A still from the film
Dixieland
Watch the evocative short film by Roman Stills
Dixieland is a style of jazz that developed in New Orleans in the beginning of the 20th century. Perhaps better known as New Orleans jazz, it’s a style influenced by ragtime, military brass bands, the blues, and gospel and that typically includes trumpet, clarinet, trombone, piano, string bass, drums, and banjo for free-flowing, collective improvisation done simultaneously by each player. The effect is energetic and staggering, and one of the Louisiana city’s most revered hallmarks in history. For Brooklyn-based director Roman Stills, the musical style is also the subject for his short film of the same name, a brief clip that explores the interplay between New Orleans and jazz and how that relationship has evolved over time.
Focusing on a male subject drenched in honey in the thickets of New Orleans while a warped ambient soundtrack with hints of jazz plays, Dixieland the film is an evocative, homoerotic, and starkly beautiful art film. Despite its short runtime, the film actually hones in on several topics at once, from the tension between subject and space to the lack of sequential logic. “I obscured sequential time in Dixieland to spotlight the intricate relationship between New Orleans and jazz across time, rather than a single period,” Stills explained in a press release. Even the presence of honey in the film is intentional. “Honey never goes bad,” the director explains. “[It] seemingly exists in its own time code.” It’s a gorgeous, enigmatic film that’s definitely worth taking a look at.
See Dixieland for yourself below:
