USA,
1995, 120 min
Shown in 1995
CREDITS
- dir
-
James Petrillo, Betsy Davids
- scr
-
James Petrillo, Betsy Davids
- cam
-
Tony Idarola
- editor
-
James Petrillo
- cast
-
Betsy Davids, Rick Prindel
- premiere
-
World Premiere
OTHER
William Blake—poet, bookmaker, painter, songwriter—was an 18th-century multimedia artist of the inspired sort. No wonder, then, that he should become the rapturous subject of a new-fangled interactive CD-ROM. James Petrillo, a purveyor of fine literary conceits (as his earlier Cinema Volta testifies), found his mad match in this renegade from the Enlightenment. Summoning a bounty of forms—live action, spoken words, moving images, classical music, hypertext links and dreamy illustrations—Petrillo and Davids have created the ingenious A Voice from the Fire, a whirling set of stories based on the tempestuous life of Blake and his wife, Kate. Blake’s agony in the world of material strife is set against the ecstasy of time spent in pure imagination. A selection of dramatic duets between husband and wife unfold, each a linear story with decorative elements from Blake’s paintings and manuscripts illuminating the often naughty departures. Operating on an intimate level particular to this interactive medium, the CD-ROM also allows a personally tailored exploration of Blake’s paintings, revealing details as never before. And it is in the subtlety of markings and meter that A Voice from the Fire evokes the fundamental delirium of William Blake the multimedia poet.
—Steve Seid
FACTOID #180
According to the Chronicle’s Herb Caen, producer David O. Selznick’s ’last letter and last phone call were to [SFIFF administrator] Shirley Temple Black to whom he said, ’I can’t wait to see you at the Festival.’’ Selznick was the namesake for a series of awards at the San Francisco International.
