by Arta Barzanji
Bogancloch, Ben Rivers’ fourth portrait of Jake Williams, a friend and favorite subject of his who enjoys a mostly solitary existence in picturesque rural Scotland, premiered earlier this year at Locarno 77. The film builds on the foundations of 2011’s Two Years at Sea, not only in Rivers’ collaboration with Williams but also in the filmmaker’s continued experiments with the unique possibilities (and limitations) of celluloid film. It’s also a film about movement. From a landscape and subject that may seem to exist in a state of perpetual stasis, Rivers unearths an internal movement that is normally invisible. Enclosed within impeccably framed shots, there emerges a movement, the source of which is not to be sought in the filmed subjects but in the celluloid canvas on which their traces have been imprinted and the alchemy which blurs the line between the subject and canvas by dislodging the particles from their place so they may mix and dance with the recorded subjects; subjects they are normally to keep their proper distance from. It is in this sense that the film is about movement: not only the movement within the image but also on its surface.
Arta Barzanji: I find Bogancloch to be a very sensual film. How does this sensuality figure in your process? Does it begin with the choice of the film stock? For instance, the scratches and artifacts we see on the film’s surface.
Ben Rivers: If you look carefully, there are no scratches. I’m quite careful not to scratch. But there are marks, mostly from water. They come from how I dry the film, which is not in a drying cabinet but on pieces of string without a heater. So, the water dries in an “incorrect way,” creating these nice marks and shapes. I also use this tank while processing to manipulate the film and create pulsing effects. The film was always going to be black and white and there’s not really any choice for black and white film stock anymore. There’s just Kodak, which does two stocks but only one negative stock [and one reversal]. So, actually, there’s no choice. My big decision with the stock is whether I’m shooting in color or black and white. Because it presents really different ways of thinking about composition. I wouldn’t want to shoot with color and then turn it black and white in post-production because I think differently about composition and light while shooting in either case. The sensualness you refer to partly comes from using film, which has a softer nature. It has slightly rounded edges and is not super sharp or cold like digital. Digital can be amazing for certain images, but the kind of images I want to create and the places I film really lend themselves to the softness of film and how it treats light. With digital, brighter areas can be harsher, whereas there’s smoothness with film. It’s also about Jake. I like filming his face. It’s about making a film with love, which adds its own sensualness. I wanted Bogancloch to be a kind of dream. Even if there are quotidian moments, it’s more like a dream of those quotidian things. So, it’s not just the film stock, but also the mist (like London today, doesn’t it look so beautiful when there’s mist in the air?), smoke, fire, and all these layers of smudge and blur that can cover reality.
Let’s talk about your approach to framing. You create many frames within frames throughout the film, and within those secondary frames, we don’t just see Jake, the nature around him or the objects at his place. There’s an additional layer of visuals, the marks you create on the film stock during processing, with their own independent movements. So, the content of the image and the surface of the image each have their own logic of movements and interactions, which feel especially intentional considering your compositions. Let’s take the shot of Jake in the greenhouse, which was filmed from inside the kitchen and through the window. We see his head and shoulders from time to time throughout the shot as he’s working in the greenhouse, but at no point during this extended take did I feel this is, so to speak, “slow cinema” or particularly concerned with stillness. Because even if there’s no movement of the camera or movement within the image, there’s always movement at the surface of the image. There’s no stasis within the film at all.
I spend a lot of time setting up the camera and looking for those things before filming. Almost no part of the film is done quickly or arbitrarily. And yes, it’s not especially slow cinema either. I suppose that’s a relative term, depending on what you’re used to as a viewer. If you’re used to watching James Benning, then my film is probably quite fast. But if you’re used to watching Marvel, then it’s going to feel slow. For me, that pacing allows the audience to actually look and enjoy looking. For example, in the scene when he’s listening to music, we get the chance to really sit and listen to music. Most of the time, we’re doing something else while listening to music. But it’s a real pleasure to be able to just sit and listen to music. And to watch somebody else listening to music is fascinating. You don’t need to be told anything; you can just look at this person’s face and wonder what they’re thinking about, what memories this music might evoke, or what imagination it could be kindling. So, it’s an invitation to be involved in the same thoughts, feelings and fancies he’s involved in.
One may say the length of the takes in the final film reflect the time it takes for you to compose the images to find those images while shooting. And, of course, music also unfolds in time. You can’t rush it, not really. You need to sit back and let it unravel at its own pace and tempo.
The length of the shot is usually based on the feeling I have when looking through the viewfinder. In editing, the shots that end up in the final film tend to be roughly the same length as what I filmed because it felt like the right length while doing so, and I stick to that gut feeling as a guide.
It sounds like this also has to do with the ethos of shooting on film. With digital, it’s very easy to just keep the camera rolling and film as much as possible. Of course, this partly has to do with the price of film stock, but it also has aesthetic consequences.
Aesthetic, mental and psychological. And I think both have their merits and limitations. But I like the limitations of film, including the fact that you have to think more carefully when you press record; there’s more at stake. But then, sometimes the film runs out at a critical moment, and I really wish it hadn’t, which can be frustrating.
I really love Albert Serra’s films. He films all day on two or three cameras and ends up accumulating something like 400 hours of footage for a film, whereas I had around ten hours for Bogancloch. But he’s looking for the same thing when he’s going through the footage: for these special moments. We’re just doing it at different stages. I’m more comfortable my way because it doesn’t involve the arduous process of going through hundreds of hours of material. In a way, I’m beginning to edit while I film.
And what’s your filming process like? Is it just you and a sound person?
Basically. For Bogancloch, I had a sound recordist with me for some days, and I was on my own for others. I like to keep the crew small for a film like this because I want it to be an intimate experience. I want Jake [Williams] to feel completely relaxed.
In a sense, it also liberates you from considerations you would be restricted by when working with a bigger crew.
Exactly. I’m basically buying time. There’s no shooting schedule, so every morning, I decide what we’re going to do that day. I had a list of things that I wanted to do each trip [to Scotland], but I didn’t have to come up with a rigid schedule ahead of time. I was able to decide each morning depending on the weather, etc.
The weather brings me back to our discussion of film stock. No matter how carefully you process the film, you still won’t have complete control over what the emerging marks, shapes and patterns are going to look like. Similarly, one can’t control the weather, which can also act as a visual filter. So, what is the role of chance in juxtaposition with the precise compositions we see in your film?
That’s another reason why I like film. No matter how many years I use it and how well I understand it, there are always accidents. Hand processing is unpredictable. After I shoot a roll of film, I leave a note on it indicating whether I think it needs to be clean or if it needs extra texture. But I don’t know exactly how that’s going to turn out. For example, at the end of the scene in which Jake and the others are singing around the fire, the role of film ran out at exactly the right moment. This crazy shape appeared at the end of the roll and then the film whited out right at the end of the song. It’s the perfect ending to that scene, and there’s no way I could have planned that. That kind of thing is really beautiful. It feels like a gift from the universe.
What is your collaboration with Jake like?
I’ve known him for almost 20 years, so we’re friends. And he’s very involved in the process. I talked to him about the scenes and asked him if there were any big jobs he was planning to do soon that we might be able to film. I think he enjoys it and trusts me. This is our fourth film together, after two short films [This Is My Land (2007) and More Than Just a Dram (2012)] and Two Years at Sea, which all did well and in which Jake was treated respectfully. He also came to some festivals with me for Two Years at Sea and enjoyed that experience. Jake is also good at being directed. When I want to do a scene a certain way, he’s very at ease and easy to direct, which is not the case with most people. A lot of people are very awkward on camera.
He does appear quite at ease in the film. He seems comfortable being filmed and comfortable with himself. And this comes across whether he’s walking around, bathing, singing, dancing, gardening. He seems like someone who is not acting per se but just existing in the film without being bothered by the camera.
In the Q&A we did in Edinburgh, he said that it was a really easy acting job for him because he’s acting like himself, which pretty much sums it up; he’s acting himself or someone very much like himself.
Are the group of people who sing with Jake towards the end of the film living near Jake?
No, I got them together. Most of them live in Glasgow, which is on the other side of the country, about four hours drive. Originally, I wanted them to appear throughout the film and sing different songs on the way to his house, but I cut all of that out. And now we just see them appearing at his place and singing this song. I realized that one song was enough because it summed up so much for me and reflected my feelings on what the film was partially about: mortality and having hope during dark times; in graves, the seeds will grow.
In the same scene, there’s a beautiful close-up of Jake. His face is only lit by the fire, and the low light makes it seem as if his face is made up of grain dancing amidst a sea of darkness. It’s simple and elegant and gets across everything that the film is about. And I like how all of a sudden, these people whom we don’t know are sat around the fire singing.
Exactly, they are just there with no hello or goodbye.
Speaking of singing, the film’s soundtrack is made up of a particularly international selection.
The songs all come from tapes Jake had collected while working as a seaman in his youth. The ship would stop at docks in the Middle East, India and other places, and he would get shore leave and buy tapes that he liked the look of from the markets, not really knowing what was on them since he couldn’t read those languages. I love the fact that this kind of seemingly incongruous music is set against a very particular landscape. In a way, it’s also about him as a human being and his inclusive attitude towards others. The use of music in this way also has a political dimension for me.
Was there some element of chance involved in the tracks that ended up in the film if they were played on set? Was the curation process for the soundtrack a collaboration between the two of you?
There was an element of chance with some of it, with tracks that he put on as we were filming. But I also took a big bag of tapes home and replaced some of the tracks in post, where I found something more appropriate. The soundtrack also has gamelan music or Indian raga, music that’s about getting into a different kind of state. And that’s what I’m after with this film: trying to take you into another state. It’s not a representation of the world as we see it but a transformative treatment of the world that we could get lost in. Using black and white also helps turn the everyday into a cinematic world.
You transform figurative images of the world into ones that approach the realm of abstraction. And you’re not doing it the easy way, i.e. by putting an overlay or effect on the sounds and images, but through a painstaking accumulation of details, effects and processes affecting both the image and audio track, which in turn influence each other.
It definitely takes time, and I do think sound is crucial to it. I start thinking about sound while I’m filming. I use it as a way to move away from straightforward representation and towards a kind of abstraction.
How did the decision to include a few color shots in the film come about?
There are the color photographs that act as chapter headings, which come from Jake’s trips as a seaman when he also bought his tapes. The photos have become water-damaged over the years, and I really loved their look. Originally, they were going to be the only color shots in the film, but in the autumn, I decided to shoot one small three-minute roll of color film. The colors of his place, his roof (which he keeps patching up), all the junk around, and the trees in autumn looked very rich together. I put these three color shots after the singing scene, which was like a sort of ending, and I felt it needed some surprise, some small shift.
You were speaking about how the song they sing around the fire touches on seeing the light in the dark, and in a similar way, the color shots follow a very dark scene, acting as a liberating rupture from that darkness. The ending is an astonishing shot in which the camera starts level with Jake while he’s bathing in the open and rises until all the familiar elements have been transformed into geometrical lines and shapes. How did you manage to get this shot?
[Laughs] Everybody asks me that, but I’m not telling. It was really difficult.
But it’s still shot on film, right?
Yeah, it’s film! But I prefer not to say how. There’s a similar shot in Two Years at Sea, where the caravan floats up into the tree. Caravans and cameras shouldn’t be floating, but we don’t need the pragmatic knowledge of how they do. Let’s just call it movie magic!
If we describe half of your practice as magic, we may refer to the other half as alchemy, considering how much of the final film is formed through the chemical processes that you undertake in post. And, of course, shooting on film itself is a chemical process.
To me, there’s no point in just copying the world. Alchemy is the process of turning one thing into another, and I’m trying to turn one world into another, one that only exists in the cinema.
Arta Barzanji is a London-based Iranian filmmaker, critic, and lecturer. He has written for publications including MUBI Notebook, photogėnie and Documentary Magazine. His current film project is the documentary Unfinished: Kamran Shirdel.
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