THE MEMORY BUSINESS
An analytical essay on Steven Poliakoff's TV drama "Shooting The Past"
By Oliver Wood.
It employs a process of research which is primarily
forensic and therefor denotative. The more effective connotation of these
images is construed in their narrative juxtapositioning as a sort of parallel
montage of attractions, as opposed to the Oldendorph collection which seemed to
be more linear like a story board.
The connotative value and power of this small slice of the archive is
ostensibly a manifestation of the decanting of Oswald's more introspective and
prosodic talents. Again, the presentation is imbued with a sense of the
photograph as an ineluctable document of truth, or "evidence". There is no
question of fabrication or of any misconstruing. As with the Oldendorph photos
it is clear that this collection of pictures has come from right across the
archive and encompasses a broad range of subjects and authors, it includes many
images that would have appeared insignificant in isolation and now appear to be
vital cognitive stepping stones. The narrative presentation also serves to
recall the matrix of context and meaning.
The film concludes with Mr Anderson finally deciding to save the archive in
its entirety and thus retaining its functionality, though I believe it is to be
shipped elsewhere possibly to the USA. A situation that would have resonance's
with the Americans fondness for the wholesale purchase of other peoples relics
and setting them in inappropriate contexts. Oswald is now in a state of
convalescence following a near fatal overdose that has resulted in brain damage
and a consequent loss of normal speech capability. The photographs that Oswald
took of himself now acquire added poignancy as relics of all that he has lost
including the archive with which they are connected in a reflexive sense.
COPYRIGHT OLIVER WOOD 2001.
REFERENCES:-
1. McGuffin, Alfred Hichcock's term for the seminal
narrative device that clarifies the logic of the plot. ie Alex Delarge's
misappropriation of the Nietzscheian concept of "The Will to Power" in
Clockwork Orange.
2. Bazine André, What is Cinema, Vol 1, University of California Press
1967, p.9
3. Ibid. p.10
4. Ibid. p.14
5. Bolton Richard, The Contest of Meaning, MIT Press 1992, p.16
6. Ibid. p.16
7. Burgin Victor, Thinking Photography, Macmillan 1992, pp.86-87
8. Ibid. pp.86-87
9. Ibid. p91
10. Bolton Richard Op.cit.,p.15
11. Op.cit., p.17
BIBLIOGRAPHY:-
Bazine André, What is Cinema, Vol 1, University of California Press
1967
Bolton Richard, The Contest of Meaning, MIT Press 1992
Burgin Victor, Thinking Photography, Macmillan 1992
Rosenblum Naomi, A World History of Photography, Abberville Press 1997
Tagg John, The Burden of Representation, Macmillan 1998
Wollen Peter, Signs and Meaning in the cinema, Secker & Warburg 1998
© 2001 Oliver Wood Photographer