MARTIN ARNOLD
Born in 1959, Vienna (Austria) Lives in Vienna.
Deanimated, 2002
Video, 59'.
Courtesy of the Martin Janda gallery, Vienna.
In making his work Deanimated, the experimental filmmaker Martin Arnold manipulated the Joseph H. Lewis film The Invisible Ghost (1941, with Bela Lugosi), a darkly haunting and complex fantastical detective story. The film follows a man tormented by the memory of his late wife. Whilst living with his daughter in a mansion, a series of deaths begin to occur. Characteristic of this artist, his treatment of the subject is at once simple, radical and precise. Here, through the use of infography, it consists of silencing certain actors, sealing their lips and making them disappear one by one from the image whilst assiduously conserving the shot order and structure of the original film. Working with themes of the vague and indistinct, of invisibility, as well as of apathy, fatigue, anonymity, sleepwalking and disappearance, Martin has ultimately developed a film that is both minimalist and metaphysical, in which the narration tends towards complete abstraction. In a move against that of the classical, logical screenwriter, one’s comprehension is dispelled as the film progresses, ending with long and mysterious shots of the totally deserted mansion.
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