Jehsong Baak

My good friend Francoise Callier, who ran the Angkor Photo Festival in Siem Reap, Cambodia for many years, asked me to make a multi-media piece using photographs but not just the usual slideshow.

I had an idea to make a short film with photographs from my last book, One Last Goodbye, which got turned upside down when my friend Maxime Mardoukhaev introduced me to William Le Caron, a young and talented actor/computer wiz/sensitive soul who told me that he could animate my pictures…make them “move”.  So William and I worked on this 9-minute animated short film over several months, meeting whenever both of us had time. 

From early on, I got pretty set on using the music from “Taxi Driver” and “Midnight Cowboy”, two of my favorite films of all time. The palpable fragility and the haunting beauty of both Bernard Hermann’s and John Barry’s music struck me as ideal companions to the images of my early days in New York. I never managed to get permission for either of the pieces, so I haven’t been able to submit this film to festivals.  Both Hermann and Barry are no longer with us. Perhaps someone reading this can put me in touch with the current owners of their estates.

Many thanks to William for the countless hours he put into making the pictures move with great sensitivity and intelligence.