Harmonica (1971) was Larry Gottheim’s first single reel long-take film with a soundtrack. Gottheim, operating the camera, filmed Shelley Berde in the back seat of a car as they drove around on a brisk autumn afternoon. While in the backseat, Berde improvises on a harmonica then intermittently holds the instrument out the window so that the wind becomes a part of his musical improvisations.
On the surface Harmonica is a highly watchable record of an impromptu performance. Berde’s jubilation as he fiddles around with the titular instrument is contagious. Berde grins and undulates to the sounds he manages to produce, totally immersed in the process of creativity. The close proximity of Gottheim’s camera placing the viewer tightly in Berde’s personal space as he invents his tune.
But there is more to Harmonica than its performance. The film also documents the physical discourse between man made objects and nature. The wind becomes a player of sorts as Berde’s gestures out the car window invite the element to engage with the instrument and join in his fun. To create this harmony between man and wind requires not only the instrument in question but the car itself.
Man is the inventor of this process and air the conduit that unites man with machine. Part of the performance is, after all, how Berde interacts and responds to the man made objects of the car and the harmonica whilst in the act of composition. Gottheim, through the duration of the piece, invites the viewer not only to observe these relationships but also to question them.
The wind is as much an author of the performance as Berde or Gottheim. Gottheim is perhaps the overlooked architect of this performance. It was he who instigated and then recorded the jam session between Berde and the wind. It was Gottheim who saw the potential for this discourse in what looks like a man just playing around.
