Stumbled across this at Thompson on Holllywood, via filmmaker David Fu, a moving assemblage of motion picture history cut to Carl Sagan’s reading of “You Are Here” from his 1994 book “The Pale Blue Dot” (and set to Mogwai’s “Stop Coming to My House.”)
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6 responses to “We are here”
jeeez, thats a lot to take in but pretty cool
Nice; I love a good montage.
Even though I consider myself a film geek, I never really thought this video did Sagan’s powerful words justice. You just can’t encompass the human existence through film clips.
This version moves me so much more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmMUuR–Qvo
Yes, well there’s something rather, I don’t know, obvious about the route chosen in that video I think, Graysmith. I think it’s profound to marry Sagan’s words to their emotional counterparts on celluloid.
And — surprise! — we’re a film site. ;)
Both are wonderful, of course, and owe most to Mogwai.
I think I’m with Graysmith on this, if only because of what is, essentially the complement of obviousness (actually “literalness” might be the better word here) you’ve referred to. Many of these clips are so caught up in their own context that the overall effect to me was that when contrasted with unshakable and startling truthfulness of Sagan’s words they only intesified each others artificiality. To be fair, quite a few of them worked perfectly but because some like the one involving Charlie Chaplin were overlty exagerated, the overall effect was uneven.
Oh, it’s certianly clever and inventive but it’s hard for it to be emotionaly universal, despite the fact many of us have shared knowledge of the films used. In fact, this is one time when knowing where the clips originated countered the overall effect of the clip itself.
Still liked the clip though and music was well chosen. And speaking of music:
“…We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky, and lost among the subway crowds, I try to catch your eye…”
Pete said it better than me. I just don’t think the film clips version works, and that’s coming from a film geek. Don’t hold it against you for posting it though, I just find the other “real life” version to be far more goosebumps-inducing.