The Grand Bizarre

Production for The Grand Bizarre began in 2013 as Mack was touring internationally with a program titled Let Your Light Shine. She had previously made multiple films showing patterned textiles, and during a stop in Oaxaca, Mexico, she shot footage of fabrics owned by a man from a weaving village. After Mexico, she proceeded to film in China and Poland. She stopped touring her earlier films so that she could travel for production of The Grand Bizarre.{{cite web |url=https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/queen-bee-jodie-mack-in-locarno |title=Queen Bee: Jodie Mack in Locarno |last=Small |first=Christopher |date=August 13, 2018 |publisher=MUBI |access-date=April 12, 2019}} Observing the omnipresence of international brands, she began focusing on the influence of commerce on art, the impact of tourism on regional economies, and the ethics of ethnography.{{cite web |url=https://www.columbiatribune.com/entertainmentlife/20190222/how-bizarre-jodie-macks-latest-truefalse-film-chases-patterns-across-cultures |title=How bizarre: Jodie Mack's latest True/False Film chases patterns across cultures |last=Danielsen |first=Aarik |date=February 22, 2019 |website=Columbia Daily Tribune |access-date=April 12, 2019}} Over course of five years, Mack collected footage in fifteen countries, including Turkey, Greece, Israel, Morocco, and Indonesia.{{cite magazine |last=Williams |first=Blake |year=2018 |title=The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack, US) — Wavelengths |url=http://cinema-scope.com/cinema-scope-online/the-grand-bizarre-jodie-mack-us-wavelengths/ |magazine=Cinema Scope |issue=76 |access-date=April 12, 2019 }}

Mack shot The Grand Bizarre on 16 mm film using a Bolex camera. As a result, the maximum length she was able to use for a shot was 30 seconds.{{cite web |url=https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/interview-jodie-mack/ |title=Interview: Jodie Mack |last=Cronk |first=Jordan |date=September 7, 2018 |website=Film Comment |access-date=April 12, 2019}}

Mack edited the film from a total of six hours of footage. She decided to make it an hour long because that was the most that she could fit on a 16 mm reel. She also thought it was fitting to match the film's duration to a unit of time. She received support through a fellowship with the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. This allowed her to spend more time on the project during the final year of making The Grand Bizarre.{{cite web |url=https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news/in-news/two-professors-receive-fellowships |title=Two Professors Receive Fellowships |last=Staropoli |first=Anna |date=June 29, 2017 |publisher=Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study |access-date=April 12, 2019}}

The Grand Bizarre uses twelve songs, ten of which are by Mack. In recording the music, Mack focused on exploring tropes in pop and electronic music, such as Auto-Tune and repeated phrases in 4/4 time. She was interested in looking at the connection between mass production and homogeneous music. An earlier cut of the film used more vocal performance, which she removed to simplify the experience. To avoid having the songs overpower the visuals, Mack often played the songs where she was shooting and re-recorded them. This introduced diegetic sounds from the locations into the film.

File:Jodie Mack (The Grand Bizarre).jpg presenting The Grand Bizarre at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival]]

The film premiered August 3, 2018 at the Locarno Festival.{{cite web |url=https://www.locarnofestival.ch/pardo/program/archive/2018/film.html?fid=1037743 |title=The Grand Bizarre |year=2018 |publisher=Locarno Festival |access-date=April 12, 2019}}

The Grand Bizarre received positive reviews from film critics. The Grand Bizarre has an approval rating of 100% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 12 reviews, and an average rating of 8.1/10.https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_grand_bizarre Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-grand-bizarre?ftag=MCD-06-10aaa1c In a review for Film Threat, Nick Rocco Scalia called it an "extremely eye-opening" film that forces the audience "to consider how complicated and incredible every single stitch of a rug, or a scarf, or a dishtowel actually is, and how easily it is to overlook that fact."{{cite web |url=http://filmthreat.com/reviews/the-grand-bizarre/ |title=The Grand Bizarre |last=Scalia |first=Nick Rocco |date=April 11, 2019 |website=Film Threat |access-date=April 12, 2019}} For NOW Toronto, Kevin Ritchie said that "the film bursts with energy and invention to the point of sensory overload."{{cite web |url=https://nowtoronto.com/movies/tiff2018/review-the-grand-bizarre-jodie-mack/ |title=TIFF review: The Grand Bizarre |last=Ritchie |first=Kevin |date=September 9, 2018 |website=NOW Toronto |access-date=April 12, 2019}}

Film Comment magazine ranked The Grand Bizarre eighth on its "Best Undistributed Films of 2018" list.{{cite web |url=https://www.filmcomment.com/best-undistributed-films-of-2018/ |title=Best Undistributed Films of 2018 |last=Rapold |first=Nicolas |date=December 12, 2018 |website=Film Comment |access-date=April 12, 2019}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.jodiemack.com/ Official website for Jodie Mack]
• {{IMDb title|8739280}}
• {{Rotten Tomatoes|the_grand_bizarre}}

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Category:2010s avant-garde and experimental films

Category:2010s American animated films

Category:2018 animated films

Category:2018 films

Category:2018 documentary films

Category:American avant-garde and experimental films

Category:American documentary films

Category:Films shot in 16 mm film

Category:2010s English-language films

Category:English-language documentary films