As True As Troilus
As True As Troilus (2009) is a 20 minute film shot on black and white super 8 and 16mm film and often performed with a live soundtrack by FareWell Poetry. A DVD of this film is available with the CD and LP releases of 'Hoping for the Invisible to Ignite'.
CAST & CREW
Written, directed & edited by Jayne Amara Ross
With Cassandre Manet, Nicol & Laurent Evuort
Cinematography: Jayne Amara Ross
Assistant director: Frédéric D. Oberland
Lighting technician: Guillaume Mazloum
SYNOPSIS
The film takes its title and mythology from Chaucer’s important 14th century poem ‘Troilus and Criseyde’, a retelling of a ‘faux’ Greek myth with Medieval origins, in which the main protagonist Troilus falls in love with Trojan Cressida who finally deceives and leaves him for the Greek soldier Diomedes. The narrator of ‘As True As Troilus’ (just as Chaucer’s narrator) uses this myth to explore his own romantic mythology, using the characters and their situation to recount his own plight, illustrating the destruction of his own failed relationship with tableaux from the Trojan tale.
‘Unflinchingly wrestling with denial, As True As Troilus combines two antithetical energies : elucidation that expounds upon the complex afflicting Troilus, and enchantment that champions over lucidity in order to access a full experience, deeper than any rational knowledge. The film finds its answer in an overwhelming radiance: images that radiate clarity, visceral logic, symbolic readability, and graphic splendour unfurling in symmetry and duplication. From the onset Jayne Amara Ross retraces denial to its source, death, defining the pathologies of obsession, addiction and monomania. As fugitive passengers in free-fall through time, we reinvent passion, heroism, adventure, or even a tragic destiny, all in order to repress our ineluctable end. Following in the tradition of great cinematic mythographers Jean Cocteau, Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Gregory Markopoulos, Etant Donnés but also David Lynch in Eraserhead, Jayne Amara Ross reworks the traditional iconography of the Fates and weaves an astonishing portrayal of the human condition. As True As Troilus is endowed with a poetic fullness, as assured in the (visual, written, musical) images themselves as Troilus is confident in Cressida.’
Nicole Brenez
CAST & CREW
Written, directed & edited by Jayne Amara Ross
With Cassandre Manet, Nicol & Laurent Evuort
Cinematography: Jayne Amara Ross
Assistant director: Frédéric D. Oberland
Lighting technician: Guillaume Mazloum
SYNOPSIS
The film takes its title and mythology from Chaucer’s important 14th century poem ‘Troilus and Criseyde’, a retelling of a ‘faux’ Greek myth with Medieval origins, in which the main protagonist Troilus falls in love with Trojan Cressida who finally deceives and leaves him for the Greek soldier Diomedes. The narrator of ‘As True As Troilus’ (just as Chaucer’s narrator) uses this myth to explore his own romantic mythology, using the characters and their situation to recount his own plight, illustrating the destruction of his own failed relationship with tableaux from the Trojan tale.
‘Unflinchingly wrestling with denial, As True As Troilus combines two antithetical energies : elucidation that expounds upon the complex afflicting Troilus, and enchantment that champions over lucidity in order to access a full experience, deeper than any rational knowledge. The film finds its answer in an overwhelming radiance: images that radiate clarity, visceral logic, symbolic readability, and graphic splendour unfurling in symmetry and duplication. From the onset Jayne Amara Ross retraces denial to its source, death, defining the pathologies of obsession, addiction and monomania. As fugitive passengers in free-fall through time, we reinvent passion, heroism, adventure, or even a tragic destiny, all in order to repress our ineluctable end. Following in the tradition of great cinematic mythographers Jean Cocteau, Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Gregory Markopoulos, Etant Donnés but also David Lynch in Eraserhead, Jayne Amara Ross reworks the traditional iconography of the Fates and weaves an astonishing portrayal of the human condition. As True As Troilus is endowed with a poetic fullness, as assured in the (visual, written, musical) images themselves as Troilus is confident in Cressida.’
Nicole Brenez
PAST & UPCOMING SCREENINGS
Festival Jeune Création, le 104, Paris, France, November 2012
Chapelle Saint Jaques, Festival Les Rockomotives, Vendôme, France, November 2012
Le Divan du Monde, Paris, France, June 2012
Le 106, Rouen, France, June 2012
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, France, March 2012
La Péniche, Lille, France, March 2012
Mo'Fo Festival, Saint Ouen, France, January 2012
Protos Orofos, Thessaloniki, Greece, January 2012
Six Dogs Gallery, Athens, Greece, January 2012
Le Café de la Danse, Paris, France, December 2011
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, UK, November 2011
St Merry church, Paris, France, September 2011
Côté Court Festival, Pantin, June 2011 La Cinémathèque Française, Paris, France, July 2010
St Eustache church, Paris, France, June 2010
Côté Court Festival, Pantin, France, June 2010
La Société de Curiosités, Paris, France, April 2010
Festival Out of the Blue at La Java, Paris, France, October 2009
Glazart, Paris, France, September 2009
Filmer La Musique, Paris, France, June 2009
