Home Movie

One is a static shot of a narrow rickety pier that extends far into the aqua smear of morning at low tide atop spindly insect legs its surface appearing to twist one way then another.  

 

The sounds are of an empty space. When your eye follows the lines traced by the irregular edges of the pier beyond itself and across the water, there are birds and an island and small boats tied to moorings.

 

Soon a white haired man wearing an electric green Izod Lacoste sweater and khaki pants is slowly walking the length of the pier.  One hand holds the string-like railing; the other holds a bright silver toaster. 

 

When he reaches the end of the pier, he is stationary for a moment.  Then he throws the toaster into the ocean.

A voiceover whispers "Whenever an appliance fails, he brings it here." 

The voice positions the cameraman, who is hiding in some bushes.

 

Two is a sequence shot at some unspecified temporal remove from the first in which the camera performs a long, slow pan across what initially is merely a surface that then resolves into a low woven fence made from strips of wood. 

Soon your gaze passes over lobster buoys and fragmentary blenders and lengths of rope, bits of postcards, shards of seaglass and doll heads, several rusted handguns and strainers from cocktail shakers.  All these items are tied to the fence. 

The same voice is saying: We collect objects from the beach and arrange them here.  The toaster finally washed up overnight.

The toaster occupies the whole of the frame.  The silver is a complex geography of dents, pock-marks and tarnish.

When he comes from the big house he passes this fence.  Most of the time, he does not notice it.  But sometimes something will catch his attention and he will stand for a while, looking.  Once in a while, he decides that something does not belong. 

By now you are looking out along the irregular lines traces by the edges of the pier beyond toward a small island on a grey slack tide day.

 

Three is abruptly underway after another unspecified temporal remove.  The white haired man is wearing the same electric green Izod Lacoste sweater and khaki pants.  He is untying something from the fence.

 

Only now do you realize that you have never seen his face.

 

Soon he is slowly walking the length of the pier tide atop spindly insect legs its surface appearing to twist one way then another.  One hand holds the string-like railing; the other holds the toaster and its geography of dents and tarnish. 

 

When he reaches the end of the pier, he is stationary for a moment.   

 

The afternoon is bright and the sky very far away.

 

Then he throws the toaster into the ocean.