Feb 18, 2013

The Pub" (Joseph Pierce)

After a long festival run, Joseph Pearce's "The Pub" is online today. It is Pearce's third film using his unique rotoscoping technique, following his graduation short "Stand-Up" and the independent film "Family Portrait." He also recently animated Philip Glass's much talked-about opera "The Perfect American," about the life of Walt Disney.

Pearce has an uncanny ability to peel back the surface by drawing over live-action images. His drawings reveal the repressed personalities and interpersonal relationships that spring up beneath the public masks we wear. The Pub is his most pessimistic work to date, revealing man at his most vulnerable and pathetic. Pearce transforms the setting of an English pub into a nightmarish human zoo, creating a fascinating ambiguity that leaves the viewer wondering whether it is the bartender or the pub patrons who actually rule the universe.