Artists Space

Shellshock Rock

Film Screening
April 3, 2010, 7pm

Shellshock Rock (1979, 16 mm, 44 min) is John T. Davis’ first in a trilogy of films (including Protex Hurrah (1980) and Self-Conscious Over You (1981)) exploring the Belfast filmmaker’s local subculture and American cultural influence.
Part of an ongoing film series curated by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter.

A poster design featuring the text "Shellshock Rock An Alternative Blast From Belfast" superimposed onto a grainy, black and white graphic of an open mouth yelling into a microphone. A smaller graphic of a man running with a guitar case is situated to the left of the text "Shellshock."
[A poster design featuring the text "Shellshock Rock An Alternative Blast From Belfast" superimposed onto a grainy, black and white graphic of an open mouth yelling into a microphone. A smaller graphic of a man running with a guitar case is situated to the left of the text "Shellshock."]

Shellshock Rock provides a look at the burgeoning punk scene in Northern Ireland, featuring early footage of bands such as Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, Protex, The Outcasts, and Rhesus Negative, among others. While these subjects are recorded with a genuine sympathy, the filmmaker presents them abruptly, without a conventional documentary framework. The result is a movie that “unfolds impressionistically, as if in direct response to the vibrant synapses of Davis’ brain” (Desson Thompson, The Washington Post, June 1, 2007.)

The admixture of intimacy and denial had a profound impact on the artist Duncan Campbell, who stated that “it made something familiar seem exotic. I was very provincially minded when I was younger and this film worked wonders in terms of transforming this.”