Bill Morrison (director)

Bill Morrison (born in Chicago, November 17, 1965) is a New York-based filmmaker and artist. He attended Reed College 1983-85, and graduated from Cooper Union School of Art in 1989. His films often combine rare archival material set to contemporary music, and have been screened in theaters, cinemas, museums, galleries, and concert halls around the world.

Morrison had a mid-career retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art, October 2014 - March 2015.[1] He is a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,[2] and has received the Alpert Awards in the Arts,[3] a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital,[4] and a fellowship from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts[5] His theatrical projection design with Ridge Theater has been recognized with two Bessie Awards [6] and an Obie Award.[7]

Morrison has collaborated with some of the most influential composers and performers of our time, including John Adams (composer), Maya Beiser, Gavin Bryars, Dave Douglas, Richard Einhorn, Erik Friedlander, Bill Frisell, Philip Glass, Michael Gordon (composer), Henryk Górecki, Michael Harrison (musician), Ted Hearne, Vijay Iyer, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Kronos Quartet, David Lang, David T. Little, Michael Montes, Harry Partch, Steve Reich, Todd Reynolds (musician), Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Julia Wolfe, among many others.

Decasia (2002), his feature-length collaboration with composer Michael Gordon, was selected by the Library of Congress to its National Film Registry in 2013,[8] becoming the first film of the 21st century selected to the list. It has been hailed by J. Hoberman as "the most widely acclaimed American avant-garde film of the fin-de-siècle."[9] The director Errol Morris reportedly commented while viewing Decasia that "This may be the greatest movie ever made".[10] The film was originally commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta to be shown on three screens surrounding the audience, behind which 55 musicians performed Michael Gordon's score.

In 2011, Spark of Being, a collaboration with composer/trumpeter Dave Douglas, won The Douglas Edwards Experimental/Independent Film/Video Award at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards.[11]

In 2014, The Great Flood, a collaboration with composer/guitarist Bill Frisell, received the Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Award for Historical Scholarship.[12]

Morrison's complete collected works were released as a 5-disc box set from Icarus Films in September 2014,[13] and a 3-disc Blu-ray box set from the British Film Institute in May 2015.[14]

Filmography as director

References

  1. ↑ http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1533
  2. ↑ http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/bill-morrison/
  3. ↑ http://herbalpertawards.org/artist/2006/bill-morrison/
  4. ↑ http://creative-capital.org/grantees/view/197/project:160/
  5. ↑ http://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/grant_recipients/billmorrison.html/
  6. ↑ https://www.dancenyc.nyc/images/Bessie%20Archive.pdf/
  7. ↑ http://www.villagevoice.com/obies/index/2001/
  8. ↑ http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2013/13-216.html
  9. ↑ http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-01-16/film/the-poetry-of-decay
  10. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/22/magazine/22DECAY.html
  11. ↑ http://www.lafca.net/years/2011.html/
  12. ↑ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/coming-terms-one-americas-greatest-natural-disasters-180953044/
  13. ↑ http://homevideo.icarusfilms.com/new2014/morr.html
  14. ↑ http://shop.bfi.org.uk/bill-morrison-selected-works-1996-2014-blu-ray.html#.VUDpUc5zIcg

External links

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