Since Charlie Shackleton’s new film, The Afterlight, premiered at the BFI London Film Festival in October, the film has had a little over ten screenings. Shackleton’s film is one of one, literally, as the director insisted that a solitary 35mm print be the only copy of the film in existence, despite being edited digitally. Moreover, Shackleton is exhibiting and distributing the film all by himself.
The Afterlight is composed of clips from other films featuring actors who share one thing in common: they are all dead. The people in the film are first shown traveling to an undetermined destination before arriving at a bar that bears the film’s name; drunken revelry ensues, and Shackleton edits these clips so that people from across film appear to interact with each other in clever shot-reverse shots. Eventually, the characters return home from their collective night out, have their own disparate experiences, and the film ends with an in memoriam of sorts for the actors. And The Afterlight as a film will have the same fate as these actors once its physical decay is complete. This all sounds incredibly morbid, but the film is also full of hope; by using these images from older films, some of admittedly poor quality due to differing care and preservation efforts, Shackleton provides another space for these images to live in — even if it’s just one print. In performing this exercise relating to the eventual decay of cinema as an object, Shackleton necessarily has to create and give life to an object. The film’s status as a physical object is further evidenced when, shortly before the end of the film, Shackleton appears to slow down the frames until the audience is left looking at frozen images of various actors in different states; momentarily, I wondered if there was something wrong with the projector or if this was an artistic choice before it clearly became the latter. But this question, albeit minute, shows the physical relationship of The Afterlight with how it is being shown. We are constantly reminded that the film is not just a DCP file on a hard drive, but an object with heft and material plasticity.
The film also begs the question as to how the prevailing cultures decide what films should be preserved. Shackleton is right to mention that what is saved and restored is shaped by any number of biases, but by drawing from such a wide berth of films from here and abroad (The Asphalt Jungle, In a Lonely Place, Late Spring, and some not so easily recognizable for this viewer), The Afterlight somewhat levels the playing field by placing so many different films in concert with one another. I say somewhat because it’s important to note the inaccessibility and double-edged sword inherent in Shackleton’s project; by creating only one copy of the film, only those with comfortable access to specific theaters will be able to experience The Afterlight, and only within a limited time period. One recalls questions of art’s transformation into significant cultural objects and how this specific move occurs; a snapshot of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1984 painting His Glue Sniffing Valet is, monetarily, worth nothing, while the actual painting was recently auctioned for $7.26 million. However, I can at least look at the snapshot; the only media available for The Afterlight are a few images on the film’s website. While these are great to look at, they cannot function in a way that further illuminates or reinforces Shackleton’s project; they merely provide a preview of what can be seen if one is able to attend a screening. Obviously, issues of accessibility aren’t Shackelton’s sole responsibility to solve, but when one takes them into account one necessarily considers exhibition a bit differently. It soon becomes clear that, more than anything, The Afterlight’s release makes one question the act of exhibition in general.
Of course, this is not the first film to ponder its own length or fragility; Zia Anger’s My First Film occurred live during both virtual and in-person screenings in 2019, vanishing soon after and now existing only in memories. Neon’s initial strategy for rolling out Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest film Memoria allowed only one audience to have access to a screening at a particular time. In an age where a specific saturation is present in most theaters, The Afterlight’s release and position as a cultural object beg further discussion. Recently, a tweet went viral showing Marvel’s Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness being stuffed into theaters, playing almost every 15 minutes. The volume of these screenings goes far beyond something being available, and at this level it should make people question how many screenings of a particular film are needed. Moreover, what happens to films that cannot book the same amount of screens? What would a world look like that allowed Shackleton to make multiple copies of his film without monetary concerns? Would Shackelton even want to due to how it would affect his film’s message of life and death? Regardless of these questions, The Afterlight certainly functions as an irruptive moment in an increasingly monotonous commercial film landscape.
As mentioned above, some of the clips and frames threaded together are in pretty bad shape while others are in more “pristine” condition; this was called to attention by Shackleton himself in a Q&A following the screening at the Chicago Film Society, and furthered by CFS’s own Cameron Worden when the latter mentioned how 4K DCP restorations can negatively impact the films they’re supposed to preserve. As the print of The Afterlight changes over the years, one wonders what frame will become most affected; Shackleton himself noted that he can already see new scratches in the print. Again, while these markings can understandably conjure up ideas of decay, they also are also signs of a life lived.
This extension is applied to the physical film as well. Any time something is created, its eventual demise is usually a foregone conclusion, something that one doesn’t need to pay explicit attention to. But by creating only one print, and making it so integral to The Afterlight’s thesis, Shackelton calls attention to his own creation’s demise. However, this is not as depressing as it seems. The film’s website describes the work as “a living document of its life in circulation,” and Shackelton is interested in this transition from creation to death, the film’s literal life.
Obviously, this life has to operate in conversation as death rumbles underneath the film for the whole duration. Upon reflecting, I find myself comparing these images of dead actors with the cruel CGI resurrections of recent actors who are not allowed to rest in death, or the recent talk of Marilyn Monroe’s constant grave robbing, whether it be metaphorical or literal. Shackelton accomplishes something those uncanny versions of Harold Ramis, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, and Marlon Brando could never: he positions his actors (if we can call them that) as they were while simultaneously creating something new out of existing performances.
All of this is to say that with The Afterlight, Shackleton gives audiences, albeit select ones, an opportunity to be a part of a film’s life, warts and all. If you’re fortunate to be able to attend a screening, I would definitely advise taking part in experiencing the mortality and elegy The Afterlight offers. I know that the memory of my screening, perhaps the only time I will ever be able to see the film, won’t soon leave my mind.
