In his artistic research, Xavier Gautier is using old super 8 mm films made by his father, combining them with excerpts of mainstream Movies. Xavier operates a re-interpretation of existing visual documents, blurring the borders of different cinematographic expressions, interveening subjective experience with mainstream media. Childhood plays an evident role in the work, in the sense that Xavier uses childhood to question the adult world. The sensibility of Xaviers approach in all of his works is combined with a sense of humor as well as an underlying “dark side“, questioning our own position as viewers.
To view the films online in Quicktime format please click on the film titles in blue color. I hope that you will enjoy Xaviers films as much as I do:
E.T. and me, 2000, 1‘00“
E.T. and me, 2000, 1‘00“
The film « E.T. » by Spielberg was shot about the same year as this carnival occured in the village I was living in. It is the actress Drew Barrymore who is supposed to be under the ghost´s linen, instead of E.T. But it could also be me.
Matthew, 2001, 1‘10“
Matthew, 2001, 1‘10“
The boy discovers the voice of his dead mother, recorded on tape by his father. This recording makes him sharply remember her. I had this already damaged super8 film of my mother, and it occured to me that it was a good equivalent of the boy´s visions when he´s listening to the tape. Later in the movie, the boy will erase the tape by mistake.
The garden, 2002, 0‘50“
These pictures of Marilyn impressed me a lot when I was young, because she looks very far from the sexual creature she is supposed to represent. She couldn´t have any children in her life, even if she was pregnant two times. Here she appears very thin, and already spectral as she died a few days later.
Arnold, 2003, 1‘40“
I find this opening sequence beautiful. In one and a half minute we go progressively from the Empire State Building skyline, to a small boy hidden in a cupboard. We pass successively a cemetary, then suburb houses, and into a house. This house is familiar to me: lunch time, sounds of summer, toys spread over the rooms.
Peng!, 2004. 0‘35“
There is this strange moment in « Bonnie and Clyde » by Arthur Penn when Bonnie wants to see her mother again. There is a family meeting in the middle of nowhere, which looks like a dream. The hills of sand and the distant voices remind me of holidays at the beach. I like that the sand is the link between Bonnie and the children. They look like they want to agress her for some reason.
Documentation by Kristofer Paetau, october 2005
Contact Xavier Gautier: xavier@brandshof.de
Xavier Gautiers Website: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/wunderbar
