I’m torn. YouTube is a repository of things otherwise impossible-to-find or out-of-print. It’s the only public place where you can hear Kraftwerk’s disowned early albums or watch Keith Levene abuse a Prophet-5 as PIL runs through “Careening.” These things are on YouTube because of fans and super-fans, noting a cultural absence and taking matters into their own hands. But no one’s getting paid, except for YouTube. And perhaps the uploader who unscrupulously turns on the monetization of an artwork that’s not theirs. That’s why I’m torn.
But discoveries like The Black Tower make YouTube seem all right. The enigmatically but actually named John Smith is a British avant-garde filmmaker whose work escaped me until I randomly peeped an exchange about The Black Tower on the Twitter machine. From what I’ve recently seen, Smith’s work is minimal but compelling, weaving stories and visual play from things noticed in his immediate surroundings. For instance, the 1975 short film Leading Light looks entirely shot in his bedroom. This article in Senses of Cinema digs further into Smith’s ‘familiar-but-unfamiliar’ approach.
The Black Tower is a 23-minute film released by Smith in 1987. The super-fan uploader didn’t monetize this, which is nice — The Black Tower is the sort of thing that should remain free of ads; otherwise, its spell is broken. “Architectural horror” is an intriguing phrase I saw to describe the film. For me, The Black Tower is like a campfire ghost story, except it’s told next to a darkened chip shop in a disused city alleyway instead of a campfire.
The Black Tower mainly comprises of stationary shots of nothingness and near-nothingness, but this is gripping stuff. And inspiring, too — don’t let anyone tell you lack of budget or gear constrains triumphant acts of creativity. Just get that Black Tower out of your head.
https://memora8ilia.com/index.php/2022/07/25/im-torn-youtube-is-a-repository-of-things/