The Life of "Life in the Atom"

For 30 years this film was lost.

In 1979, in the ashes of Adam Beckett's house stood Beth Block, Chris Casedy and a few other friends and family members.  Hit with the tragedy they walked like zombies through what was left of his house picking up drawings, reels of film and any bits of artwork they could find.

Most of this ended up in a storage space that is still owned and operated by the family.  A significant amount also went to CalArts; in particular the artwork that he created while at CalArts, naturally.  Still a small amount was held onto by other friends.  This was mostly because at first the two other sources were not allocated immediately and his friends all knew that this artwork was extremely important even if the world had not completely realized his genius quite yet.  One reel of film was given to Beth Block, fellow filmmaker and close friend.  That reel was his incomplete film "Life in the Atom" - this was the show reel, the most complete edit that he compiled to that point.

A few years passed and people started to ask Beth about that film.  By that point the family had finally started acquiring his artwork and putting it into the storage space.  Beth's recollection at that point was that she'd taken the film, but passed it off quickly to Adam's sister or another friend.  This question kept coming up over the next few decades, Beth would occasionally search her house and return to restate that she'd given the reel to someone else.

In about 2009, after some years people had forgotten about the film - lost to history, as so many other brilliant pieces of cinema have left us.  Two moves and significant sifting of all of Beth's life and property later; one day as she was looking for another piece of her old films in her home office- "It's not here.  It's not here either.  Hmm... There's some stuff on this tall shelf."  She pulls up a stool and reaches to a dark corner that she can't even see; feels around and settles on a box. "What's this?" she thinks to herself.  She slowly pulls it out and brings it down to eye level.  She opens the box as puzzled as can be.  She reads the side of the film inside...and a shock comes across her face.

She immediately calls Adam Hyman, director of the Los Angeles Filmforum.  THE person in Los Angeles to ask who to talk to about how to get this film in the right hands.  Adam immediately refers her to Mark Toscano, archivist of the Academy Film Archives who focuses on experimental and avant-garde film.  He is able to transfer it to the iotaCenter archives because, conveniently, their archives and all their films are on deposit at the Academy Film Archives (voluntarily, completely free of charge as an in-kind donation to the iotaCenter).

Also coincidentally, Larry Cuba, Stephanie Sapienza, Pamela Turner and Mark Toscano just finished restoring the six original films of Adam Beckett (and his one reel of early experiments).  They were just a few months away from a huge celebratory event of Adam Beckett's films and of the newly restored prints.  So, not only was Mark able to deposit the film in the iotaCenter's archive (since by that time all the film materials were donated to the iotaCenter from the Beckett family - almost single-handedly because of Pamela), but he also knew that he needed to work quickly and pull some strings all around town to get the film scanned so it would be ready for the event.

He went immediately to David Wilson, director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City and a close friend of Adam's.  David had many friends at Rhythm & Hues, one of the largest Visual FX studios in the world, and he asked them to scan the film - free of charge, out of the goodness of their hearts.  And that's just want they did.

The film was presented and just barely made it in time for the screening.  It was a huge success and many of his old friends were able to see the film again after three decades.

A little over a year later I came into the picture.  It took me some time to understand not only the history of all the films, but also what exactly should be done with the DVD.  I quickly realized that this was an extremely important project and not only were people donating to the iotaCenter to have it done, not only was Larry the director of the organization with his aspiration, not only was Pamela the director of the project with her dreams, but there was also Mark, Beth, Chris Casedy, David Wilson, the Beckett family.

So, after talking with many different people there came about a couple different ideas.  One of which was to ask Carl Stone, Adam's old collaborator to do a new soundtrack for the DVD.  I'm not sure who it was that came up with the idea.  I think it may have been Mark, but I also recall talking to Larry about this.  I think between me talking to the two of them the idea just came about.

Of course, this comes into the dilemma of should we be manipulating the artwork of a deceased filmmaker?  If we did then what are we saying?  The filmmaker is no longer able to have a say and we might be going against their wishes.  I certainly understand this argument and I think it has a valid point, but often I think it's important try and reach a new audience so that brilliant old works of art don't die.  This argument is quite wide ranging and has even been argued for transferring film to video.  Since this is a DVD of films at what point do we say "This is ok to manipulate without the filmmaker's consent, but this point is not okay."
And frankly, in this case, you can simply hit mute and see the film as it was/is.

So, I digress.  We eventually contacted Mr. Stone who pretty much jumped at the idea.  And even though we could not pay him and he was extremely busy he made a beautiful, dreamy and lucid soundtrack and matches the film in a very eerie way.  I still can't get enough of watch the film with that soundtrack.  The film is very similar to "Flesh Flows", but significantly more sophisticated.

I do feel the need to add that Beth Block was not keen on the idea that we added a new soundtrack, but she also didn't feel the need to throw her weight around to make sure it was halted.

Also, as one more side note to the really in depth fan who is interested.  There is one segment of the film (in the second picture above) where there are little abstract bits of things that circle around in space.  At one point just before that part the background cuts from white to black.  During our correspondences Carl mentioned that he believed that Adam meant to dissolve (aka fade) the background from white to black.  It was at this point that Larry decided that we shouldn't intervene on the film to that level.  After all it was and is an incomplete film.

Mark also told me that he recalls David Wilson talking about another section of the show reel where the two characters at the end go on some kind of carpet ride.  That would have been interesting to see.  Remember there's also a small section from "Life in the Atom" that we only had animated on paper.  This was shot by Pamela and we were able to include it.

A long story, it is, but still a fun one to tell.  Next will be the "Knotte Grosse" story.