| Affliction
by Russell Banks The heart of Russell Banks’ novel deflates the myth that all things in society are brought about by the design of a few, the seductive shining path of conspiracy theory. Sheriff Wade Whitehouse simply can’t understand that some events, however tragic and avoidable, aren’t necessarily connected in any way; or as our dad has said, “Sometimes shit happens, and that’s all there is to it.” This is the dark intestine hidden under the pretense of most theorizing, which acts as a glorified blame game and a kind of religion: the idea that most things happen for a reason, even if that reason is malevolent, is far more comforting than the alternative, which is that the bizarre, mysterious workings of God can never be comprehended by human minds. Visually our sparsest (and perhaps most hypnotic) piece, our goal was to create a kind of tension and anticipation, as the viewer is stuck at an endless holding pattern over an initially unrecognizable object in an extreme close-up. This movement is meant to parallel the cyclical tunnel vision that Wade experiences throughout the book, and the fleeting stabs of images that appear in thirds represent momentary breaks in the fixation on his conspiracy theories. The video in essence is the mutant child of Ken Burns and David Lynch, the slow zoom out devised to suck in the viewer. |
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