Death and Drag | Britney Valentine : One Night in Boston

Описание: Death and Drag | Britney Valentine : One Night in Boston

Final Project for the Harvard Art, Film, & Visual Studies Course - The Deaths of Cinema - taught by Dennis Lim.

The film is also in association with the University of Cambridge Film & Screen Studies Department, where I did my MPhil, where further edits were made, and the newly cut film was submitted to festivals where it won several awards.

Below is the companion mini-essay required when submitting the film to Harvard originally:

The seemingly endless tick, tick, tick of the film on its reel as it ventures through the projector – a real piece of film and the sound it makes … a steady percussion … a heartbeat. What happens when the sound ends? When the not-so-endless tick, tick, tick ends? What happens when the movie ends?

Death.

Is it death? Or is it rebirth? Evolution? Or all of those things all at once?
My film Death and Drag explores those thoughts in a multitude of ways: from the use of film equipment brought to life decades apart, some found footage of my personal past and some saved footage spanning over a decade plus, and real memories from decades prior that are vulnerably and uncharacteristically shared in raw and emotional ways. The project became so much more than I ever expected – a catharsis in videotaped memoir form.
The original film idea was called Do I Scare You? and it was to be a voyeuristic look at a couple who uses multiple cameras to capture their love and their romantic escapades in an evening at a hotel. The main character was to shed his clothes and his male identity to become his female alter ego and the transformation of the female illusionist from man to woman, as the cameras transition from silent scenes shot on black-and-white Bolex film to full-color, fully-audible iPhone 13 digital, was going to reflect how the technology (and a new generation’s openness to exploring sexualities freely) advanced the way we see each other – even though the feeling is the same. A man flexing his muscles in 1925 in a black-and-white silent film could say the same thing as a man in full color naked under a sheet motioning for his partner to join. The only thing that has seemed to change over time is the clarity with which we see the image. But even if you are at Harvard and have access to all the equipment in the world and a great idea for a short film … people can still let you down. A film is much more than the director, right? Of course. And even a student film relies on a cast if it is written so. Then, what do you do when your scene partner … someone who was an actual partner … doesn’t show up? Do you kill the project? Or do you give birth to something new? You use that disappointment and pain and improvise.
The project that was born through the death of the first became Death and Drag. I think because I felt so raw and emotionally charged after my partner didn’t show, I channeled that energy into this tell-all cinematic creation – a Frankenstein of sorts – that has a far greater impact than the original idea. I had all the equipment, I had the hotel room, I had the makeup and the wig, and I was not going to let the moment go to waste. The footage from Ricki Lake, a VHS recording that was transferred to Youtube, lost its clarity in the process of uploading and downloading when the internet was still quite fresh – but it did not lose its meaning or its heart. I think it was the VHS-C video camera I was using for some parts of the film that reminded me of the time when that was all we had – the “simpler” times, which really were quite complicated. Today, it is a computer in our pockets that can record a high-definition video at the touch of a screen and then transmit it to computers and smartphones around the world in a matter of minutes. Maybe it was the effort-taking complication of putting a physical VHS-C tape into a clunky camcorder contraption that reminded me to just slow down a bit and appreciate how far I have come since my mother died.
I am so glad I took this class and that THIS was the project that was born from my experience in “The Deaths of Cinema.” I saw the power in going back to the past to watch a train coming into a station, the vision of an alternate present where we put on many faces and act without seeing a physical camera, and the mystery of an ending in a future where we become the data of which we dictate. All these films, and so many others I was introduced to in this class, inspired my film and, honestly, gave me the bravery to try something out of my comfort zone and reveal a work that truly touched me. And I hope it is a work that will touch others in the years to come.