Both the films in this programme are a form of recycling from ubiquitous streams of images, in this case from the News. Remixes and mash-ups, taken for granted now in our digital age, were still very unusual in the 1960s when Pasolini was asked by an Italian newsreel producer to make La Rabbia. To Pasolini, the montage was less important than the commentary, which, rather than a monologue over images, became be a direct address to the protagonists. Pasolini communicates with history as though it were a wretched friend. Shortly after La Rabbia was released in cinemas, Malcolm X was assassinated, and this event too, was processed through the usual channels of the media industry. Nearly thirty years later Ken Jacobs found a role for the outtakes, the cutting room floor material from these reports, and reproduced them exactly as he had found them, as the perfect film.

La Rabbia, Pier Paolo Pasolini, it 1963, 53 min, English subtitles
Perfect Film, Ken Jacobs, us 1986, 22 min