The Pettifogger
Jun 11, 2012
(Lewis Klahr, USA, 2011, Bluray, 65 min)
Seattle Premiere!
Lewis Klahr builds worlds out of scraps of paper and the kinds of mass-produced artifacts that we toss into the wastebasket every day. Using cutout paper images from vintage comic books and magazines, and other cultural detritus, he constructs animated collages that tell a story while commenting on 20th Century American culture and the way we depict ourselves. “The Pettifogger,” Klahr’s first feature-length collage, tells the story of a “Mad Men”-era con man and gambler. Klahr depicts the Pettifogger, the small-time criminal of the title, in his everyday life. The result is part postmodern genre thriller and part abstract essay on wealth and greed, innocence and guilt.; a unique approach to storytelling that adds dimensionality even as it appears to diminish it.
