Screenshots # 2: Vargtimmen
8 votesThe second issue of Screenshots consists of 40 pages (17 full-spread drawings) of images from the film Vargtimmen (The Hour of the Wolf, 1968) by Ingmar Bergman.
For Vargtimmen, the images from the film were selected in chronological intervals of five minutes. Bergman’s intense focus on character and composition and Sven Nyqvist’s brilliant black and white cinematography turn almost every frame into a striking portrait, which made the initially arbitrary five-minute interval an oddly effective device for picking adequate images for the book. The drawings are executed in a variety of approaches; some of the images are drawn relatively faithfully, whereas others are reduced, distorted or emphasized in one way or another, to suit the form and rhythm of the book. Foregoing a straight retelling of the film’s narrative, this deliberately and necessarily fragmented succession of portraits creates a pictorial sequence parallel to the film.
Facts & Figures
Mission Statement: Screenshots is an homage to film in the form of a picture fanzine: A series of books of drawings (or paintings or mixed media works) based on images from films. The screenshots (often also called screen captures or screen grabs, i.e., still images from a paused film) that serve as the basis for the drawings are selected through a predetermined principle that varies from issue to issue. For example, for the first issue of the series, Conte de printemps (A Tale of Springtime, 1990) by Eric Rohmer (56 pages, 25 drawings in watercolor and pencil; February 2009), the starting point was that each image was to be a literal screenshot by having an actual television or computer screen in the frame. In interpreting films through the media of drawing and books, each appropriated series of screenshots turns into a subjective take on cinematic memory, a play with narrative forms and their inherent properties of drama and artifice. The narrative feature film is transformed into a fragmented series of still images in a book - a complex, collaborative production is processed through the intimate and personal act of drawing and self-publishing.
Founded: February 2009, by Manfred Naescher
Based in: Berlin, Germany
Editors / Designers: Manfred Naescher
Periodicity: Approximately bi-monthly
Language: English, but usually purely visual
Format: A5 (8.25 by 5.75 inches), staple-bound, 36 to 64 pages, full color
Circulation: 50 - 400
Price: 12 €
Web: manfrednaescher.com
Contact: manfred (at) manfrednaescher.com
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