User Reviews

This film must be understood in the context of Michaelangelo's famous comment on his "David". He said that the statue already existed in the marble, and that his role as sculptor was simply to bring it out. This is the key to understanding this work. The original film could not be more elementary. A single camera placed in front of a proscenium. Actors move back and forth on stage and on- and off-stage, recreating the nursery rhyme. The camera never moves. There is no editing at all. There are no filmic actions whatsoever. But after showing the original film, Jacobs subjects it to editing, close-ups, pans across the action, etc., and finally to abstraction of the image itself. His point, and he makes it brilliantly, is that all of the language of film-making was inherent in the medium itself. In this primitive work exists the entire language of film making, as by extension it exists in any and all films ever made. Its recognition by the Library of Congress was long overdue, Personally, I would be grateful if someone else could post something as to where this is available on DVD. I've checked the various "avant-garde" DVDs out there and can't find it. If it's not on DVD, will someone please bring it out?