The Girl Chewing Gum
John Smith, 1976, UK, 16mm to digital, English spoken, 12'
In 1976, while still a student at the Royal College of Art, John Smith filmed an ordinary street corner in East London: passersby, traffic, birds crossing the sky, people queueing for the cinema. Only later did he add an authoritative voice-over that seems to orchestrate every movement on screen — his own voice of god retroactively claiming command over everything we see. Inspired by Truffaut’s Day for Night, this avant-garde masterpiece exposes how cinema manufactures meaning through narration. A brilliant reflection on filmmaking, authorship and control, chance and intention, and the moment when description slips into instruction. (Nana Bahlmann)
