In my second year at Grad School I was taking Media History. We were watching films to learn about the conceptual and constructed components that go into the making of them.
Unlike many arts, films exude prophecy and memory. I would sit in the dark theatre and write in my heavy black sketchbook with the refrigerator white pages laid open. The pen scratched across the toothy paper but I could only hear the steadily increasing sine wave of piercing electronic sound; which accounts for the words below that are typed in capitals as I routinely thought of getting up to leave. The sound increased in pitch and volume slowly over a 45 minute period. I wrote and fought myself. Every few minutes someone left and I still don’t know how I sat through it. The sound was marginally muffled by thoughts of my grade point average and whether Fiona, our teacher, would mark me absent if I left before it ended. I recently read the sine wave contributes largely to the uncanniness of the film.
Here’s what was written by feeling my way along on the pages of my book as I wanted to emit the same sound as the sine wave:
Viewing “Wavelength” by Michael Snow
Extraordinarily loud traffic
(noice) noise.
empty apartment with bookcase.
strawberry fields playing and
the room turned pale red… for
a few minutes or a minute.
Traffic noise begins but the
window has been shut by 2
women that came in before &
have now left. Yellow, red —
orange, yellow-green trucks
make a loud noise s.
sunset in the window &
it comes into the room.
psychedelic colors paint
the interior white
light strikes the room.
Flash, lightening ? or
car lights shining in like
an angry dragon, no traffic
now and a foghorn playing
a long note & vibration —
color & vibration . white &
neutrals & negative exposure
pink cellophane windows
rose colored & white insanity
green gel interior . chalky
white dark with outdoors
showing through windows.
Daylight flashing & zoomed
in on room’s interior.
WHEN WILL THE NOISE STOP
The voice of the noise is
becoming hoarse . iciy blue
The noise will dye soon.
I meant die
The room is disappearing.
green shot popcorn. &
grainy film now perfectly
exposed with person on floor
What’s wrong with this picture?
klear whitewashed flashed
noise is annoying
a-noising dark red like
a burst body vessel. STOP IT
Tune out Tune off. TUNES
not much room left now.
a white blob passes.
and we just sit here &
take it!!
yellow chair yellow
light_ ‘ . _ Double ghost image
institution . office of
A d mission to a clinic for
nervous & mental breakdowns
In one ear & out the other .
Fading but not the sound.
A black phone appears &
I can call for help who’s
going to listen, who will
listen ?? LET ME OUT !?!
Clarity again in the image.
outdoor signs are visible
hardware store. In the left
ear now. nowpictures on
the wall. & woman dials phone.
she reports a dead person on
the floor in her room. She
becomes ghostly.
MY SINUSES ARE ACHING FROM
THE SOUND. White wall now.
pictures of 2 white forms of people
standing multiplied then became
only 2 again . now multiple &
floaty . Layers of the same
B & W picture (one over the other)
not quite aligned. mis-matched
out of synch . spaces between
your ears . Down that tunnel
that people who have a near-
death experience go . WORSE THAN
A TOOTHACHE when will this
noise be pulled or filled?? Conden-
sation on the glass window pane
and there is a squiggle drawn
in it. TURN UP THE PITCH BITCH
This sound is searing my
eyeballs & scraping my nerve
endings as fine lines
show up now vertically
on the screen (on the scream in my skull) . S/B 2
fine lines. sirens now on
top of this B & W photo of
water & rippley waves
becomes the picture & a
new noise is added like
a trolley bus starting away
from a curb . and a siren
at a distance ._ these two
combined . The texture of
the waves is full screen
but they do not move at all
SILENCE AT LAST. They
diffuse into mist. The END!
at last. no maybe not. Yes.
Some bold color blocks at
the fine.
Before watching a 10-minute version of “Wavelength” at the link below, scroll down on You Tube and get a load of the five or six comments. I hope you will watch it and go on to read the following link for a worthy explanation of what Canadian Filmmaker Michael Snow’s award-winning film is about. The “Aha!” moment follows Wikipedia’s article and discussions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzPwuP6AmCk
Wikipedia on “Wavelength”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength_(1967_film)
Bio of Fiona Bowie, my Media History teacher at Emily Carr University on Granville Island, Vancouver, B.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Bowie
Copyright © 2010 Nicole Rigets
