The Girl Chewing Gum
7 /10 1 Votes7
Producer John Smith Country UK | 6.8/10 IMDb Genre Short Narrator John Smith Duration Language English | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cast John Smith Release date 1976 Similar movies The Black Tower (1987), Boy and Bicycle (1997), Day for Night (1973), Dear Phone, The Sheep Thief (1997) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Girl Chewing Gum is a 1976 British short film directed by John Smith. The film is widely acknowledged as one of the most important avant-garde films of the 20th century.
Contents
The film was inspired by a scene in Francois Truffauts 1973 film Day for Night in which the director gives instructions to the actors, and even tells a dog to urinate on a lamppost.
“I am writing this with a black ‘Tempo’ fibre-tip pen. A few months ago, I bought fifteen of these pens for sixty pence. Unfortunately, because they are so common, other people pick them up, thinking they are theirs. I bought the pens from a market in Kingsland Road in Hackney, about a hundred yards from where the film was shot. The film draws attention to the cinematic codes and illusions it incorporates by denying their existence, treating representation as absolute reality.” John Smith, 1976
Plot summary
At Stamford Road in Dalston Junction of east London, the camera follows pedestrians, cars and birds while a narrator, who appears to be the director behind the camera, seems to instruct the objects.
Similar works
References
The Girl Chewing Gum WikipediaThe Girl Chewing Gum IMDb The Girl Chewing Gum themoviedb.org