“I believe that modern developments in technology and communication, far from diminishing the realm of ghosts, as does any scientific or technical thought, seeking to leave behind the age of ghosts as part of the feudal age with its somewhat primitive technology… I believe that ghosts are part of the future and that the modern technology of images, like cinematography and telecommunication, enhances the power of ghosts and their ability to haunt us.”
- Jacques Derrida, Ghost Dance, 1983
I watched it again last Friday. It’s still astonishing, still thought-provoking, still vital and relevant. Still one of my favourite films, still engrossing from start to finish and still haunting me two decades later.
i couldn’t agree more.i can still remember seeing it on one of the very first seasons of channel 4
produced british films.it was love at first sight despite it’s many squirmy moments.my attempts to buy the film from distributor other cinema ( http://www.contemporaryfilms.com/other/other_mid.htm)
was comical and maybe even a bit slapstick.i ended up buying the box,complete with cover but
never actually managing to buy the film itself.i did eventually record it off the telly and stick that
in the box,which still seemed like a great achievement to me.as with louise brooks 4 or 5 years earlier i told everybody about i knew about this film,including certain artists,one of which even named a record after a line from one of my favourite scenes (d for desire – the camouflage heart cover was photographed before i saw ghost dance.) we sampled that very part much later on
the track “hush” from wappinschaw.since getting ahold of the dvd release i’ve been able to re-visit the film and again incorporate it into cindytalk performances.we had a special visual re/edit made for the behind bars gig last year and will no doubt use it again in the future.it’s still valid,
increasingly so.. the fragmentation of society,which was showing signs then has picked up pace
immensely in the last decade or so.stuart brisley’s heartbreakingly poetic water/motion is so
fucking poignant in 2008 that it truly deserves to be shared with as many new people as possible.
You’re still the only person I know who had actually heard of it when I mentioned it in conversation (or you mentioned it first, I forget exactly… it was probably 20 years ago). I too recorded it off Channel 4, must have seen a listing in the Radio Times that intrigued me.
I’m definitely not as much into film as music, though that’s more down to prioritisation of time than lack of interest, but it always surprises me when I mention it to friends who are much more into cinema than me and they’ve never heard of it.
Yeah, that quote I highlighted above really rang true when I watched it again last year. It applies to the internet age more than ever. Did you see the recent Doctor Who “library” story about digital ghosts too? That seems to tap in to the same idea. Binary flotsam and jetsam.
(Sorry your comment didn’t appear for a short while, my anti-spam system decided you were evil and I’ve been away for a couple of days so only just fished it out of the junk.)