Clouds

Clouds 1969 by the British filmmaker Peter Gidal is a film comprised of ten minutes of looped footage of the sky shot with a handheld camera using a zoom to achieve closeup images Aside from the amorphous shapes of the clouds the only forms to appear in the film are an aeroplane flying overhead and the side of a building and these only as fleeting glimpses The formless image of the sky and the repetition of the footage on a loop prevent any clear narrative development within the film The minimal soundtrack consists of a sustained oscillating sine wave consistently audible throughout the film without progression or climax The work is shown as a projection and was not produced in an edition The subject of the film can be said to be the material qualities of film itself the grain the light the shadow and inconsistencies in the print