Part of Summer 2007
Paris-based artist Camille Henrot stacks all three film versions of the classic saga of the gigantic ape upon one another, cutting and folding 3+ hours of the Peter Jackson-directed 2005 version and 2+ hours of the Dino De Laurentiis-produced 1976 version onto the 100-minute running length of the 1933 original. Unlike other movie monsters of the 1930s, King Kong was a pure creation of the movies, born from an original story (by director Merian Cooper and Edgar Wallace). See the changing visions of Skull Island; see the World Trade Center morph from the Empire State Building, and back again; watch Naomi Watts, Jessica Lange and Fay Wray take turns as Kong’s romantic interest in a masterful feat of cinematic sedimentation. Henrot learned the art of addition and subtraction with short handmade films on which she drew, scratched or collaged. This is her first feature, on which she shares directorial credit with her esteemed predecessors, produced in high-definition video that opens a morass of intentions and adventure with startling richness and accumulation of detail. King Kong Addition (101 min., 2007) premiered at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in January 2007. This is its first North American showing. Behold!
