Elvis Presley lives again in an artistic rethinking of a scene from Viva Las Vegas

Shannon Oksanen's Summerland an exploration of movies and image-making

Kevin Griffin, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, December 18, 2008

What happens when a movie is shown in a theatre? Sitting in a darkened theatre, you look at the moving images on the screen. If it's truly a memorable experience --a 'good movie' -- you forget yourself and become utterly absorbed in what what you're seeing. Unless something goes wrong and there's a disruption in the moving image, you don't pay attention to what's behind you projecting the images. Yet what you're doing amounts to putting yourself inside an big image machine.

At the Contemporary Art Gallery, an image machine of the kind once found in theatres is part of an exhibition by Shannon Oksanen called Summerland. An exploration of movies and image-making, the exhibition includes paintings of Elvis Presley and a remake of a water-skiing scene from the 1964 film Viva Las Vegas starring Presley and Ann-Margret.

In the original, the 30-second water-skiing segment is part of the movie's longer romantic narrative. A classic 1960s date movie full of the era's optimism, it really operates as a series of loosely connected vignettes meant to highlight both Presley's and Ann-Margret's outstanding skills as entertainers.

In the remake, the focus has changed. Now it hones in on how a man and a woman relate to each other while waterskiing. The scene is also much longer at almost four minutes. Not only has the hair colour of the two figures been reversed --the Presley character is blond and the Ann-Margret character, brunette -- more attention is paid to the the speed-boat driver. An additional character is a little girl fishing on a dock.

Both of the two main figures are slalom waterskiing on a beautifully sunny day on a lake situated in an arid landscape. He's wearing baby blue trunks. He's muscley but not muscle-bound. She's in a one-piece red bathing suit that shows off her slim figure.

They glide back and forth across the wake occasionally making googly eyes at each other. Unlike the original, which ends with an embrace and a fall into the water, the two figures in the remake never touch. In their unusual courtship ritual, the closest they get is dangling a hand by their side so that it catches the spray of the water from their water skiis.

Overall, the remake is a 'better' film. In Viva Las Vegas, Presley and Ann-Margret are filmed on a studio set with what looks like a projected background behind them. When the shot cuts to a wide shot of two people water-skiing, the two figures are so distant you can't identify who they are.

In Summerland, the two figures are filmed actually waterskiing in a way that accentuates both their skills and the beauty of the water that sprays when they turn on their skis.

In the CAG, you can sit on a bench to watch Summerland, which is projected onto almost an entire wall. Sitting there, you can hear both the percussive soundtrack as well as the sound of the sprockets of a 35 mm film being fed through a projector. Mounted on a large platform, the projector is a huge, industrial-looking machine of the type that recalls the projectors that would have been used in theatres in the 1960s.

As a title, Summerland suggests an eternally happy place where the sun always shines and everyone smiles.

Summerland as an image machine becomes even more apparent when you look back at the movie from the gallery's other exhibition room. Surrounded by paintings as well as a puppet that depicts Presley as the young man he would have been at the time Viva Las Vegas was made, you can see the projector in front of the moving images. On occasion, when the actual projector appears to be the same size as the moving images of the two waterskiing figures in Summerland, the effect is startling. It looks as if the image machine has become a third figure waterskiing with the moving figures.

The oil on linen paintings are all in soft pastel-like colors. While they don't pack the same kind of visual punch as the Summerland movie, they do work as companion pieces to the film. A little ghostly, the paintings are like memories that fade over time -- like the once bright Metrocolor likenesses of Elvis Presley created by the image machine.

Shannon Oksanen's Summerland continues to Jan. 19 at the Contemporary Art Gallery, 555 Nelson St. Vancouver, BC. The gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday. During the holidays, the CAG will be closed Dec. 25, 26 and Jan. 1.

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