The Scenic Route

Mark Rappaport is an American independent/underground film director who has been working sporadically since the early 1970s. A lifelong New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Brooklyn College in 1964. His films are often marked by high camp, melodrama, deadpan humor, ennui, and a rather cavalier attitude towards copyright law and intellectual property, often using music, archival footage, and excerpts from Hollywood films without seeking permission.

Central to Rappaport’s work is the relationship between the audience and media, particularly pop culture, which is his most recurring theme. An example of this is his first feature, Casual Relations, released in 1973. It is a bricolage of unrelated scenes, often announced by intertitles. One such title informs us that a character decided she would spend all day watching television. The scene that unfolds, approximately seven minutes in length, features just that: the character, in one continuous shot, watching television as the audio from three Hollywood films is heard. There is very little movement in the frame. Then the scene ends and the film moves on to the next scene.

Rappaport has been noted by Roger Ebert, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Ray Carney, J. Hoberman, Dave Kehr, and Stuart Klawans.[citation needed] Rappaport has had (comparatively) greater success with his last three features, all made in the 1990s: Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, From the Journals of Jean Seberg, and The Silver Screen/Color Me Lavender. —Wikipedia