Mass For The Dakota Sioux1964

Synopsis: The film begins with a short introduction–No chance for me to live, Mother you might as well mourn Sitting Bull Hunkpapa Sioux Chief. Applause for a lone figure dying on the street. INTROIT. A long, lightly-exposed section composed in the camera. KYRIE. A motor cyclist crossing the San Francisco Bridge accompanied by the sound of the Gregorian chant, recorded at the Trappist Monastery in Vina, California. The sounds of the mass rise and fall throughout. GLORIA. The sound of a siren and a short sequence of a '33 Cadillac proceeding over the Bay Bridge disappearing into a tunnel. The final section of the Communion begins with the OFFERTORY in a procession of lights and figures to the second chant. The anonymous figure from the introduction is discovered again, dead on the pavement. The body is consecrated and taken away past an indifferent, isolated people, accompanied by the final chant. The Mass is traditionally a celebration of life; thus the contradiction between the form of the Mass and the theme of Death. The dedication is to the religious people who were destroyed by the civilization which evolved the Mass.