Malcolm Le Grice (1940-2024)

An expand­ed film pie­ce, whe­re the film is inter­rup­ted by random flas­hes from a light bulb which is hung in front of the screen. 

I don’t like to think of an audien­ce in the mass, but of the indi­vi­du­al obser­ver and his beha­vi­or. What he goes through whi­le he wat­ches, is what the film is about. (Malcolm Le Grice)

Castle One com­bi­nes found foot­a­ge gat­he­red from bins out­si­de Soho’s film labs and a soli­ta­ry light bulb sus­pen­ded direct­ly in front of the screen itself. At inter­mit­tent points during the film, the light bulb is swit­ched on, obli­te­ra­ting the pro­jec­ted ima­ge and illu­mi­na­ting the spa­ce around it. Inspired by the wri­ting of Franz Kafka (the tit­le refers to Kafka’s novel Castle), and the painting/​installations of Robert Rauschenberg, Castle One pro­du­ces an alie­na­ting effect upon the audien­ce, pro­vo­king in them an awa­re­ness of the cine­ma spa­ce and a fee­ling of dis­tan­ce from the pro­jec­ted ima­ge. (James Harding)

“I cer­tain­ly thought Castle One was the most powerful film I’d seen, ever…” (Peter Gidal)

Berlin Horse assem­bles a poe­tic carou­sel of ima­ges which over­lap and trans­form into a brightly colo­red fina­le of two sequen­ces — one of a hor­se run­ning in cir­cles, being exer­ci­sed in a vil­la­ge near Hamburg, the other an ear­ly Edison news­reel of hor­ses being led from a burning sta­ble. Both were visu­al­ly trans­for­med and colo­red on the prin­ter at the London Film Makers Cooperative. The music was made for the film by Brian Eno who at the time was explo­ring, in sound, a simi­lar use of loops.

The first part is made from a small sec­ti­on of film shot by me in 8mm color, and later re-filmed in various ways from the screen in 16mm black and whi­te. The second part is made by tre­a­ting the black and whi­te news­reel – The Burning Stable (1896) – in the same way.

There was no ini­ti­al plan to the work – it devel­o­ped as I res­pon­ded to the pro­ces­ses of trans­for­ma­ti­on – rather in the man­ner of a Jazz impro­vi­sa­ti­on on a the­me. It is a kind of visu­al poe­tic dra­ma. (Malcolm Le Grice)

“A color-poem of immen­se lyri­cism” (Michael O’Pray)

There exists a sin­gle-screen and a les­ser-shown two-screen ver­si­on of the film. In its expand­ed form, the second screen has a black and whi­te ver­si­on of the film, stres­sing the color trans­for­ma­ti­ons for the vie­wer and high­ligh­ting the color print pro­cess that has taken place.

A pic­nic sta­ged and shot in one day with four per­for­mers who also shoot the film with four came­ras. The film is then pro­jec­ted from four pro­jec­tors cre­a­ting a devel­o­ping com­pa­ri­son bet­ween the acti­ons of the pro­ta­go­nists. (Malcolm Le Grice)

Filmed on four came­ras, Le Grice had each came­ra ope­ra­ted by one of the actors appe­a­ring in the film: Annabel Nicolson, Gill Eatherley, William Raban and Le Grice himself. The artist beco­mes a per­for­mer and the per­for­mers beco­me sta­ke­hol­ders in cre­a­ting the final pie­ce. This play­ful film is part­ly a record of a per­for­man­ce, docu­men­ting a lunch on the grass, after Manet’s famous pain­ting of 1863, and the Giorgione/​Titian 1509 pain­ting befo­re that.

There is a set of rules and a pre­ar­ran­ged sequen­ce of color, black and whi­te, nega­ti­ve and posi­ti­ve film. Each came­ra had sixteen 100-foot rolls of 16mm film in boxes which were taped together in a column in the order they were to be used. (Nicky Hamlyn)

After Manet was exhi­bi­ted at the Festival of Expanded Cinema at the ICA in London in 1976 and sub­se­quent­ly at Tate Modern’s exhi­bi­ti­on ​‘A Century of Artists’ Films’ in 2003/4.