Air Force 1 Low The Films of BS Johnson Fat Man on

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As it turned out, the subjects that came “into [Johnson's] head” were incredibly diverse: life, death, love, writing – the list goes on. Yet, each of these diverse subjects are linked by a singular but universal aspect of Johnson's infamous life-theory: “Life does not tell stories. Life is chaotic, fluid, random; it leaves myriads of ends untidied, untidily” (Memoirs 14). Johnson believed that life was not controlled by fate. Rather, he argued that all was “chaos” – that everything occurs by chance, without any interference from exterior bodies. In Fat Man Johnson similarly says, “It is really all chaos – it is chaos. I say it is, I cannot prove it is chaos any more than anyone can prove there is a pattern, [or that] there is some sort of deity. But, even if it is all chaos, let's celebrate the chaos. Let us celebrate the accidental. Does that make us any worse off?” Here, Johnson argues that one should “celebrate the chaos” – the meaning of this proposition is certainly ambiguous – and that his film is an illustrative “celebration of accidents.”
A Fat Man's Production
In Like A Fiery Elephant (2004) Jonathan Coe details how Fat Man On A Beach came to fruition. Coe writes: “A simple but audacious idea was proposed: Johnson should revisit his beloved Lleyn penninsula [setting of Johnson's first novel, Travelling People (1963)] . . . and he should make a film about it. The format would be quite straightforward: forty minutes of Johnson sitting on his favourite beach, Porth Ceriad [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and talking directly to camera about anything that happened to come into his head” (373).
This demonstration of chaos manifests in the editing of Fat Man. For instance, following a scenic shot of the beach, the film quickly jumps to a medium-shot of Johnson; next, the viewer is exposed to a close-up of some bananas; and finally, Fat Man cuts to a long-shot of Johnson, who is now jumping into the air. This scene appears to be “chaot[ic].” However, one could argue that this demonstrative example of chaos is a falsity. This is because all films are prepared according to a script; consequently, any true level of “chaos” is lost in translation.
B.S. Johnson took his own life on 13th November 1973. His body was discovered in the bathtub of his home, wrists slit [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], besides a bottle of unfinished brandy. Johnson's suicide note, written at the age of forty, was short but apt: “This is my last word.” This tragic moment marked the end of a career that spanned just ten years, including seven novels, two collections of poetry, and eight pieces of drama. No doubt, few forms of media escaped Johnson's imaginative vision. The author is largely remembered for his literary texts. However, the final piece of work completed by Johnson was not a written novel or scrawled piece of journalism; rather, it was a film.
Johnson's film canon is slim but diverse. He began by producing experimental short-films [link widoczny dla zalogowanych], such as You're Human Like the Rest of Them in 1967 and Paradigm in 1968, soon moving on to more refined pieces, such as the 1969 documentary rendition of The Unfortunates. The final film completed by Johnson combined the experimental aspects of his early shorts and the documentary qualities of his later films; moreover, Fat Man On A Beach (1974) is the most revealing of Johnson's works. It offers a personal view of the enigmatic author that could not have been achieved in a written form.
Read on
The Films of B.S. Johnson: You're Human Like the Rest of Them
The Films of B.S. Johnson
A Fat Man's Film