Bill Frisell

Movies

Music For Black Pigeons
Music for Black Pigeons is the first collaboration between Jørgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed. The film poses existential questions to influential jazz players such as Bill Frisell, Lee Konitz, Midori Takada and many others: How does it feel to play, and what does it mean to listen? What is it like to be a human being and spending your whole life trying to express something through sounds? The characters wake up, rehearse, record, perform and talk about music. In some moments they are on the edge, the edge of existence, constantly challenging themselves. They listen. They devote themselves to finding a space to create a connection to something bigger than themselves. Something that will outlast all of us.
Inside Scofield
Inside Scofield is a feature documentary about master guitarist and touring musician John Scofield.
Motian in Motion
Self
Motian In Motion is a documentary film about iconic jazz drummer Paul Motian, with rare footage of Paul playing and recording at the world renowned Village Vanguard, Birdland and other venues.
Curly Takes a Bath by the Sea
Music
a serene and endearing cat-cam video, made during lockdown and scored by Bill Frisell.
Truth or Consequences
Music
Truth or Consequences is a speculative documentary about time and how we weave the past into the present and our possible future. Set in the small desert town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the film takes place in the shadow of a nearby Spaceport and the commercial exploration of space. Through the lives of the people in town and a filmmaker from the future, the film explores progress, echoes of history, and how we each navigate a sense of loss, within ourselves and within a changing world.
Cinema of Decay: The Films of Bill Morrison
This documentary focuses on the artistry of director Bill Morrison, who leverages decaying film stock from years past to tell new stories that are relevant to today's audiences. The decaying film lends brilliant visuals which add to Morrison's concept of storytelling.
Bill Frisell Trio - Melbourne Jazz Festival 2017
Bill Frisell: A Portrait
Himself
An intimate, behind-the-music portrait of one of the most unassuming yet influential creative artists of our time, guitarist Bill Frisell. Frisell said of the film, “It’s like the inside of my brain!”
Bill Frisell - Guitar In The Space Age - Maison de la Culture 2014
Guitar
Bill Frisell - Guitar In The Space Age - Maison de la Culture 2014
Guitare
Bill Frisell Big Sur Sextet - Festival Jazz Vitoria-Gasteiz
Himself
The Great Flood
Music
The Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in American history. In the spring of 1927, the river broke out of its banks in 145 places and inundated 27,000 square miles to a depth of up to 30 feet. Part of it enduring legacy was the mass exodus of displaced sharecroppers. Musically, the Great Migration of rural southern blacks to Northern cities saw the Delta Blues electrified and reinterpreted as the Chicago Blues, Rhythm and Blues, and Rock and Roll. Using minimal text and no spoken dialog, filmmaker Bill Morrison and composer - guitarist Bill Frisell have created a powerful portrait of a seminal moment in American history through a collection of silent images matched to a searing original soundtrack.
Doppelgänger Paul
Original Music Composer
A lonely man's relationship to his doppelganger leads to plagiarism.
Bill Frisell plays John Lennon La Villete Jazz Festival
Guitar
Bill Frisell - Solos - The Jazz Sessions
Himself
Homeland: The Story of the Lark
A distilled, up-to-the-minute portrait of our agitated nation, its politics, its economics, its delusions and its dreams. Laurie Anderson's tone is less outraged than elegiac, mourning for lives lost, ideals misplaced. The music is dramatically stripped down to a handful of players, centered around Anderson's haunting violin and voice, frequent Bill Frisell band-mate Eyvind Kang's viola and Peter Scherer's keyboards.
Portrait of a Man
Music
A rough but beautiful documentary film about the crisis of a man in his forties and his desire for a better life; its a story of parenthood, alcohol, Finnish man and his desire for love. It is also an unusually intimate depiction of the relationship between the father and his son. Despite the seriousness of the topic the film includes black humor and situational comedy
McCoy Tyner - Guitars
Guitar
All Hat
Original Music Composer
An ex-con returns to his rural Ontario roots and outwits a corrupt and wealthy thoroughbred owner trying to take over a slew of local farms. Ray Dokes, a charming ex-ballplayer, returns from jail to discover the rural landscape of his childhood transformed by urban development. Determined to stay out of trouble, Ray heads to the farm of his old friend Pete Culpepper, a crusty Texas cowboy who trains losing racehorses and whose debts are growing faster than his corn.
The Mesmerist
Original Music Composer
Made by re-editing a deteriorated nitrate print of The Bells (1926), starring Lionel Barrymore and Boris Karloff, this work shows the fragility of the film image while foreshadowing the Holocaust.
Bill Frisell:  Live In Montreal
Himself
The Film of Her
Music
Based on the story of Howard Walls, A clerk at the Library of Congress who saved a collection of early paper reel films from the incinerator, director Bill Morrison embellishes the tale a bit in this inspired short work. Here, the vision of a woman in an early porno film has been engrained in the mind of a man working at the Library of Congress and his search for the film of her has an unexpected consequence, as he saves a collection of historically significant films from being destroyed.
Four Boys in a Volvo
Music
The short film was made from material shot for a Levi’s commercial on which Gus Van Sant was given complete freedom. Van Sant delivered the ad, and separately made his own short film; one that feels complete in and unto itself.
La scuola
Music
In a high school in the outskirts of Rome, it's the last day before the summer holidays. A literature teacher reminisces the past year and wonders what will become of the students he cared for as if they were his children.