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Bill Morrison (director)

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Bill Morrison (born November 17, 1965) is an American, New York–based filmmaker and artist. His films often combine rare archival material set to contemporary music, and have been screened in theaters, cinemas, museums, galleries, and concert halls around the world.

Early life and career

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Morrison was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Reed College from 1983 to 1985, and graduated with a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in 1989. He received the President's Citation from Cooper Union[1] in 2016.

Morrison had a mid-career retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art, October 2014 – March 2015.[2] He is a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,[3] and has received the Alpert Awards in the Arts,[4] a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital,[5] and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2003).[6]

His theatrical projection design with Ridge Theater has been recognized with two Bessie Awards,[7] and an Obie Award.[8]

Morrison has collaborated with some of the most influential composers and performers including John Adams, Gavin Bryars, Bill Frisell, Philip Glass, Michael Gordon,[9] Henryk Górecki, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Kronos Quartet, David Lang, Steve Reich, Michael Harrison, Maya Beiser,[10] Julia Wolfe and Michael Montes among many others. Morrison has occasionally acted in other directors' films, notably Andrew Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation[11] and its quasi-sequel Peoples House.[12]

Accolades

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Decasia (2002), his feature-length collaboration with composer Michael Gordon, was selected by the Library of Congress to its National Film Registry in 2013,[13] becoming the first film of the 21st century selected to the list. It has been hailed by J. Hoberman as "the most widely praised American avant-garde film of the fin de siècle."[14] The director Errol Morris reportedly commented while viewing Decasia that "This may be the greatest movie ever made".[15] The film was originally commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta to be shown on three screens surrounding the audience, behind which 55 musicians performed Michael Gordon's score.

In 2011, Spark of Being, a collaboration with composer/trumpeter Dave Douglas, won The Douglas Edwards Experimental/Independent Film/Video Award at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards.[16]

In 2014, The Great Flood, a collaboration with composer/guitarist Bill Frisell, received the Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Award for Historical Scholarship.[17]

In 2016 Morrison presented the world premiere of Dawson City: Frozen Time in the Orizzonti section of the 73rd Venice International Film Festival,[18] and the North American premiere at the 54th New York Film Festival.[19] In 2017, The film was released by Kino Lorber,[20] and was named the Best Documentary of 2017 by the Boston Society of Film Critics,[21] was awarded a Critics' Choice Award for Most Innovative Documentary,[22] an International Documentary Association (IDA) Creative Recognition Award for Best Editing,[23] and was included on over 100 critics lists of the best films of 2017[24] and was later listed as one of the best films of the decade (2010s) by Associated Press,[25] Los Angeles Times,[26] Vanity Fair,[27] among others.[28] In 2019 it was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK by Second Run DVD.[29]

In 2023, Morrison's film Incident (30', 2023) won the Best Short Documentary Award of 2023 from the International Documentary Association[30] and the Best Short Film Award [31] at the first edition of the UnArchive Found Footage Festival in Rome.

Morrison's collected works through 2014 were released as a 5-disc box set from Icarus Films in September 2014,[32] and a 3-disc Blu-ray box set from the British Film Institute in May 2015.[33] In 2023 Re-Voir Video released a 15-film blu-ray set of Morrison's work entitled "Footprints".[34]

Critics have commented on the historical dimensions of Morrison's works. Writing about Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) in The New York Review of Books, Deborah Eisenberg noted, "It’s chastening to witness the pliant material of history as it’s being made and at the same time what that history has come to mean and what it has brought into being."[35] And in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Seth Fein observed that The Village Detective: A Song Cycle (2021) "clarifies how time itself has been the evolving preoccupation of Morrison’s works and, consequently, their most significant contribution, not simply to the history of film but to the practice of history."[36]

Filmography as director

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  • Incident (2023)[37]
  • Her Violet Kiss (2021)[38]
  • let me come in (2021)[39]
  • Buried News (2021)[40]
  • The Village Detective: A Song Cycle (2021)[41]
  • Curly's Thanksgiving (2020)
  • Cinematograph (2018)
  • Electricity (2018)[42]
  • The Unchanging Sea (2018)[43]
  • The Letter (2018)
  • Weaving (2018)
  • Dawson City: Postscript (2017)[44]
  • Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016)[45]
  • Little Orphant Annie (2016)
  • The Dockworker's Dream (2016)[46]
  • Back to the Soil (2014)
  • Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 (2014)[47]
  • The Great Flood (2013)[48]
  • All Vows (2013)
  • Re:Awakenings (2013)
  • Just Ancient Loops (2012)
  • Tributes - Pulse (2011)
  • The Miners' Hymns (2011)[49]
  • Spark of Being (2010)[50]
  • Release (2010)
  • Dystopia (2008)
  • Fuel (2007)
  • Who By Water (2007)
  • The Highwater Trilogy (2006)
  • How To Pray (2006)
  • Outerborough (2005)
  • Gotham (2004)
  • Light is Calling (2004)[51][52]
  • The Mesmerist (2003)
  • East River (2003)
  • Decasia (2002)[53]
  • Trinity (2000)
  • Ghost Trip (2000)
  • City Walk (1999)
  • The Film of Her (1996)[54]
  • Nemo (1995)
  • The World Is Round (1994)
  • The Death Train (1993)
  • Footprints (1992)
  • Photo Op (1992)
  • Lost Avenues (1991)
  • Night Highway (1990)

References

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  1. ^ "President's Citations Announced for 2016 Commencement | The Cooper Union". Cooper.edu. 2016-05-16. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  2. ^ "Bill Morrison: Re-Compositions". Moma.org. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  3. ^ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Bill Morrison". Gf.org. 2016-11-16. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  4. ^ "Bill Morrison | The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts". Herbalpertawards.org. 23 March 2013. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  5. ^ "Investing in Artists who Shape the Future". Creative Capital. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  6. ^ "Bill Morrison :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts". Archived from the original on 2015-05-31. Retrieved 2015-05-30.
  7. ^ Award Archive — The Bessies
  8. ^ "New York News, Food, Culture and Events". Village Voice. Archived from the original on 2015-06-09. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  9. ^ Michael Gordon / Ridge Theater "Lightning at our feet" - #3-YouTube
  10. ^ Maya Beiser performs Michael Harrison & Bill Morrison's "Just Ancient Loops" at Ojai Music Festival on Michael Harrison's official YouTube channel
  11. ^ Mutual Appreciation (2005)-IMDB
  12. ^ Peoples House (Video 2007)-IMDB
  13. ^ "Cinema with the Right Stuff Marks 2013 National Film Registry | Library of Congress". Loc.gov. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  14. ^ "The Poetry of Decay". Village Voice. 2007-01-16. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  15. ^ Lawrence Weschler (2002-12-22). "Sublime Decay". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  16. ^ "LAFCA". Archived from the original on 2015-07-04. Retrieved 2015-05-31.
  17. ^ "Coming to Terms With One of America's Greatest Natural Disasters | Innovation". Smithsonian. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  18. ^ 73rd Venice International Film Festival#Horizons
  19. ^ "Dawson City: Frozen Time - NYFF54".
  20. ^ "Dawson City: Frozen Time".
  21. ^ "2017 winners". Boston Society of Film Critics. Retrieved February 21, 2018.
  22. ^ "Documentary Awards - Critics' Choice Awards". Archived from the original on 2017-11-12. Retrieved 2017-11-06.
  23. ^ "IDA Documentary Awards 2017: Nominees". 16 October 2017.
  24. ^ "Dawson city: frozen in time". Retrieved February 21, 2018.
  25. ^ "'Tree of Life' tops AP's best 10 films of the decade". AP News. 2019-12-13. Retrieved 2024-01-04.
  26. ^ "The best movies of the decade: Kenneth Turan and Justin Chang's essential picks". Los Angeles Times. 2019-12-30. Retrieved 2024-01-04.
  27. ^ "The 10 Best Movies of the 2010s: Richard Lawson's List". Vanity Fair. 2019-11-26. Retrieved 2024-01-04.
  28. ^ "Glenn Kenny: 15 Favorite Films of the Decade". www.yearendlists.com. 2019-11-25. Retrieved 2024-01-04.
  29. ^ Second Run - Dawson City
  30. ^ "IDA Documentary Awards 2023 Winners & Nominees | International Documentary Association".
  31. ^ "Awarded films of the 1st edition of UnArchive Found Footage Fest". Experimental Cinema.
  32. ^ "Bill Morrison: Collected Works (1996 - 2013)". icarusfilms.com/if-morr. 2014-10-09. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  33. ^ "Buy Bill Morrison: Selected Works 1996-2014 (Blu-ray) - BFI". Shop.bfi.org.uk. Retrieved 2016-11-21.
  34. ^ "Footprints". Retrieved 2024-01-04.
  35. ^ Eisenberg, Deborah. "After the Gold Rush | Deborah Eisenberg". ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 2022-09-19.
  36. ^ Fein, Seth (2022-08-30). ""The East Village Detective: On Bill Morrison's Historical Poetics"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2022-09-19.
  37. ^ "Incident – Films".
  38. ^ "Her Violet Kiss". IMDb.
  39. ^ https://www.laopera.org/performances/upcoming-digital-performances/let-me-come-in/ [bare URL]
  40. ^ "What a Century-Old Film Found in Permafrost Says About Race in the US Today". 6 May 2021.
  41. ^ "The Village Detective: A song cycle".
  42. ^ Bill Morrison | Electricity -- Behind the scenes by Welcome Collection on YouTube
  43. ^ New Music, New Stories From Century-Old Celluloid : Deceptive Cadence : NPR
  44. ^ Dawson City: Frozen Time (Blu-ray): DVD Talk Review of the Blu-ray
  45. ^ Director Bill Morrison-Filmstruck on YouTube
  46. ^ New Music, New Stories From Century-Old Celluloid : Deceptive Cadence : NPR
  47. ^ Icarus Films
  48. ^ Icarus Films
  49. ^ Icarus Films
  50. ^ "LAFCA". Archived from the original on 2017-11-23. Retrieved 2015-05-31.
  51. ^ CSO Sounds & Stories-Michael Gordon on 'The Light Is Calling'
  52. ^ Light Is Calling (SD)-YouTube
  53. ^ Icarus Films
  54. ^ "The Film of Her". Icarus Films. Retrieved March 29, 2020.
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