Running Bride

Footage shot on analog Super 8 film, scanned to digital for editing

2010-2011

This film presents one character, a bride, running across and through differing American geographies wearing a traditional white wedding dress. She is alone, which begs the question: From what is she running? Or is she running to something? Without cars, architecture or other contextual markers, the film floats in time – it could have occurred yesterday, or 50 years ago. There is no dialogue as the bride travels through varying landscapes and tackles difficult terrain as she continues to run…and run…and run (with an occasional rest to ponder or take a breath). Without apparent beginning or end, the effort expended far outweighs any particular goal or destination. The point invariably becomes the act of running itself, which becomes magnified and exaggerated to a humorous extent. It could be determination…or escape.

The bride’s continual journey is reinforced by the landscapes themselves, with backdrops such as the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater Monument, Arches National Park, Mesa Verde, the Great Lakes, corn fields in the Midwest and areas around the Colorado Rockies. I’m interested in making a relationship between our culture’s ideas of marriage and some of the places that have a stronghold in our collective consciousness (parks, monuments, etc.) that we deem worthy of protecting as part of our national identity.

These locations require a journey and bear a kind of iconic image of Americana that one recognizes on postcards and reproductions – even if they have never been to that place. This is a fitting metaphor for the bride who recognizes the weight of marriage without “being there”. The film was shot with a hand held Super 8 camera, an additional reference to the nostalgia connected with ideas of matrimony and the existence of family movies often found having been discarded in attics and basements. I have fond memories of seeing such films of my own family when I was young girl.