Artists are still taking cues from Mr. Cornell by making spliced films out of discarded, decaying film stock. Thanks in part to Michael Gordon's soundtrack, the emphasis in Bill Morrison's Decasia seems to be a bit more on producing an alienating, disquieting atmosphere; nonetheless, it is mesmerizing and very beautiful--not only in its evocative treatment of these disintegrating windows on the past, but the decay itself has a formal, abstract life of its own. In fact, it is the interaction between these two aspects that makes the film so compelling. This film also brings to mind the work of the Brothers Quay, The Starn Twins (who grew up not five miles from my childhood home in South Jersey, a seaside region whose species of salt air-induced decay likely affected their work) and especially Christian Boltanski.
Some footage from Decasia:
http://www.decasia.com/clip1.html
http://www.decasia.com/clip2.html
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