Emily – Third Party Speculation

In the archive, condition reports are used to monitor the ongoing changes in film prints, documenting their gradual transformation over time. In this series, filmmaker Juan González Monroy shares moments of discovery from his work inspecting prints in the Arsenal collection. In EMILY – THIRD PARTY SPECULATION, Malcolm Le Grice introduces the us to a domestic setting that disrupts viewing habits shaped by narrative cinema and forces us to question our expectations as well as our role as viewers. In everyday life, we take it for granted that our attention unconsciously creates order. Narrative cinema takes over this process by guiding us through characters, perspectives, and continuity. Le Grice dissolves these structures and directs our gaze toward attention itself—as a way to regain freedom in seeing: “In a sense, the film seeks to isolate a moment that exists outside of time and space: the moment when the center of attention shifts.” (Juan González)