Unbound - Scenes from the Life of Mary Shelley

Streaming video - 2013

UNBOUND transforms and explodes the idea of documentary and biography. The result is an inversion of narrative, re-siting Romanticism through an infinitely caressing yet ruptured and painterly lens...In Rome for a year at the American Academy, Child created imaginary home movies of scenes from the life of Mary and Percy Shelley. She was attracted to these authors—their life of poetry, politics and sexual invention— inspired by previous fictionalizing of home movies in her Covert Action (1984) and The Future is Behind You (2004). She worked with non-actors, the seasons and the extraordinary architecture and landscapes of Italy where the Shelleys were in exile for six of their eight years together. The result is a feature film UNBOUND: go...rgeous, emotional, creatively combining new technologies with cinematic language. ..Digressive, looped, unpredictable, symphonic UNBOUND is a poignant and deep exploration of women and creativity, focused on the teenage author of Frankenstein. The history of the Shelleys has drama, degradation, and scandal set within radicalized politics, sexual and class rebellion and the lives of working artists. Child’s deconstruction embodies the poetic primacy of memory as well as the wit of techne: layered, diverted, delayed, reframed and remade...Music by Zeena Parkins more