Suspicious Circumstances (Jim Blashfield)

This award-winning film by Portland filmmaker Jim Blashfield led to the artist's career as a director during the 1980s heyday of MTV's music video craze.

His stop-action collage technique and surrealistic vision caught the fancy of David Byrne, Paul Simon and Michael Jackson, to name a few, and Blashfield was a video director in great demand for a time.

Predating digital and computer-generated film making, Blashfield's collage narratives were shot using a combination of still and 16mm photography before transfer to video. His labor- intensive cut and paste, hand-crafted method feels oddly out of place today, yet clearly demonstrates the artist's unique genius.

I had the good fortune of speaking often with Blashfield at the height of his career, when we frequented the same bar in Northwest Portland. Later, I collaborated with him briefly on a history project that, sorrowfully, never came to fruition because Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Oregon Historical Society didn't fork over the cash.

As a nostalgic aside, my daughter lived in the very apartment unit, in Northwest Portland's Jan-Mar, where this film was made. She moved in shortly after Blashfield vacated for new digs in the country.

Additionally, the male character in this piece was played by Portland actor Jim Cuevas, who played the role of "Doc" in my teleplay, Litany in a Trumpeter's Bog, produced in 1989.

I haven't talked to Blashfield in ages, but I'm sure he's involved with something just as artistically dramatic these days.

Great artists never quit or retire like ordinary folks.


TS