Film

Film (1965)

Director: Alan Schneider

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A man scrambles through a silent grey landscape to his sparsely decorated room, where he systematically rids himself of every possible witness to his existence: pets, mirror, a picture of a staring ancient god, photos of his own past. But also watching him is someone else, embodied by the gaze of the camera, which remains behind the man virtually throughout the film. There is a profound philosophical theme in Beckett's sole foray into cinema, based on the idea to be/exist is to be perceived. But perhaps more intriguing than Beckett's largely successful attempt to examine an abstract epistemological concept through the materialist medium of film, is the wholly appropriate casting of Keaton who, in the classic comedies of the '20s, envisaged a universe notable for its cruel, arbitrary absurdity, and who, perhaps, anticipated Beckett's thesis on perception (and cinema) in Sherlock Junior. Dark, witty and fascinating.

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