Absence of Satan

A beautiful woman screams at something unseen off camera. Paul Newman appears eating salad and soon the famous sequence of Paul Newman closing a car door cut with a helicopter takes place. Absence of Satan is probably one of George Barber's best Scratch works and is a deft reworking of cinematic narrative and cliché. George Barber is one of the pioneers of Scratch Video which emerged in the UK during the mid-1980s. Scratch video makes use of found images from films and television, cutting seemingly incongruous imagery together to make a new meaning; it has been compared to the record-scratching techniques of hip-hop music, hence the name. (lux.org.uk)

• George BarberDirector

Release date

January 1, 1985

Status

Released

Original language

English

Runtime

5m

• 2/60: 48 Heads from the Szondi-Test

  1960

• 

  Before Words

  2010

• 

  Harold & Kumar Go to Amsterdam

  2008

• 

  Burning Palace

  2009

• 

  First Pavilion

  1968

• 

  Rendezvous

  1976

• Anthropo-Cynical Farce

  1970

• Why Try to Escape from That Which You Know You Can't Escape From? Because You Are a Coward

  1970

• 

  A Flower

  1971

• 

  Carne

  1991

• Hannah

  2007

• 

  GOOD-BY ELVIS and USA

  1971