Cross Country Timelapse, a YouTube video by Michael Bartolomeo that compresses a drive across the United States into four minutes, has attracted some attention since it was posted on September 3rd.
For instance, Andrew Sullivan featured it on the Daily Dish as the Mental Health Break for September 8th, 2009.
Bartolomeo channels structuralist filmmakers James Benning and Bette Gordon, whose 1975 film The United States of America compresses a similar cross-country drive, shot from the same backseat point of view, into 27 minutes.
Whereas Benning and Gordon use short clips, each one shot in real time, Bartolomeo uses individual frames, shot one every ten seconds. (Benning uses timelapse in other films, such as his 1976 Chicago Loop.)
Bartolomeo's film also announces its kinship with Peter Greenaway's (often structuralist) work, through its Michael Nyman soundtrack. Benning and Gordon, on the other hand, use the car radio, which firmly anchors their film in time and place.
A bit more on Benning:
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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