"Wrist Trick" was one of Paul Sharits's earliest experimental films, as well as being an addition to the Flux Film series of the 60's. While the series itself was of no one man's invention, with filmmakers such as George Landow etc. contributing, Sharits on his contributed a good amount of films to it, several others being "Unrolling Event", "Word Movie", and "Flux Film No. 26: Sears Catalog 1-3". Like most other shorts from the series, "Wrist Trick" is a very short snippet of around thirty seconds that utilizes the simple effect of flickering frames (a trademark of Sharits's) to make an interesting illusion. This effect was also a prominent feature in structuralist film - so one could classify this short as an early example of structuralism.
The brief film features a rather dark closeup of a hand using a razor blade to slit a wrist - though it looks like all it did was make a dotted line (no blood or gore). This shot is flickered consistently between black frames and negatives, so that the action itself is vague and makes a neat effect. Conceptually simple, but in what it does quite effective.
The brief film features a rather dark closeup of a hand using a razor blade to slit a wrist - though it looks like all it did was make a dotted line (no blood or gore). This shot is flickered consistently between black frames and negatives, so that the action itself is vague and makes a neat effect. Conceptually simple, but in what it does quite effective.
