The Great Flood
BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood DVD
"The Great Flood" DVD on sale now from Icarus Films
2013
DVD

An Icarus Films release
78 minutes / b&w
Release: 2013
Copyright: 2013
DVD Sale: $24.98
BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood Epic poem by Jeff MacGregor
"The Great Flood" wins American Ingenuity Award for Historical Scholarship
Smithsonian Magazine, November 2014
Epic poem by Jeff MacGregor
Photo credit: Joni Sternbach

The filmmaker's found-footage masterpiece about the Great Flood immerses you in history.




BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood
"The Great Flood" - Top Ten Film of 2014
by Jordan Hoffman

"I don’t know if this is documentary or non-narrative experiment or a prolonged music video for people of peculiar taste. All I know is that it is gorgeous and haunting and altogether human and important. "
BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood New York Times, 1/7/14
Review: "The Great Flood" (New York Times)
by Neil Genzlinger
New York Times, 1/7/14

"Sublime...a striking experiment in music and moviemaking."

- Neil Genzlinger
New York Times, 1/7/14

BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood Los Angeles Times, 1/30/14
Review: "The Great Flood" (Los Angeles Times)
by Gary Goldstein
Los Angeles Times, 1/30/14

"by turns hypnotic, playful, wildly evocative and even a bit trippy. But most of all it's a unique, highly immersing audio-visual experience that would be as at home in a museum as it is in a movie theater — and that's a first-order compliment."

- Gary Goldstein,
Los Angeles Times, 1/30/14
BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood Sight & Sound, 3/19/14
Feature: "The Great Flood" (Sight & Sound)
by Sukhdev Sandhu
Sight & Sound, 3/19/14

Bill Morrison, expert aesthetician of decay and disappearance, turns his attention to the forgotten flood that devastated interwar America.

BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood Electric Sheep Magazine, 4/18/14
The Great Flood: Interview with Bill Morrison (Electric Sheep)
by Eleanore McKeown
Electric Sheep Magazine, 4/18/14
photo by Daniel Sheehan

"She’s very serious about her dance and she’s extraordinarily beautiful. That’s what I wanted the film to be."
- Bill Morrison
BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood The Washington Post, 5/2/14
Feature: "‘The Great Flood’ is Bill Morrison’s latest found-footage film to focus on disaster"
by Steve Dollar
The Washington Post, 5/2/14

"Disaster has an uncanny relationship with Bill Morrison; it’s practically the basis for each of his films. Over the past two decades, he has expanded the language of found-footage filmmaking. His work turns degraded nitrate stock culled from film archives into lyrical meditations on storytelling and the entropic nature of existence. Out of the cinematic ruins, he salvages art."

- Steve Dollar
Washington Post, 5/2/14

BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood LA Weekly, 1/8/14
Review: "The Great Flood" (LA Weekly)
by Chuck Wilson
LA Weekly, 1/8/14

"Destined for a long life in museums and history classes alike, this is cinema as art, and a classic."

- Chuck Wilson
LA Weekly, 1/8/14
BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood
Trailer: "The Great Flood"

Film by Bill Morrison
Music by Bill Frisell
Produced by Phyllis Oyama

2013, 78 min, HD

The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in American history. In the spring of 1927, the river broke out of its banks in 145 places and inundated 27,000 square miles to a depth of up to 30 feet.

Part of it enduring legacy was the mass exodus of displaced sharecroppers. Musically, the “Great Migration” of rural southern blacks to Northern cities saw the Delta Blues electrified and reinterpreted as the Chicago Blues, Rhythm and Blues, and Rock and Roll.

Using minimal text and no spoken dialog, filmmaker Bill Morrison and composer / guitarist Bill Frisell have created a powerful portrait of a seminal moment in American history through a collection of silent images matched to a searing original soundtrack.

Performed by
Bill Frisell, Guitar
Ron Miles, Trumpet
Tony Scherr, Bass, Guitar
Kenny Wollesen, Drums, Vibes

BILL MORRISON • HYPNOTIC PICTURES The Great Flood Aired January 7, 2014
Great Songs About The Great Flood (Soundcheck)
WNYC Soundcheck with John Schaefer
Aired January 7, 2014

WYNC Soundcheck segment with host John Schaefer, discussing "The Great Flood", Bill Frisell, and Flood music with director Bill Morrison