6 Easy Pieces

6 Easy Pieces and Muri Romani are presented together as the latest work by Jon Jost on digital video. The Pieces are short sketches that investigate the boundaries of the new medium. Such as the frontier with painting. Jost looks with his digital painter’s eyes at the Bernini columns at the St. Peter in Rome, at swimming Roman girls who dream of California, at two children in school uniforms in Lisbon who catch the light so beautifully, at the arrival of a mediocre architect in Venice during some incredible mist, at the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, and at some other things he comes across on his way. Things that can evoke thoughts and feelings. Muri Romani could be regarded as a seventh, more elaborate Piece. Muri Romani is exactly what the title promises: images of the battered walls of Rome. Static shots of old walls, crumbling and covered in graffiti, fading to other static shots of the same old walls looking just like abstract paintings. The maker says it is a lethargic and radical work. He is conscious of the fact that the film will ask a lot of its viewers. They will have to fill the wall themselves with meaning. For Jost it is about history, pristine beauty, everyday thoughts, looking and living.