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Bees & Thoroughbreds

Matthew Geller
1987, 28:26 min, color, sound

Description

Transforming individual lives into fictive texts, Geller illuminates the complexity of human nature in this layered, nonlinear narrative. Paralleling human and animal behavior, he intercuts three stories, building a seamless narrative from their visual and aural relationships. A horse racing correspondent views racing as a metaphor for life, while a beekeeper parallels the microcosm of the hive with hierarchical societal structures. A private detective, an astute observer of human nature, decodes behavior and indexes personality types. Shot in a documentary- interview style, the subjects have the resonance of fictional characters and the immediacy of "real people." Geller writes: "Taken as metaphors, one story fragment makes circular references to the other story fragments," much as the tape's circular construction alludes to the cyclical nature of life itself.

Camera: Ed Bowes. With: Mark Thompson, John Lee, Bonnie O'Neill. Produced in association with New Television WGBH/WNET.