Hollywood CA 1995
This isn’t the first time that I’ve devoted a post to this extraordinary short film. It isn’t the only great film that lasts less than a minute, but most of the others were made nearly a hundred years prior to this one. Made for the Lumière et compagnie project put together by Sarah Moon and Philippe Poulet to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Cinema, it was shot by Peter Demming, using the original Cinematographe camera used by the Lumière Brothers, by daylight in one continuous shot employing five contiguous sets and elaborate planning and rehearsal. So much happens so quickly within this bizarre little narrative that it was difficult to limit myself to only the images here. It begins with cops approaching a boy’s corpse in a grassy lot. The premonition of the title is the mother's following her son’s death. The story ends with the policeman coming to her door with the bad news, apparently as she foresaw. In between are two visions, one idyllic and the other dystopian (the first evoking wealth and leisure and the second enslavement and science run amok.) The transitions between the scenes were, by necessity, done in camera, according to the rules set down for this endeavor. Even knowing how it was done, it is difficult to believe that it was not edited after shooting.
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