The way of things (film)

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Movie
Original title The course of things
Country of production Switzerland
original language German (only text in opening and closing credits)
Publishing year 1987
length about 30 minutes
Age rating FSK none
Rod
Director Peter Fischli and David Weiss
script Peter Fischli,
David Weiss
production Hans Ulrich Jordi ,
Marcel Hoehn
camera Pio Corradi
cut Rainer Maria Trinkler ,
Mirjam Krakenberger

The Way Things Go (Engl. The Way Things Go) is the title of a 16-mm color film of the Swiss media artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss from 1987 with a duration of 29:45 min. The camera was Pio Corradi responsible.

action

The course of things is an art film that reproduces the continuous flow of a kind of Rube-Goldberg apparatus with just a few cuts . This string of improvised-looking devices for generating flames, movement, chemical reactions, foam, clouds of mist and the like, set up along two outer walls of a warehouse over an estimated length of 30 meters, is already set in motion at the beginning of the film and then runs like a chain reaction with each element passing a movement or other trigger impulse to the next. Inclined planes, tin cans, car tires, plastic bottles, fireworks, balloons that are filled with gas or burst, and much more are used.

The interlinking of fundamental physical principles, such as the use of gravity , centripetal force , the moment of inertia , Newton's 3rd axiom and the law of levers plays an important role . In addition, various chemical reactions are used to trigger the next action. For this purpose, different liquids are mixed, for example, which expand with a foam, generate gases, dissolve plastic foam or catch fire.

By repeatedly questioning how and whether it will go on, and by delaying the individual events, the viewer experiences an ups and downs of tension, relaxation, expectations, unexpected events and effects. Each end of an event is also the beginning of a new one.

One gets the impression of a single chain of individual objects whether the variety of combinations of reacting bodies. In fact, the effect of a spinning, bulky, filled black plastic garbage bag on an upright car tire is repeated from the first shot (at 0:07) at 1:45 minutes. A yellow-green "Samoa" air mattress can be seen standing bent at 1:20 and a similar looking or perhaps even identical one folded lying at 26:00.

At the points of minute 9:37, 11:03 and 17:22 the plausibility of the sequence is not clearly visible or manual intervention is possible from outside the image field.

distribution

The film was a public success at documenta 8 ; it is part of the Center Georges Pompidou collection in Paris, permanent exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum Wiesbaden . It was shown on 3sat , among others .

criticism

The British newspaper The Independent compared the effect of the film with Hitchcock:

"Watching 'Der Lauf der Dinge' is like watching a Hitchcock movie by objects instead of people."

Effects

The form and content of the film found numerous imitators in advertising and music videos. The Japanese car manufacturer Honda produced a commercial called Cog in 2003 , which Fischli & Weiss initially took legal action against. The music video for Honest Mistake by the American rock band The Bravery and the video for This Too Shall Pass by OK Go , shot as a one shot , also show chain reactions that are strongly reminiscent of The Course of Things . There are also several computer games based on the construction of similar constructions, e.g. B. The Incredible Machine .

Publications

  • “The course of things”, PAL-DVD, Total Film / Editions à voir, 2005

Web links