THE CRYSTAL GAZE
2007
8 min
Super 16 mm transfered on DVD
Colour and black and white
Copyright © Ursula Mayer
In 'Crystal Gaze' three women occupy a lavish setting, namely in the magnificently art deco rooms of the Eltham Palace in London. With help of these women, who are wearing impeccable period clothing and pearl jewelry – reminiscent of the excessive 1920s - Ursula Mayer is able to create a visual parallel to the tradition of the classical Hollywood film and its iconic actors. In contrast to her previous films, there is a script – however it is in the form of single statements, monologues and quotes. Cinematic role-playing shows a complicated web of dramatization, camera and staging.
"what they articulate is the fact of their own bodies-become-images, exquisitely fragmented and reflected in the metaphor of our and their crystal gazes. As the opening bars of peggy lee’s “is that all there is?” are played and they break into tragic-comic song the message is both high-camp relief and the damnation of a fascination with the screen. What they embody is something like a distillation of cinema: neither history nor biography, but quite simply the unbearable seduction of an image that we cannot enter but from which we can neither escape."
Ian White, Crystal Gazes, Lentos Museum, Linz, 2007
Written and directed by
Ursula Mayer
Script editor
Michelle Deignan
Cinematographer
David Rom
1st assistant camera
Kate NcDonough
1st assistant director
Stuart Parkins
Productions Manager
Dana Munro
Stills
Tim Brotherton
Cast
Helen Baker
Olivia Mace
Ulrika Belogriva
Editors
Ursula Mayer
Konrad Welz
Sound
Diego Sanchez
Simon Barthope
Gaffer
Frank Usher
Mark Bayley
Clapper loader
Sophie Monneret
Styling
Margaret Andrew
Make up
Lisa Hollis
Art department
Sarah Frere
Special props
Martin Fletcher
Runner
Ollie Larkin
Thanks to
English Heritage
Monitor, Rome