Portraits In Dramatic Time
2011
Process Pictures
Commissioned by the 2011 Lincoln Center Festival, “Portraits In Dramatic Time” features 45 hyper-slow-motion art films. featuring performances of theater artists and actors from an array of genres and cultural backgrounds both well known and under-recognized. The films premiered on a 100 foot screen on the facade of the New York State Theater, where they screened nightly for the month of July.
Some of the scenes were developed in improvised collaboration with the actors, while others harked back to past works of art, or characters from plays, film, history or popular culture. The performers acted out these theatrical scenes and personae using elements of their respective crafts and techniques, all enhanced with costumes, production design, makeup and lighting. Each ten-second scene was put together like a Swiss watch, with every beat and detail carefully wrought and placed. Every detail of a scene matters when you’re recording it at several thousand frames per second, as details will play back with sometimes surprising levels of nuance. Sometimes I think of hyper-slowmotion as a form of X-Ray: it really does reveal to us things that are under the surface.
As essentially slow-motion silent movies, movement and gesture are central to this work, But so, too, are the layers of well-crafted emotion (in a variety of modes, both eastern and western), and dramaturgy. Denis Diderot said that a good piece of theater functions like a painting and a good painting must also have elements of a plot. The art of these works in video is located between the twin poles of animation and immobility, movement and stasis, action and image. What results is a scene that combines the static compositional aspects of the 'Western Picture' with an infusion of the unpredictability that an image replayed in extreme slow motion uniquely affords. The strange and unanticipated moments that rise to the surface from the depths of these slow-moving scenes and slowly or suddenly, awaken stories within stories.
The Pulitzer Prize winning composer Du Yun, created a 90 min sound design for the work which was accessible to viewers on the Lincoln Festival website. The open-ended work was designed to create resonance with whatever scene was currently on screen at the moment.
Since the premier in 2011, the work has traveled internationally where it has been exhibited both as a work of public art and as a museum installation.
CAST
William H. Macy
Holly Hunter
Liev Schreiber
Alison Pill
Lili Taylor
Patti LuPone
Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Alan Rickman
Ludivine Sagnier
Jon Morris
Natalie Thomas
William Mapother
Michael J. Arbouet
Reed Birney
Sarita Choudhury
Grantham Coleman
Maria Dizzier
Bjorn Duptay
Carmen Ejogo
Alvin Epstein
Alessandra Ferri
Juliana Francis
Martin Harvey
Gabriella Hamori
Jayne Houdyshell
Marin Ireland
David Patrick Kelly
Kier Knight
Pavel Kris
Louise LaCavalier
Chelsea Lopez
Ruth Malaczech
Jo Mei
Catalina Sandino Moreno
Ana Reeder
Sam Poon
Roger Rees
Scott Shepard
Shantala Shivalingappa
Nabil Vinas
Wendy Whelan
FILM PRODUCTION CREDITS
Director: David Michalek
Producer: Dorottya Mathe and Kevin Arbouet
Cinematography: David Michalek / Bob Bushfield / Darren Liu
Sound Design: Du Yun
Editorial Director: Manu Sawkar
Executive Creative Consultant and Assistant Director of Actors: Paul Warner
Production Design: Joseph Pollacik
Art Direction: Racey North
Costume Design: Karen Young
Hair and Makeup Department: Barry Berger, Natasha Lee, Maria Longo, Frances Sorensen, Andrea Stefanelli. Jorge Vargas
Assistant Director: Kevin Arbouet
Art Department: Adam Giambattista, Rob Plonskier, Chris Rowan
Camera and Electrical Department: Christina Choe, Mariusz Cichon, Chris Clark, Shawn Grice, Bliss Holloway, Erik Kandefer, Ken Lee, Gene Malkin, Rich McDonald, Guy Morgan, B. Stephen Schwartz
Special Thanks: Nigel Reden, Randall Bourscheidt, Rob Burdige at Luminys Systems, Robert Castro, Cecily Cook, Rachel Cooper, Paul Ekman, Sheila Gray, Barbara Lanciers, Liane and Richard Weintraub, Martha Wilson, William Wright, Nigel Redden, Peter Sellars
PRESS
Time Out New York
Summer's big art shows in NYC
May 3rd, 2011
Huffington Post
David Michalek's 'Portraits in
Dramatic Time' Brings New Kind
Of Film To Lincoln Center
July 12th, 2011
New York Magazine
The Stars Are Emoting in Super-Slow Motion
in Lincoln Center
July 7th, 2011
W Magazine
Time Well Spent
July 5th, 2011
The New York Times
Extreme-Slow-Motion Portraits at Lincoln Center
July 3rd, 2011
The Wall Street Journal
Life's Dramas in Slow Motion
July 2nd, 2011
LINKS
Center of Contemporary Art
Teatr zycia - Theatre of Life
Portraits in Dramatic Time
Torun, Poland
May 18 - September 16, 2012
Lincoln Center Festival
New York, NY
July 5 - July 31, 2011