Damaged by exposure to rain-water and a searing sun, two reels of black and white motion picture film have been found, each canister etched with cuneiform letters that read, “Property of Beat Circus, Boston, MA.” Un-swamped in Rural, Mississippi, the film has been dated to the early twentieth century. Strange and otherwise unclassifiable orchestral pieces accompany each of these motion picture vignettes, operating as silent film soundtracks.
The first film “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” captures a jolly scene of recreation and exercise: a plump woman jumping on a trampoline. She is jovial and basks in the summer rays understood only as white streaks that graze her hair. The speed of the movement from one frame to the next is marred, and the woman jumps out of pace with a cantering duo of bass and accordion. Nonetheless a trombone successfully belts out each bulge of the trampoline as it absorbs the woman’s figure. If her back were not to the camera it might be possible to discern whether or not she is singing; is she the origin of the hymnal matron voices that, on the chorus, join a lilting gentleman’s?
The second reel is more damaged than the first. Entitled “Boy From Black Mountain” the film centers on a woman tying a ribbon, presumably party garnish, around a wide redwood tree. Again, the speed of the frame movement has been compromised, and the film moves slowly alongside an acoustic guitar and an ambling bass. As the music picks up speed, riding a pecking crescendo of violin and vocals, the woman’s movement remains delayed. An orb of bleach white, certainly the effect of sun damage, gathers around her head. Her head swathed in a halo of light, the violin and female vocals surge upwards, heavenly in their lightness and will.
Come claim what’s been lost and is now found. Beat Circus plays on Wednesday, July 28 at Church.
