"Gloria!" is a 9.5-minute movie by American filmmaker Hollis Frampton and he made this one in 1979, which was already late in his career. He was only in his early 40s at this point, but died 5 years later. Here he gives us his approach to silent film and I found it as disappointing as everything else I have seen from him. A large part of the film is not even film as there is no motion in the picture. You could maybe even say that he was hitting new lows with his approach here. This is not even, maybe especially not, a good watch for silent film lovers. It feels to me that occasionally here he makes fun of the genre. Oh well, he cannot make a good film under much better conditions. This says it all. I do not recommend "Gloria!" Not at all.
2 Reviews
The Epilogue to Magellan
Tornado_Sam13 August 2019
Warning: Spoilers
"Gloria!" of 1979 was intended to be shown on day two, January 2nd, of Hollis Frampton's gigantic film cycle "Magellan" in the ending section entitled "The Death of Magellan". In this ten-minute film, Frampton once more does an homage to silent film as he had in an earlier segment of the cycle, utilizing archival footage to the project and creating a comedic yet touching work through the few images it consists of. Although hardly involved or abstract in how the images are presented, the short is unique yet beautiful in how it presents its "story", and through the intimate, touching yet comical tribute it creates, makes a brief sort of biography due to the subject it is centered around. Furthermore, it could also be analyzed as another exercise of the director's to make audio and visual aspects respective, through the brief use of sound seemingly matching up with some of the imagery presented afterwards.
"Gloria!" is an personal, intimate biographical portrait of Frampton's Irish grandmother Fanny Cross, who raised the filmmaker from his birth. At the beginning and end, footage from two early film comedies of the earlier 1900s based off the Irish ballad "Finnegan's Wake" are featured, the one at the opening to my knowledge being "O'Finnigan's Wake" of 1903. What follows after this is largely text, as Frampton provides a series of notes about Cross against a green background, detailing her early life of the 1900s, such as her wedding, children, and other personal aspects. The addition of cheerful bagpipe music (which "quacks like ducks" according to the notes), matched with the dancing in the film segment at the conclusion, makes one wonder if the pipes were intentionally meant to be played with the footage, but played prior to disconnect their relation.
Admittedly, as the other reviewer said, much of "Gloria!" is not really film itself but text revealed through stop-motion. Yet, it is this use of text that makes the film touching and poetic in the tribute it pays to the main subject; had Frampton actually made a live-action biography film, it would not have created the impact. The ending statement, that the film is "given in loving memory" to the filmmaker's grandmother, serves to make the film almost like an album in what it is. Yes, this experimental work is more a lovely piece of poetry than a film, but it is powerful and interesting, with a slight touch of humor in the addition of the archive footage.
"Gloria!" is an personal, intimate biographical portrait of Frampton's Irish grandmother Fanny Cross, who raised the filmmaker from his birth. At the beginning and end, footage from two early film comedies of the earlier 1900s based off the Irish ballad "Finnegan's Wake" are featured, the one at the opening to my knowledge being "O'Finnigan's Wake" of 1903. What follows after this is largely text, as Frampton provides a series of notes about Cross against a green background, detailing her early life of the 1900s, such as her wedding, children, and other personal aspects. The addition of cheerful bagpipe music (which "quacks like ducks" according to the notes), matched with the dancing in the film segment at the conclusion, makes one wonder if the pipes were intentionally meant to be played with the footage, but played prior to disconnect their relation.
Admittedly, as the other reviewer said, much of "Gloria!" is not really film itself but text revealed through stop-motion. Yet, it is this use of text that makes the film touching and poetic in the tribute it pays to the main subject; had Frampton actually made a live-action biography film, it would not have created the impact. The ending statement, that the film is "given in loving memory" to the filmmaker's grandmother, serves to make the film almost like an album in what it is. Yes, this experimental work is more a lovely piece of poetry than a film, but it is powerful and interesting, with a slight touch of humor in the addition of the archive footage.
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