Erin Espelie

Facts Told at Retail

2010, 9 min, Color, Sound, 16mm and Super 8 film mastered to digital video

In his introduction to the 1909 edition of The Golden Bowl, Henry James wrote, "My instinct appears repeatedly to have been that to arrive at the facts retailed and the figures introduced by the given help of some other conscious and confessed agent is essentially to find the whole business—that is, as I say, the effective interest—enriched by the way." 

In this film, James acts as the confessed agent, and the glass through which every image is reflected or filtered takes on a kind of consciousness.

Facts Told Daggerdress
Fact Told Silverclock
Facts Told Mirror
Premiere: 2010 International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Presentiments are strange things! And so are sympathies; and so are signs, and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key.—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre  

- As quoted by Mark McElhatten in his programming of Facts Told at Retail in "Séance" (including Stephanie Barber's bust chance and Janie Geiser's Ghost Algebra) at the NYFF in 2010