Movie Stills (1977)

The more recent MOVIE STILLS 1977 is a melancholy procession of frozen moments being born ripening beginning to die before our eyes Murphy selected 16 frames from a found home movie photogrpahed them with a polaroid camera then filmed the three minutes it took each image to materialize Because of the higher contrast caused by this rephotography the pictures seem to be darkening past their prime just as Murphy cuts to the enxt Every shot starts out white and theres a key element of suspense as ones retitnal afterimages compete with the emerging forms of the developing photo After a while the ghost of an anecdote a woman and two men mugging for the camera an odd flirtation develops too A photograph is a secret about a secret Diane Arbus once wrote J Hoberman Village Voice