Topical Guide 221
Mark Dorset
Photography: Time-Lapse
He stepped forward and addressed the Tars and parents in a raised voice.
“We all have to learn to leave the past in our wake, to move on, to go where the wind blows us, and roll with the swells. I’d like to say a few words about that before Peter continues. Many of you are in my science classes, so I know that you’ve seen that wonderful film of bean plants growing.”
All of us had. In the fifth and sixth grades, we left our ordinary classrooms for instruction in certain subjects that, I suppose, required talents ordinary teachers did not possess; these included music, art, and science. Everyone, at one time or another, saw the film that Mr. Summers was referring to; it was one of the attractions of elementary science instruction, along with the model volcano that actually erupted and the frank and baffling description of reproduction among bivalves. The bean-plant film had been made by photographing a pair of bean plants at one-hour intervals. The plants sprouted, grew, flowered, and bore beans in a few minutes, dancing jerkily to the ragged rhythms of short-lived phenomena, such as shifts of light and wind.Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
This is not the film that Mr. Summers was referring to. I couldn’t find that. Perhaps no one has ever digitized it. Here is a recent example of time-lapse photography of seeds sprouting:
See also: Photography TG 36; TG 110
The evening’s main attraction:
William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One. It’s got more layers than a glass onion. It’s a documentary about making a film, or about actors auditioning for roles in a film, but the film only “exists” as a pretense for making a documentary about making a film, or about actors auditioning for parts in a film, unless Symbiopsychotaxiplasm is the film, rather than a documentary about another film. In that case—that is, if Symbiopsychotaxiplasm is the film—then the actors playing the actors auditioning for parts in the film got the parts. Jump in. Follow Greaves down a rabbit hole in Central Park.
Preview it at The New Yorker.
You may be able to watch it on Kanopy, using your public library card or university login for free access. (However, films on Kanopy are available for a limited time, so its period of availability may have ended.)
[more to come on Wednesday, March 23, 2022]
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