Cinema of Decay: The Films of Bill Morrison

Flying Supersonic

May 2018 •French

Thundering across the sky on elegant white wings, the Concorde was an instant legend. But behind the glamour of jet setting at Mach 2 were stunning scientific innovations and political intrigue. Fifteen years after Concorde's final flight, this documentary takes you inside the historic international race to develop the first supersonic airliner. Hear stories from those inside the choreographed effort to design and build Concorde in two countries at once - and the crew members who flew her.

Grizzly Man

July 2005 •English

Werner Herzog's documentary film about the "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in one man's attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

April 2010 •English

A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.

Alien, Terror in Space

February 2025 •French

In space, no one can hear you scream! the catchy slogan that accompanies Alien sums up the unprecedented stakes of this film that will mark the history of cinema. In 1979, for the first time on screens, a mainstream feature film will mix two distinct worlds of genre cinema: science fiction and horror. Ridley Scott forever shakes up the cinematic landscape by plunging the audience into anguish with his oppressive universe and his iconic monster. The documentary looks back at the lasting impact of this masterpiece, exploring Scott’s audacity and the genesis of his unique aesthetic. In the claustrophobic corridors of the Nostromo spaceship, the heroine, played by Sigourney Weaver, becomes the first strong female figure to redefine the conventions of the genre, far from the clichés of the time. By revisiting the film's key sequences, the documentary shows how Alien explores profound themes such as survival and dehumanization, while reflecting a scathing critique of the capitalist system.

Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise

August 2015 •English

Using only archive film and a new musical score by the band Mogwai, Mark Cousins presents an impressionistic kaleidoscope of our nuclear times – protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima – but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. The nuclear age has been a nightmare, but dreamlike too.

Génération Club Dorothée - L'incroyable histoire d'une émission culte

December 2014 •French

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

September 2012 •English

There’s only one person who so accurately personifies movie magic in the history of film, and that man is special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen. Focusing on the man behind the landmark effects on films like Clash Of The Titans, One Million Years B.C., Jason And The Argonauts and many more, this in-depth film features interviews with the great man himself, and with an array of animators and directors influenced by his work including Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Terry Gilliam, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg. The film also features unseen footage of tests and experiments recently uncovered.

Triple Fisher: The Lethal Lolitas of Long Island

December 2012 •English

In 1992, a suburban New York teenager named Amy Fisher captured the national media's attention when she shot her lover's wife in the face. This sordid tale of underage sex, aggravated assault, and Joey Buttafuoco managed to spawn not one, not two, but three separate made-for-TV movies. Drew Barrymore, Alyssa Milano and Noëlle Parker all took stabs at portraying the disturbed young lady, yet a true on-screen depiction of Amy Fisher has never emerged - until now. In this Rashomon of found footage film, director Dan Kapelovitz mind-melds the multiple melodramas into one ultimate metadrama mashup.

Moonage Daydream

September 2022 •English

A cinematic odyssey featuring never-before-seen footage exploring David Bowie's creative and musical journey.

Decasia: The State of Decay

January 2002 •English

A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.

Les Héros de notre enfance

December 2022 •French

Analepsis

January 2004 •English

The video Analepsis, 2003-04, is composed of a series of excerpts taken from satellite television news reports. The individual 1-4 second clips are used to introduce the viewer to a given location. Through his method of re-editing the material and omission of the sound from the original news programs, Snyder restructures the footage, revealing the potential of a place to mean more than one thing and pointing to the cinematographic quality inherent in television news.

Rite of Spring

July 2013 •English

Black-and-white film projections by Bill Morrison, using archival footage of frigid Arctic scenes.

Bill Morrison: The Film Archaeologist

December 2013 •English

Things fall apart, but they are also reassembled and given new life, in an enlightened form. Meet the New York based artist and filmmaker Bill Morrison in this interview about his haunting experimental collage films 'Decasia' and 'Light is Calling'.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

May 1982 •English

Juliet Forrest is convinced that the reported death of her father in a mountain car crash was no accident. Her father was a prominent cheese scientist working on a secret recipe. To prove it was murder, she enlists the services of private eye Rigby Reardon. He finds a slip of paper containing a list of people who are 'The Friends and Enemies of Carlotta'.

let me come in

April 2021 •English

Bill Morrison’s experimental short features decayed film reels from the lost, German silent film Pawns of Passion (1928).

One Cut of the Dead

November 2017 •Japanese

Real zombies arrive and terrorize the crew of a zombie film being shot in an abandoned warehouse, said to be the site of military experiments on humans.

Action in Arabia

February 1944 •English

Reporter Michael Gordon uncovers intrigue in Damascus, where the Allies and Nazis struggle for control of Arab sympathies.

The Goal Is To Live

April 2019 •English

The Goal Is To Live is an infinitely-looping assemblage constructed out of repurposed content from the popular show How It’s Made, which chronicles the factories that create everyday objects. The film takes Dina Kelberman’s practice of accumulation and recontextualization into a large-scale time-based work for the first time. Reorganizing short clips into a long Rube-Goldberg-like narrative, and featuring a hypnotic minimalist soundtrack by Rod Hamilton and Tiffany Seal, the film portrays a mesmerizing and surreal process in which materials are transformed in myriad ways.

Rose Hobart 2

May 2007 •English

An ongoing exploration of the films of Rose Hobart and a re-duplication of Joseph Cornell's infamous found footage masterpiece