Abstract
Found footage is a technique for creating new images by recycling images such as movies, news, and advertisements. Bill Morrison's The Film of Her (1996) utilizes found footage techniques to unfold a woman’s memories of working as a film archivist by a voice-over narrator. A film archivist, while working in the library's copyright section, stumbles upon paper prints of a film printed on paper in the library's archives, and introduces a video announcing its value. The central characters appearing in The Film of Her are women in early film history. The frequent appearance of women in early film history is evidenced by the scene of a woman coming alive from the canvas of a portrait in Melius's films, or when a character named Uncle Josh jumps into the screen to rescue a woman from a ghastly man. Above all, a woman in a nude outfit of unknown origin further emphasizes the meaning of the film. The narrator reveals that she (HER) in her youthful state remained frozen in her time but that she was resurrected by the found footage technique. Bill Morrison's found footage is an acknowledgment of the archive fever and desire for creation and signifies the promise of a new film through the recycling of archive collections. As images from various eras unfold sequentially or simultaneously, Morrison's audience experiences the resonance effect of time and the puissance of difference and repetition.
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