Notes on the Death of Kodachrome

This piece purports to be about the discontinuation of the much-loved format, Kodachrome, and with it the further endangerment of super-8 film. But it has other agendas of reclamation and personal reckoning that are its true subject matter.

We begin with a short, experimental super-8 film made in 1986, which makes rather prophetic assertions about the future of artistic expression and the dangers of bodily intimacy. From there we jump to 2005 and to digital video. I track down three old friends (Joe Westmoreland, Lisa Cholodenko & Todd Haynes) who borrowed and never returned pieces of my super-8 film equipment. We speak about the changes in our lives, focusing on the repercussions of the AIDS crisis and shifts in alternative film production. This process of reclaiming the apparatus of the aesthetics of intimacy (i.e. super-8 filmmaking) results in the realization of a new super-8 film, shot in the now defunct Kodachrome, which completes the narrative.

-- Jennifer Montgomery