Aerial
"There’s a general theme of the four elements, earth, air, fire and water – in a different order – air, water, earth, fire and then air again, with all the elements intermingled. But just as a sort of song or even a kind of nursery rhyme. Although I don’t understand musical structure – I can’t really follow the structure of piece of music when I’m listening to it – but I think that film- structure is more like musical structure than anything else." – Margaret Tait
| Directors | Margaret Tait, Margaret Tait |
| Actors | Jack Guariento, Jack Guariento |
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Aerial is a profoundly lyrical, affective film. Though the film is intensely grounded in the earth, there’s something soaring about it. It’s in the name, Aerial — reminiscent of trapeze acrobatics witnessed high above your head at a circus. It’s also in that first handheld shot of a TV antenna (also called an aerial in British English), which then shudders, shifts and gives way to cloud and sky.
Here, Tait’s poetic approach to the combination of image and sound in film is on full display. The naturalism of images of starlings feeding at a window or a worm wriggling along the ground is mixed with the formal inventiveness of shots presented in negative or in different hues, as if seen by some other kind of being or creature. The same can be said of the soundtrack, made up variously of a mixture of more naturalistic tones (piano notes and birdsong) and the slowed-down chimes of a music box that begin to resemble the weighty clanging of church bells.
Jack Guariento
Filmmaker and programmer
-
Aerial
4 mn
Language: Multilang
- Année 1974
- Pays United Kingdom
- Durée 4
- Producteur Ancona Films
- Langue Without dialogue
- Résumé court Touches on elemental images. Air, water (and snow), earth, fire (and smoke), all come into it. A drawn-out melody, single piano notes and some neutral sounds.
- TLF_Applismb_CA 1
- Date édito CA 2026-07-31
Aerial is a profoundly lyrical, affective film. Though the film is intensely grounded in the earth, there’s something soaring about it. It’s in the name, Aerial — reminiscent of trapeze acrobatics witnessed high above your head at a circus. It’s also in that first handheld shot of a TV antenna (also called an aerial in British English), which then shudders, shifts and gives way to cloud and sky.
Here, Tait’s poetic approach to the combination of image and sound in film is on full display. The naturalism of images of starlings feeding at a window or a worm wriggling along the ground is mixed with the formal inventiveness of shots presented in negative or in different hues, as if seen by some other kind of being or creature. The same can be said of the soundtrack, made up variously of a mixture of more naturalistic tones (piano notes and birdsong) and the slowed-down chimes of a music box that begin to resemble the weighty clanging of church bells.
Jack Guariento
Filmmaker and programmer
-
Aerial
Duration: 4 minutesLanguage: Multilang4 mn
- Année 1974
- Pays United Kingdom
- Durée 4
- Producteur Ancona Films
- Langue Without dialogue
- Résumé court Touches on elemental images. Air, water (and snow), earth, fire (and smoke), all come into it. A drawn-out melody, single piano notes and some neutral sounds.
- TLF_Applismb_CA 1
- Date édito CA 2026-07-31
