S A V E

running time: 5 min
16mm
2006

 

description

A disused gas station offers a curious imperative to passersby: "SAVE." A riddle posed in the form of architecture: what is there to save? One more installment in the history of Americans pointing their cameras at gas stations; an attempt to figure out something about where we've been, where we're headed, and what's been left behind.

The first part of "S A V E" was edited entirely in camera.

screenings

"S A V E" was finally completed in February 2006, but a version of it screened at Ocularis in early Nov. 2005 and another version screened all around the Heartland on a 27-day tour in Sept./Oct. 2005. The final version premiered at the Directors Lounge in Berlin, Germany in February and has since (as of May 2006) screened a half-dozen times from Portland, Oregon to Poznan, Poland.

reviews

"In his most recent project, an elegant, elegiac film called "S A V E," Beebe considers an abandoned gas station from a multitude of perspectives. "SAVE" is the name of the derelict establishment, and the titular sign is the kind of urban landscape feature we've learned to ignore as we drive through disused commercial districts. But in Beebe's film, the "SAVE" sign acquires the dignity one ordinarily would assign to an old poplar tree, struggling for life against the ravages of time and the elements." --David Fellerath, The Independent Weekly

 
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