In the Life
2019 - in progress
video, 33 min
Emily Clayton returns to her home in rural West Tennessee in ‘In the Life,’ where she documents the life of her mother, a retired sixth-grade school teacher and an addict. In the Life centers in and around her mother’s modest home, which has become a hideaway for her boyfriend James and other transient young men. Emily’s camera use is sober and noninvasive. Clayton stops filming when asked and respects closed doors. The eerie sense of being a visitor of a place in crisis looms in the whispers and the references to unexplained events in the dialogue. Clayton’s family and house guests seem to all be waiting for an event that has yet to happen. Yet, through sharp editing cuts and the use of the audio of voicemail from friends back in NY, Clayton reminds us that she is only a visitor and these people's lives will continue on here without her.
- Norman Chernick-Zeitlin
video stills below
