Left of Reckoning

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Left of Reckoning
Directed by	James Herbert
Starring	Bill Berry Peter Buck Mike Mills Michael Stipe Ruben Miller
Music by	R.E.M.
Editing by	James Herbert
Running time	~20 mins
Country	United States

Left of Reckoning is a short film by James Herbert, set to the first half of the R.E.M. album Reckoning (hence the title). This comprises the songs "Harborcoat", "7 Chinese Bros.", "So. Central Rain", "Pretty Persuasion", "Time After Time (Annelise)", and "Second Guessing".

James Herbert had been Michael Stipe's art tutor at the University of Georgia. The footage was shot by Herbert in May 1984 (when the band had some time to spare before embarking on a tour of Europe) at artist Ruben Miller's Whirligig Farm in Rabbittown, near Gainesville, Georgia, and features the members of R.E.M. variously occupying themselves amongst the hundreds of whirligigs. According to band guitarist Peter Buck,

It was really inexpensive to make and kind of fun. We just asked [Herbert] to edit something to four minutes' length, but he's used to making 20-minute films, that's the length he works in. He just made this film that goes along with the first side of the record.[1]

Buck also said of Herbert, "He's a filmmaker, not a director, he didn't direct us, he just shot us while we did things and gave suggestions occasionally."^[2]

In editing, Herbert manipulated the footage to produce effects such as slow- and fast-motion, stills, bleeding colour and black and white. Many of the techniques used on Left of Reckoning would also later be apparent in Herbert's videos for "Life and How to Live It" and "Feeling Gravitys Pull" (both co-directed with Jackie Slayton) from R.E.M.'s third album, Fables of the Reconstruction.

Although initially intended as a promotional video for Reckoning, Left of Reckoning was not likely to receive much airplay on television in its entirety, due to its length if not its unusual style; instead, the "Pretty Persuasion" segment was excerpted from the film as a standalone promo for play on MTV and music programmes.^[3] Additionally, the "Time After Time (Annelise)" segment was shown on the I.R.S.-funded programme The Cutting Edge.^[1]

Left of Reckoning is included on the R.E.M. video compilations Succumbs (VHS, 1987) and When the Light Is Mine (DVD, 2006).

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Gray, Marcus (1996). It Crawled From The South: An R.E.M. Companion, 2nd edition, Fourth Estate. ISBN 1-85702-354-4.
• Jovanovic, Rob (2001). Adventures in Hi-Fi: The Complete R.E.M.. Orion. ISBN 0-7528-4618-3.