Movie 666

PILES OF DIRT (2007) directed by Julian H. Scaff

By Incubus Rex

The dirt piles that Julian H. Scaff palpates with such adroitness and precocity have disintegrated into imperceptable topsoil since the filmmaker assembled his perceptive documentary Piles of Dirt which recently premiered at the Film is Dead Festival. Working with vérité patience and unscripted narration that opens an eery window into the soul, Scaff looks and listens, with sensitivity, as notable artists, critics and intellectuals explain their conflicting, intractable impressions and their tangled interpretations. Scaff elevates soil to metaphor, exposing society as a decompounding compost heap. The halcyon poetry of the cinematography neutralizes the mess of the artworks to stunning effect.

What are these piles of dirt? As Scaff creates these simple yet massive art installations in the diametrically opposed cities of Beirut and Amsterdam, one artist contends that Scaff is “hacking the public space.” Another that he is committing an act of eco-terrorism. An art historian asserts that he is turning Dutch landscape painting inside-out. Academics variously argue that he is reintroducing spirituality into public space, or altering the soundscape of the city in almost imperceptible ways. An Australian anthropologist draws an almost absurd yet undeniably plausible sports metaphor to rugby.

In another way Piles of Dirt explores the potentially exploitative relationship between artist and audience, and the difficulty of art in responding to the horrors of “real” life: thus Scaff seems an alien figure in his three-piece suit and panama hat carrying buckets of cow manure past Lebanese shop keepers or Dutch cafés.

Nonetheless, it is not the conclusion that is important, but rather Scaff’s adeptness at intermeshing art practice and art theory into the final work. Whatever interpretations you may agree or disagree with, in the end the only definitive drawn by the film is that the meaning of art is always a plurality.

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