Page 124 - Expanded Photography

Expanded Photography Bob Cotton 124/146
James Sibley Watson + Melville Webber: The Fall of the House of Usher 1928
Yet another of the amazing avant garde polymaths of this period (think of Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Luiz Bunuel), James Sibley Watson was a doctor of medicine, a publisher, photo- grapher, experimental film-maker, and by dint of his considerable inheritance (his grandfa- thers were creators of Western Union Telegraph), a philanthropist too. Watson and Webber’s 1928 short film based on the Edgar Allen Poe story is a smorgasbord of experimental film- making, and fits well alongside the European avant garde films produced by Leger, Vertov, Walter Ruttman and others at this time. But, like Florey’s Love of Zero, Usher is a narrative film, made with considerable efforts to use lens, camera and filmic special effects to illustrate and amplify the story and to reflect the psychological impact of plot upon the main charac- ters, and the spectator. Watson and Webber experiment with prismatic and other distorting fil- ters, make multiple exposures (centre above)and (their most original contribution) experiment with distorted, floating gothic letterforms to amplify parts of the narrative. Their achievements in this film (and others like Lot in Sodom 1932) have established their position in the history of the American avant garde film.
https://vimeo.com/34810401