The Mount (c.1997)

The Video & Text

The text is inspired by Heinrich von Kleist, Clemens Brentano and Ludwig Achim's `Verschiedene Empfindungen vor einer Seelandschaft von Friedrich, worauf ein Kapuziner' (published in the Berliner Abendblätter, 13 October 1810), and the poetry of Rilke. It is a set of meditations upon the role of the Rückenfigur (reversed figure/turned-away figure) in Caspar David Friedrich's work (specifically the Capuchin monk gazing over the sea in Friedrich's `Monk am Meer'(1809) in this instance) and the notion of depersonalisation as effected by viewing such works and/or the sublime in nature. The paintings of Friedrich were filmed in the original at Schloß Charlottenburg (Berlin) and the Hermitage (St. Petersburg). The visuals include several shots taken at the very places where Friedrich painted (e.g. on the island of Rügen on the Baltic coast), as well as footage shot in Tasmania's mountainous South-West region. The idea behind this was to draw attention to the similarity of much Northern Romantic painting and nineteenth-century views of the Australian landscape. Reconstructing these types of images within a video medium demanded an authenticity of source material, recuperating the historical facts of these ways of looking at landscape and the various tropes of romantic vision that they embody.

The Music

The idea behind `The Mount' was to emulate the sense of romantic yearning so prevalent in nineteenth-century music. Although, late in the twentieth century, certain aspects of romanticism have been treated with irony or distain, this piece attempts to recuperate some of these sentiments without becoming mired in cliché. The form is ternary and the harmony, tempo and melodic content is all quite slow moving. For instance, the harmony is very slow to move away from the tonic key, so as to create a sense of expectation. The harmonic extensions and suspensions also give a sense of delayed resolution and anticipation. In these respects the music contains references to Wagner, Mahler and, more contemporarily, Gorecki.

Note: This was the 'blurb' from the "Liminal" interactive CD-ROM (2000). The video was made on a Mac in c.1997, using 3D animation and compositing, with footage shot in St. Petersburg, Russia, Wine Glass Bay and Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, and on an island off Finland - as well as the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea (where Friedrich actually painted, in Northern Germany). The music was composed by Glenn Rogers, performed by Alistair Foote, Penelope Reynolds and Samantha Podeu. Voices by Peter Morse and Peter Hardy. Audio production by Alistair Dudfield. © Peter Morse 1997. It was hard work to make stuff on a desktop computer in those days...but it was fascinating!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Art
• Animation
• Short
• Film
• New
• Media
• Caspar
• David
• Friedrich
• Romanticism

[peteremorse]

Thank you - you're very welcome.

[BillTuckerMusic]

Very moving...

[BeteaMaia]

Thank you for this work. Ir's something of a rarity.

Very touching!