was silent? that had the +
> in white, but the four quadrants of it
> got filled in with the explosion footage.
> There were four explosions happening at once in the 4 parts
> of the cross.
>
> So am I remembering it wrong, or am I thinking of a
> different film with atomic bomb explosions?
>
> Any insight greatly appreciated,
> sincerely,
> Kristie
>
>
>
>
>
> Kristie Reinders, B.F.A.
>
> Director of Cinematography, Electric Visions
>
> Curator and Head Projectionist, Electric Mural Project
>
> The Mission, San Francisco, CA
>
>
>
> 'A first class technician should work best under
> pressure.'
>
> - - - Issac Asimov
>
>
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> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.