Australian
Screen

Clip description

This clip features time-based portraits of patrons in an Erskineville pub and residents of an aged care facility in Campsie, Sydney.

Curator’s notes

Living Room explores a wide range of concepts of home and living space. Expanding the portraits beyond a single moment draws extra attention to the dynamic between camera and subject. As the subjects attempt to hold their poses, a range of thoughts and feelings seem to travel through their minds. The impact is sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and sometimes uncomfortable. Each set of portraits is introduced with a title identifying the day and place of their creation. Speaking with australianscreen in June 2009, Caesar said he was interested in specific moments ‘that people would extrapolate a world around’. Text quotations extend or subtly alter our perceptions. One woman’s comment about the space between her bed and her window is particularly moving.

Caesar shot Living Room on 35mm, hoping to improve on the photographic qualities of his earlier experimental documentary Shoppingtown (1987), which was shot on 16mm. Although Living Room had a low budget, the brevity of each shot and the film’s low shooting ratios meant he was able to use leftover 'short ends’ of film donated by friends who worked in advertising. Caesar shot for around ten days over a period of three or four months. He approached subjects by door-knocking, spotting them on the street and through word of mouth. Some shoots were pre-arranged, other subjects he filmed immediately after approaching them.