Short filmmaker-in-focus: Seth Price

Coming from Brooklyn, New York, Seth Price graduated in 1997 from Brown University and since then has made several short films that were striking for their idiosyncrasy, freshness and stylistic unity. Rotterdam previously screened his films Primitive Technology (Binary Code) (1998), Recital (1999) and American Graffiti (2000). Price is coming to the festival to show his latest (video) work and provide some background information. His quotes below refer to several subjects that are prevalent in Price’s work.Seth Price:’The seventeenth century is when music notation came into being, largely for the purpose of ownership of compositions. So, up until that time, ownership and control of music was presumably not a crucial matter.”The business of living in a ruined house. In forgotten albums of genre music – say, house music – it was in the “filler” songs that he found the blank, thoughtless patterns laid bare – the leavings of prevailing styles. Autopilot verses, no ornamentation, just the cruise control of production values revealing, inadvertently, the secrets of the time.”The violence of everything forgotten: this is the coin of the realm. What happens to the excess? Like “nostalgia for communism”, a new phrase, a Russian neologism coined in 1989 or thereabouts.”I, too, wondered if I couldn’t sell something.”The greatness of lies and lists. Elements of style, stripped of their context. Isolated, they must rely on their “internal signposts” for communication.”The old model of the pyramid, the new model of the pancake.”Well, to those who demand a master – you will get it.”We have not yet got over the Romantic epoch… Romanticism is far
from dead. Exactly like fascism.”Belvedere, Miramar, Savoy – Renouncing the epic element in history.”Love is a debt which cannot be repaid; more than that, it may be an ultimate belief in the future.’