50 Feet of String.

There is no easy category in which to place Leighton Pierce's latest film, 50 Feet of String (1995). It could be termed documentary but the film is abstract. It's painterly. It's also personal and universal.

From earlier films and videos such as You Can Drive the Big Rigs (1989) and Red Shovel (1992), there is never a clear distinction in Pierce's work between factual documentation and visual investigation. Viewers see impressionistic imagery of trees, grass and roads while gathering an idea of what a particular moment in time, or place in the world, is like. It's not so much definable, empirical information we gather from Pierce's work, but a sense of place and time in a more visceral way.

Pierce's work derives, in part, from the style of Bill Viola's early videos. Visual concepts and sound-work from pieces like Viola's Migration (1976) and I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like (1986) are evident in Pierce's work. The idea of "ways of seeing" is essential to both artists, as well as the intricate use of amplified, ambient sound: a full orchestra of sound is created from what most would consider an average, daily soundscape. In both Viola and Pierce's work, there is no rush to a conclusion. There is a steady, easy flow that feels as if one is watching a painting slowly transform. Where Viola has begun to create more projected installation work (highlighted in The Greeting (1995) in which Viola takes the idea to the extreme by actually simulating a framed painting, moving slowly), Pierce has turned to the longer form of filmmaking to explore ways of seeing and hearing.

50 Feet of String continues a style evident in Pierce's work since 1991. At that time, he turned his attention toward issues and images close to home. In pieces like Principles of Harmonic Motion (1991) and Blue Hat (1993), he explored family, nature and visual perception focusing on the minute details of life. In the new film, he expands the ideas of the earlier pieces to a 53 minute collection of nuances and subtleties.

The film is divided into sections focusing on different moments in time seen through the brush stroked lens of Pierce's camera. The film begins with a crash of thunder, followed by the sprinkle of rain. The image we see is hard to decipher. Mist begins to gather on a surface. What the surface is, however, is difficult to read. It appears to be a window pane, or perhaps a patio floor. The difficulty in determining the nature of the image is one of the joys of this film. Time and again, images are presented so that a decoding process must take place. Through diffraction, focus and framing, Pierce makes each new image a Challenge and thrill to discover. The interest in the film comes not from having recovered the eluded images, but in discovering the beauty and newness of the everyday.

In the section entitled "lawn care," we see a child's hand cutting blades of grass with scissors. A few moments later, the wheels of a lawnmower ease by slowly. Through the use of shallow focus and low angles, blades of grass become towering trees in an imaginary world. A toy tractor comes motoring over a hill. For a brief instant, it is not a toy, but a full-size farm vehicle barreling across a wooded slope. These little moments of deception are the central delights of this film.

The string of 50 Feet of String is what literally and figuratively ties the film together. In each section of the film, a piece of string occasionally crosses through the frame, working on two levels. It is a connecting element for the film, but also makes viewers more aware of what they are looking at. The string usually appears at an angle, going off into the distance before disappearing from view. Pierce uses this as an additional clue for viewing. Using shallow depths of field and the string as a reference, he emphasizes the focal plane, creating a dazzling burst of sharpness and then a blurred fraying on each side of the focus.

The string first appears across a kitchen sink filled with dishes and a cup full of water in the section "corner of the eye." A droplet of water falls from the faucet hitting the string. A musical note, almost ominous, sings out as if the string was being played by the droplet. This image of the sink with the string recurs throughout the film and is a constant reminder of the significance of that object, not necessarily what that significance is, but that it is deemed important. Finally, at the end of the film, we see a hand come into frame, take hold of the string, and pull. The string breaks.

The location of Pierce's film is a landscape we've seen before: suburban and rural backyards with picnic tables, children's pools and lawn mowers. What most might consider mundane, Pierce reveres. We might acknowledge the existence of a tree in our front yard, but never notice its texture, color or scale. The beauty of these things is lost on most of us. After watching the film, one experiences a desire to go out and perceive the world. And things do look different for a short time, before we revert back to our inattentive selves.

This attention to the details of life is manifested not only in the imagery, but in the sound as well. It's not surprising that Pierce studied music before making films and videos. His knowledge of classical and jazz as well as his interest in Musique Concrete is evident in his use of sound in the film. Throughout 50 Feet of String, we hear everyday sounds that are recognizable, yet often disregarded. The crickets chirping in the backyard, the lawnmower somewhere in the neighborhood, and a single engine plane far off in the distance are magnified so that these normally background sounds are the center of his work, layered in a vivid yet utterly realistic fashion. It is another world, albeit familiar, but not an aural world that we acknowledge on a day to day basis. As with the eyes, our ears will not hear the same again. After listening to 50 Feet of String, I heard sounds that I never noticed in my own neighborhood. It was not just a sound or two, but a barrage of sounds that are hidden beneath the surface.

Pierce's evolution as a film- and video-maker has put him in a singular position. His current work has a visual and aural aesthetic that is clearly his own. While contemporary trends show a rise in personal documentary filmmaking, Pierce is in no danger of being lost in the crowd. 50 Feet of String is a different kind of personal film because it works subtly, with an emphasis on the poetics of both content and image.

CAM WILLIAMS is an independent filmmaker and writer living in Portland, Oregon.