Where montage becomes memory; or is it the other way
around?
A Portrait of Ga (1952) is an early work by the
Scottish writer and filmmaker Margaret Tait. Blurring the lines between
documentary, poetic essay, experimental cinema and conventional home movie, the
short, four-minute film presents a series of small observations of Tait's elderly
mother, the "Ga" of the title. In its accumulation of little moments,
some playful, others entirely mundane, Tait creates a portrait of her mother
that captures the different facets of the older woman's personality. In this
sense, the film achieves what great art has aspired to achieve since time
immemorial: to record and to express.
Filmed on colour stock 8mm film, A Portrait of Ga has
a vibrancy to its imagery. Whether depicting the older woman exploring the
rugged but beautiful landscapes of Kirkwall in Orkney, where the filmmaker grew
up, or simply sitting by the window, smoking a cigarette or unwrapping a sweet,
the accumulation of these small gestures and the unobtrusive, almost naturalistic
way that Tait records them, expresses the humanism, sensitivity and the hymns
to nature and the elements that define much of the filmmaker's work.
A Portrait of Ga [Margaret Tait, 1952]:
When we think of the people that define our lives,
whether they're friends or enemies, family or other, it's often these small
details that live longest in the memory; the way someone sits, a gesture or a
movement of the body, the way they dance or laugh. Tait's film captures this in
relation to her own mother and presents it with a great warmth and intimacy. As
she ruminates in verse on the soundtrack, we realise how monumental these
seemingly trivial observations are to Tait's own conception of her mother as
both a familial influence and as a human being.
Presented as a supplementary feature on the BFI's Blu-ray
release of Tait's only feature-length work, Blue Black Parchment (1992), A
Portrait of Ga has a significant relationship to that later film, but is also
markedly more successful and cohesive. Once again, Tait is making a film about
a woman attempting to understand her own life and work through a focus on her
own mother, and creating a portrait of a woman defined by a particular
landscape as well as a deep and emotional connection to the nature and the
elements that surround her.
