The Edge
Robert Kramer, US 1968Screenplay: Robert Kramer; Cinematography, Editing: Robert Machover; Cast: Jack Rader, Tom Griffin, Howard Loeb Babeuf, Jeff Weiss, Anne Waldman Warsch, Catherine Merrill, Robert Kramer. 35mm, b/w, 101 min. English
Shot in crystalline black and white on 35mm, this second part of the trilogy on the Radical New Left is the seismogram of a revolutionary cell's (nine men and four women) nervous attempts to find a direction. The first shots – police photos of the suspects accompanied by the sound of typewriters – introduce the invisible enemy: the United States, which at this time is intensifying its bombing of Vietnam. Dan (Jack Rader), one of the group's members, becomes obsessed with the idea of assassinating the president. His plan as to how to move from theory to violent practice hovers over the tense six days shown in the film. Bernard Eisenschitz wrote in the October 1968 issue of Cahiers du cinéma, which featured Kramer on the cover as one of "Quatre Américains" along with Shirley Clarke, John Cassavetes and Andy Warhol: "The Edge is already, in preparation for Newsreel, a creative collective process" – Norman Fruchter (sound) and Robert Machover (cinematography and editing) were important figures in the collective, which was founded in late 1967. (V.P.)
Courtesy Cinémathèque française
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