All My Life (1966) User Reviews

Left

[ackstasis · 7/10 · 3 January 2009]

I can't say that the prospect of a 3-minute leftwards pan was appealing to me, but I actually found 'All My Life (1966)' quite relaxing. A filmmaker should never underestimate the power of a well-chosen soundtrack, and Ella Fitzgerald's "All My Life" works perfectly, evoking a simpler time and place. I don't see any reason why a backyard fence, examined from right-to-left, should be nostalgic in any way, but it is. The camera follows along the length of the fence, sometimes tilting upwards to take into account the bushes, and ends the film by rising up into the sky, passing a telephone wire and losing itself in the emptiness of the blue overhead. Aside from the camera movements, there's no action and no story. Just a fence, that music, and the memory of a childhood you'd forgotten.

Many of the avant-garde films of the 1960s have a tendency to be unintelligible, and often very grating. 'All My Life' doesn't really have an obvious point to it, but, whatever it's doing, it seems to make a lot of sense. Maybe the length of fence represents a man's life (the film's title seems to support this idea). The missing pickets represent our mistakes in life. The continual leftwards-panning of the camera is inspired by the idea that, though we move leisurely through our lifetimes, we are nonetheless constantly moving forward, never able to turn around and correct the mistakes of our past, having always to suffer the consequences of our errors. At the end of our fences, of course, we go to Heaven, completely removed from the life we'd lived before. It's a novel interpretation, perhaps, but I like it.

Relaxing and rhythmic; symbolic

[Polaris_DiB · 7/10 · 1 September 2009]

Well, this is a rather lovely fence. In all seriousness, the up-and-down spokes, the broken parts, and the roses do make a nice little allegory for a life--good parts and bad parts, uneven but regular in its own way, ascension afterwards, the movie ends just short of being pure blue sky (there's still a little power line on the right. Human technological evidence, yet very natural. A lot of rising hope in the end.

The song by Ella Fitzgerald is beautiful, but that should come as no surprise because it's Ella Fitzgerald. The rhythmic winding of the fence is a good simple match to the beat of the song, which is nice considering we're used to music videos that take a lot of time editing together imagery that matches the beat, but here something found like a fence in Anywhere, USA does all the rhythmic work on its own. This movie is also definitely one of the more pleasant experimental films to be made as many experimental films set to task to put the viewer out of the comfort zone rather than creating something quite so poetic or elegiac.

--PolarisDiB

Yes, I've Seen It Too

[Oct · 16 May 2007]

And it's one of the most intense, compacted moments of joy in the cinema. I must have watched this minimalist music video-- Teddy Wilson's orchestra with the young Ella Fitzgerald delivering a ballroom swing number of the late 1930s, scratchily recorded-- fifty times... and never failed to be uplifted, and never known quite why.

It's a continuous take, panning west, of a broken-down old clifftop fence-cum-hedge, sometimes floral, sometimes bare. At the end (as the vocal refrain ends and the orchestra slides into the final recapitulatory chorus) the camera eye soars calmly up into the wide blue yonder, crossing a telephone wire, and fades. And that's it.

Sheer magic, a visual haiku. One hates to be at a loss for critical words, but 'All My Life' defies them. Just see it.

Music kinda saves this

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 13 March 2016]

"All My Life" is an American 3-minute short film from 50 years ago directed by Bruce Baillie during the most prolific phase of his life. Unfortunately, he was a lot about quantity back then and not about quality. What we see in here is completely boring and could have been made by every non-professional filmmaker as well. The only reason why I do not give this one just a */***** is Ella Fitzgerald's decent singing that totally elevates the material. Luckily for her, the film only runs for such a short time, otherwise I may not have been so generous. From the filmmaking effort, this movie here is a definite contender for Baillie's weakest. Do not watch. Just listen to a Fotzgerald record instead, I guess.

Has nobody seen this movie?

[Syd! · 10/10 · 11 August 1999]

After accidently stumbling across the entry for Bruce Baillie's marvellous ALL MY LIFE, I was amazed to see that it had yet to receive even five votes. Well, not amazed exactly -- it is after all a three minute long avant-garde movie set to the Ella Fitzgerald song ALL MY LIFE -- but a little disappointed nonetheless. For those of you who haven't read the plot summary (so to speak), ALL MY LIFE is a movie about a fence. A three minute pan left of a fence. To spice things up, there are even a few rose bushes and a final tilt up to the sky as the song comes to an end.

But why is this movie so good? I think one reason is perhaps the calmness that comes from its minimalism. It was made in the mid-sixties at a time when the American avant-garde movement was really booming: Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, et al. That was also a boom period for the drug scene (just listen to The Beatles!), and you can see a definite shift toward psychedelia and sensory overload. Even Warhol, for all his banality, was still in yer face. ALL MY LIFE, with its pared down mise-en-scene and music track that recalls an earlier era, seems to play in the other direction. An analogy might be the Talking Heads movie STOP MAKING SENSE, which adopted a very classical style in favour of the rock razzledazzle and MTV aesthetic that one associates with the mid-1980s.

But ALL MY LIFE is deceptively simple and unassuming. There isn't room to do it justice here, but the implications of the pan left or the tilt to the sky seem quite profound -- even transcendental, as we observe the seemly banal and look up towards the heavens. It also quite simply reminds you that there's more to cinema than hyperfast cutting (stand up Mr Michael Bay) or supposedly breathtaking special effects (Mr Lucas). And, hey, if Bruce Baillie can do it with a fence, why can't you?!

Perfect

[JennaCainis · 10/10 · 26 October 2005]

This film was perfectly beautiful. Before viewing this film, I was told that this film was the "most perfect movie ever made". While I don't know if I can completely agree with that, I can understand the argument. The film was just three minutes long but it impressed me with the depth of effects that were added. The effects created on an optical printer, a painstaking way to mesh the film together, created fades, dissolves, and other special effects that are truly breathtaking. The music that was laid underneath the footage, All My Life by Ella Fitzgerald, added a depth to the film that personally kept me intrigued. While watching the film I was unaware as to where the story was going, what would happen next, but in the end I realized that the film was simply about the movement of the camera, the effects, colors, lines, and most importantly for me, the music.

Thank You, Ella

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 14 May 2019]

A camera pans right to left, focusing on a rickety wooden fence. We are given a view of growth along the fence, flowers and shrubs. But the highlight is a young Ella Fitzgerald singing a signature song. It is a nice integration of music into what could be a mundane vision.

It's all about the vibe

[injury-65447 · 9/10 · 22 May 2020]

This is a very transporting film. You feel yourself being gently lulled into this sweet summer setting and lazily wafted along on the breeze by the mellifluous voice of Ms Fitzgerald.

This is a great example of how film can be used to gain entry into a feeling. A very sultry summer vibe.

A lovely, simple idea captured perfectly

[runamokprods · 9 September 2011]

Beguiling 3 minute short film that consists simply of an extended pan past a wooden fence with flowers growing over it, ending with a tilt up into a blue sky as a scratchy recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing 'All My Life' plays over.

It manages to be funny and a little sad, as the shoddy fence seems to say something about the poverty of the human world we're looking at, but the flowers and the tilt to the sky give some sort of hope.

Baillie was a favorite director of Martin Scorsese's and I could see why from this short.

Easy to see at video sites on the web. A quick Google will lead you there. And worth it