Grains of Perception

Nathaniel Dorsky explained that “in Stoic philosophy ‘pneuma’ is the ‘soul’ or fiery wind permeating the body, and at death survives the body but as impersonal energy. Similarly, the ‘world pneuma’ permeates the details of the world. The images in this film come from an extensive collection of out-dated raw stock that has been processed without being exposed. . . . A world is revealed that is alive with the organic deterioration of film itself, the essence of cinema in its before-image, preconceptual purity.” Bruce Baillie’s Quick Billy merges cinema, consciousness, and self-portrait “dreams and daily life. . . .One of the masterpieces of the American avant-garde . . . a rare ‘synoptic’ film that tries to construct an entire cosmos. [It] immerses viewers in a timeless flow of indistinct forms that nearly obliterates self and place” (Fred Camper).