Any new project by veteran filmmaker Sally Potter deserves attention. Any new film project which markets itself to mobile phones and the internet almost exclusively also demands attention. Put these two things together and you have Potter’s newest and most (at least technically) daring work to date. Rage is her new film set in the precarious and arguably vain world of fashion. The premise is fairly simple: a student by the well-chosen name of Michelangelo interviews a series of important (and not-so-important) people during New York Fashion Week, filming them on his mobile phone. This particular year, murders take place and everyone is a suspect and a figurative victim of the crime.
While in the past Potter has trained her keen eye through the traditional film lens, this project was designed to be viewed on mobile phones and computer screens. For a filmmaker like Potter, whose past works (Orlando, The Tango Lesson, Yes) has been feasts for the eyes on the big screen, the decision to format her film for the mobile screen is an interesting if almost unfathomable one. How does one adjust for the change of spectrum and viewing? What is the new spectatorship and how do you account for their sensibilities? Can it be called a film if it was not designed for traditional cinema viewing?
