Since his debut in the early ’90s, British artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers has been making quotidian films about common people and places. Through his incorporation of vintage technologies, Rivers blurs the lines of documentary and fiction. He’s collaborated with renowned avant-garde practitioners including Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Russell. Through the power of collaboration, experimentation, and patience, Rivers’ globe-trotting ambition culminates towards an eclectic portfolio of hand-made tales. Reflecting on his mortality with an apocalyptic aesthetic, the intimate design of his work reflects on his subjects’ interiority without passing judgment.
At the crux of his unpredictable career, Rivers is best known for his collaboration with Scottish hermit Jake Williams. It all started in the mid-2000s, when Rivers was seeking a subject who lived off the grid. He was obsessed with isolated lifestyles, as the literature he was reading at the time reflected upon solitary characters in lonesome worlds. He drove around Norway and Scotland with a bottle of whisky in hand, to offer to potential candidates. Through a mutual friend, Rivers eventually found Williams in the Scottish Highlands. With open arms, he welcomed Rivers to his home. Located in Aberdeenshire county, Rivers stayed at his residence for about a week. In his limited luggage, Rivers carried a hand-wound Bolex.
During his first visit, Rivers was more interested in getting to know Williams before he started shooting. In the process, Rivers provided assistance around his property. He wasn’t adamant on filming Williams’ every move. Rivers would casually bring out his camera in sparse moments. When he returned back home to London, he examined the footage and was content with his images. He sent a message back to Williams asking if he could return for another shoot. He agreed. Through their fateful encounter, a short film was produced at Williams’ residence.
The First Pass
In his short film This Is My Land (2006), Rivers opens with an image of an adorable black cat staring directly at his Bolex. Breaking the fourth wall, the feline friend welcomes the spectator to the estate. Throughout the 14-minute short, we see footage of Williams taking care of fendless birds. He sets up makeshift bird-feeders crafted out of recycled bottles. Brief unrelated episodic vignettes juxtapose Williams’ jovial presence. His bushy beard, plaid shirt, and cozy tuque glow in every scene.
Rivers reflects on his subject’s routine through sporadic images and tonal montage, where the erratic editing is also complementary to the hand-developed monochromatic footage. Through kitchen-sink hand-processing, remnants of Rivers’ malleable presence are imprinted directly upon the celluloid. The scrappiness of Williams’ living space corresponds with the documentary’s methodology. When the short eventually changes seasons to the dead of winter, the progression of images significantly slows down. The cutting becomes purposefully restrained. The quietude of the snowfall doesn’t bring Williams down. On the contrary, he refuses to dwell within his isolation.
At the end of his short, the conflict-free levity serves as the film’s simplistic foundation. There aren’t any ulterior motives behind the production of This Is My Land, outside of illuminating the mysterious and equally-enchanting life of a remarkable man. The film is more of a brief sketch of Williams’ routines that embraces the simplicity of his daily habits.
After a positive work experience with Williams, Rivers would continue his search for other subjects living off the grid. Over the span of five years, he would direct several short films, some of which feature other hermits living in similar circumstances. While practising his filmmaking, Rivers began to think about another collaboration with Williams. He felt as though there was a lot more material to excavate from his life. Williams agreed to a cinematic continuation that would bring Rivers back to the Scottish highlands.
Living the Dream
Rivers’ debut feature Two Years at Sea premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival and mesmerised audiences with its enigmatic portrait of Williams. With a longer runtime, Rivers fine tuned his artistic vision. Instead of the enclosed 4:3 aspect ratio featured in This Is My Land, Two Years at Sea opens its field of vision with an anamorphic 1:2.69 ratio. Rivers fully captures Williams’ interaction with nature. With a wider format, the spur-of-the-moment footage permits freer movement within the frame.
Rivers eradicates any semblance of dialogue from his film. The power of the evocative images enforce the film’s themes and gargantuan landscapes. Repeating similar techniques applied in This is My Land, Rivers returns to his kitchen-sink setup to hand process select reels of 16mm black-and-white film. The malleability of the celluloid repeats the thematic connection featured in his short film. The erratic form absorbs the spectator into the environment by strictly documenting Williams’ surroundings through observational documentary traditions.
In the film’s most serene sequence, Rivers includes a seven-minute long-take of Williams fishing in a local pond. Utilising a hand-made raft constructed out of recycled bottles and discarded wood, his subject slowly drifts out of frame.
Rivers never interrupts Williams’ chores, as his interaction with his surroundings are paramount to the film’s thesis. Unlike his short film, Two Years at Sea is not exclusively about Williams. Instead, Rivers is more interested in the human factor within his environment. The feature provides an intimate closeup on Williams’ presence within the region.
Williams occupation and life is undisclosed to the viewer. While Williams is considered a friendly substitute teacher and gardener within his community, Rivers conceals personal information to strictly focus on the relationship between the Scot’s footprint and the Aberdeenshire ecosystem. The spectator’s only piece of context regarding his familiar past are dispersed through clips that feature old photographs taken within Williams’ abode. The archival material serves as episodic chapter breaks.
Rivers refuses to preach to his audience. He allows spectators to fully immerse themselves into Williams’ shoes, where its environmental themes are subtly displaced through brief images of deforestation. Williams is a vessel for the viewer to latch onto, as his presence emphasises the reunion between man and nature. The camera behaves as a personification of his headspace. At one point, the film creeps into his dreams, as he dozes off into different planes of consciousness through manual superimpositions.
With Rivers’ restful presentation, he avoids a sensationalist depiction of the hermit lifestyle. In the hands of a less empathetic director, Williams’ presence would have been exploited and labelled as a primitive lifestyle. Two Years at Sea is the embodiment of anti-entertainment, which prioritises the subject’s well-being. Rivers’ glacial form accurately embodies his series of inconsequential events that take over the viewer.
Back to Clashindarroch Forest
A few years after the premiere of Two Years at Sea, Rivers joked around with Williams about the concept of another sequel. They laughed at the thought of making a film every ten years. What initially started as a brief gag eventually developed into an intrusive thought. Rivers couldn’t get the idea out of his head until he started to take the concept more seriously. With Bogancloch (2024), Rivers returns to the Williams’ home after thirteen long years. Over the span of a year, Rivers visited the iconic residence over five different trips. While the direction remains nearly identical to its predecessor, Bogancloch captures a different perspective.
While the absence of Williams’ relationship with humanity was left out of the picture in Two Years at Sea, Rivers felt that his portrayal seemed slightly misanthropic. He presents a more accurate portrait of his subject’s demeanour in Bogancloch. Rivers broadens the scope of Williams’ mythology. The nostalgic archival photographs again provide episodic breaks. This time around, the images were taken from a water damaged album from Williams’ seaman days. Unlike Two Years at Sea, the images were filmed with colour stock. The presence of the washed photographs allows the viewer to generate their own interpretations of the subject’s ambiguous past.
Bogancloch also provides information that was kept out of the picture from Two Years at Sea. In bite-sized fragments, Rivers demonstrates Williams’ role as a teacher and gardener. In one abrupt scene, the film transitions out of the woodlands to a classroom somewhere in rural Scotland. Williams is seen teaching a class of young students. Utilising a discarded lager-branded umbrella, he explains the proximity of the planets in the solar system to his pupils. When the school bell rings, the children excitedly run out of the classroom. Williams is once more left to his own devices.
To counteract the apathetic response from Williams’ students, Rivers includes brief musical scenes that allow the teacher’s pleasant personality to truly shine. In a beautiful sequence involving a campfire, a choir of strangers unite and sing “The Flyting o’ Life and Daith” by the flame. The scratches from the hand-developed images clash with the dreamlike low-light setting. Williams’ friendly attitude gleams past his stern appearance as Rivers toys with the parameters between dreams and reality. In another scene, Williams is seen singing Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” while eating a biscuit and sipping on a warm beverage in the middle of a mossy forest. He slowly starts falling asleep. Through an uninterrupted long take, Rivers alternates between reality and Williams’ unconscious state with the mysterious inclusion of unknown visitors walking amongst the tall Aberdeenshire trees.
In the film’s surreal conclusion, Rivers ends his latest work with a stunning aerial sequence. The less you know, the better. The documentary manipulates Williams’ surroundings within a transcendental long-take that subverts the normalcy of the subject’s environment. Rivers literally bends space and time within the stratospheric finale. Jake Williams might be alone in our galaxy, but he’s far from lonely. His beauty, ingenuity, and perseverance is brilliantly showcased in Rivers’ ongoing series. For as long as their collaboration continues over the next few decades, the living legend known as Jake Williams will continue to live through the delicate gauge of Rivers’ Bolex.
