3rd Degree

Directed by Paul Sharits

Three-screen film. On the first screen, close-ups of an agitated match in front of a young woman's fearful face. On the soundtrack: matches, warnings of a rattlesnake, the phrase: "Listen, I will not speak." The ribbon runs at variable speeds, sometimes blurring, sometimes slowing down, to stop, on which the image / celluloid begins to fry and to burn, then leaves, runs, stops again, leaves again ... On the second screen we see the first rephotographed; here the "burns" are both fixed or new (a burn in the second degree). On the third screen, we see the second screen rephotographed. The subject of the film is the fragility of the film, as medium, as well as the vulnerability of man. Both the film and the figure resist threats / intimidation / mutilations.