Screenshots # 3: The French Connection / June 2009

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The third issue of Screenshots consists of 48 pages (20 full-spread watercolors) of images from the film The French Connection (1971) by William Friedkin.

This issue of Screenshots is concerned with only one scene: The car/elevated train chase, as reflected in Gene Hackman’s face. The French Connection is a series of portraits of Hackman’s cop on the hunt. The watercolors focus exclusively on Hackman’s facial expressions, while the actual car and the context of the chase remain strictly peripheral. This issue of Screenshots is an homage to the power of acting: Free of gimmicks, quick cuts and other means of distraction, this scene shows the visceral intensity and clear focus of Gene Hackman’s art.

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