The Big Stick An Old Reel (1973)

Saul Levine spent six years from 19671973 cutting up and reediting 8mm prints of two Charlie Chaplin shorts IN THE PARK and EASY STREET into a dynamic yet dreamy deconstruction of physical and narrative movement What begins with Chaplin looping around in circular repetitions between a cop and an ominous vagrant becomes more fractured as the film expands News footage of police arresting protesters shot from a television screen on blackandwhite 8mm film is cut into the comedy of cops and criminals a shot of political reality amidst slapstick fantasy and images are abstracted by rapidfire cutting Even the physical cuts on the celluloid become part of the image as Levine chops through the frames themselves leaving broad gashes on the screen and fracturing images until they overlap with the next shot and the suggestions of narrative are whirled into a frenzy of motion