Why is Bill Daniel important?
for isolacinema.org by Oana Stupariu
Each scene of his films could be excellent photo, black and white format which simply takes art in the most unexpected places. And as it has been proved that 80% of human kind is strongly visual and thinks in images, by instinct Bill Daniel is interested both in the traditional accuracy of the documentary photography and inner pictures of his characteres. Who is Bozo Texino? leads to inner strengh and freedom, losing prejudice and artificial conventions, but independence has a price to be paid and gets its followers to marginal contexts.
Is filming a ritual in dealing with the world around us?
Is it a ritual? No, it’s not… I’ve done projects where it really was a ritual. I guess aspects of it were ritual. There were parts were it really was ritual, but not in the kind of a natural capturing an individual, I’m not always carrying a camera and I’m not always concerned with capturing everything. But when I’m making a film, I’m pretty sure of what I want and when I’m editing, of course, it’s heavy ritual. You know editing it’s like mediating, thinking straight. It’s different kind of stage of recreating in editing. There was that much material for a documentary… I liked your ritual question though, because it was so rare and especially concerning photography. I’m doing photography of course, but much more for specific purposes that I’m after.
How does documentary fits bilding a controlled reality like directed?
Well, our film construction are backround constructions, in fact there are entire schools of styles of the construction of reality. So even if I’m taking my backround material and I’m doing installations, for instance a design for a gallery or a non-linear presentation, it’s much formaly worked than a film. But in the same time, I’m presenting a material minus some of this formal things. Like in creating a documentary you have all kind of compromises or you have to build it in the order it was experienced, so in a lot of ways the obvious is more like that. As far as the characters go and their personalities, the stories and the flavours and I’m very much into that, so I’m letting them the way they talk, their vernacular provide that.
Building identity never comes easy and deepth is not sacrified and also comes with different situations and radical changes. As a director Bill Daniel calls himself a populist, that comes from experimental filmmaking, looking for motivations that won’t necessarily come obvious. Who is Bozo Texino? places art anywhere it won’t be expected to be found.
