Report

REPORT:
The film title tells about Bruce Conner's intention to deceive his audience that the film would be a documentary-like presentation. In fact, the film is a presentation of a report only in Conner's personal logical world. The elements he composes his "report" of the president's assassination included the newsreel footage, the reporter sound and a large range of indirectly relevant material that has to be associated in audiences' minds. With the association of these montage presences, Report on one hand mythologizes the tragic event; on the other hand Conner implies a deeper understanding of politic characteristic the relationship between politic and other issues, such as media and consumerism. This film has an extremely rich sense of intervention, and so I can only choose a few points to elaborate it.
-The presence of matador. As we see the matador is going towards the bull the sound we heard is describing the security precaution for the president. The next scene shows the matador killed the bull, but the presence of president's assassination is absent. The intercutting between these two situations seems purposing a suspicion about the real murder of this assassination.
-The bulb’s breaking. The bulb is not shown in breaking at once, but is shown in slow motion in three or four times, which symbolize the heartbreaking tragedy happened in a moment, but it is slowly taking its affliction. What can be more symbolic is the absence of soundtrack when showing the bulb’s breaking image.
-The final “sell” bottom: This assassination has been presented in media countlessly, and in my thought it is pathetic to overly reenact this tragedy no matter in what aspect. The word “sell”, thus, in my understanding it represents the commercialization that the public does to this tragedy. It has become a valuable commercial product, and even it is a report presentation. Thus, the Conner “report” ends in this image. The “report” is completed.