Australian
Screen

Clip description

Upon their return from Paris, Christopher Houghton (Martin Jacobs) and Sorel Atherton (Angie Milliken) are greeted at the airport by their friends Jeremy Fliszar (Jacek Koman) and Meredith (Fiona Stewart). Scenes in Paris with a couple called Avery (Martin Jacobs) and Gillian (Angie Milliken) seem to describe what happened between Christopher and Sorel.

Curator’s notes

This sequence demonstrates What I Have Written’s third visual style, used mostly for scenes set in Paris. These desaturated still frames, accompanied by a voice-over, reference another film set in Paris, Chris Marker’s seminal short La Jetée (1962). Shifts in tone also come from the character’s voices. Christopher/Avery’s narration is melancholic, contemplative, self-absorbed. Jeremy’s lectures are cerebral and a little cold (see clip one). Sorel, in contrast, is more direct, her thoughts expressed through actions and dialogue. She drives the narrative with her search for the truth in her husband’s writings.

The use of still frames, in addition to its narrative function, is a creative response to the film’s low budget of $1.6 million. Beebe shot these scenes on Super 16 colour stock, continuously at six frames-per-second. The hundreds of still frames this generated were then reduced further in the editing process. Some sections, where more movement is introduced, were shot at 12 or (a more standard) 24 frames-per-second. Beebe shot on colour stock and the desaturated, black-and-white look was achieved in the film processing and grading. Occasional faint washes of colour show us that this is not straight black-and-white and add to the shifting, ambiguous feeling of these scenes.