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Yes, It's about Time: A `Virtual' Letter to Sally Potter from Giuliana Bruno

Harvard University

This reflection on Sally Potter's film Yes takes the form of a letter to the maker, a vehicle chosen for its capacity to address questions of critical distance and personal engagement between author and filmmaker. The letter has a history as a vital form of intellectual yet intimate exchange among friends, often made public through publication. Here, it becomes a means to work out a `critical' exposure of privacy in the public realm. Not a reading of the film per se but a multi-layered encounter, this text exposes, through direct address, the material fabric of the work: its elaborate visual texture and dense sensory fabric, as well as the rhythm of its language, all of which convey crucial issues of our time. Among these are the conflict between East and West, the borders of science and spirituality, gender difference, the bonds of love, relational time, and the time of mourning. In touching on these issues, the letter reflects on the very fabric of temporality — its residues and layers, grains and coatings, veneers and `films'.

Key Words: dirt • fabrics of the visual • layers • letter • love • mourning • pain • particle • privacy and publicity • rhythm • science • time

Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 7, No. 1, 27-40 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1470412907084506


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