Bill Morrison is a New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

-based filmmaker and artist, best known for his experimental collage film Decasia

Decasia

Decasia is a 2002 found footage film by Bill Morrison, featuring an original score by Michael Gordon. The film is a meditation on old, decaying silent films and is similar in spirit to Lyrical Nitrate. It begins and ends with scenes of a dervish and is bookended with old footage showing how film...

(2002). He is a member of Ridge Theater and the founder of Hypnotic Pictures. He attended Reed College

Reed College

Reed College is a private, independent, liberal arts college located in southeast Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus located in Portland's Eastmoreland neighborhood, featuring architecture based on the Tudor-Gothic style, and a forested canyon wilderness...

 1983-85, and graduated from Cooper Union School of Art in 1989.

Bill Morrison's films have been screened at festivals, museums and concert halls worldwide, including the Sundance Film Festival, the Orphan film

Orphan film

An orphan film is a motion picture work that has been abandoned by its owner or copyright holder; also, any film that has suffered neglect.-History:...

 Symposium, The Tate Modern, London, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles. Eight of his titles have been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. He has been commissioned to create films for some of the most important composers of his time, including John Adams

John Adams

John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...

, Gavin Bryars

Gavin Bryars

Richard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.-Early life and career:Born in Goole, East...

, Dave Douglas

Dave Douglas (trumpeter)

Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter and composer whose music derives from many non-jazz musical styles, including classical music, folk music from European countries and Klezmer. He has been a member of the experimental big band Orange Then Blue...

, Bill Frisell

Bill Frisell

William Richard "Bill" Frisell is an American guitarist and composer.One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell's eclectic music touches on progressive folk, classical music, country music, noise and more...

, Michael Gordon

Michael Gordon (composer)

Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the Bang on a Can festival and ensemble. His music is associated with the genres of totalism and post-minimalism.-Early life:...

, Henryk Gorecki

Henryk Górecki

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki was a composer of contemporary classical music. He studied at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice between 1955 and 1960. In 1968, he joined the faculty and rose to provost before resigning in 1979. Górecki became a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during...

, Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer

Vijay Iyer is a jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, producer, electronic musician, and writer based in New York City.-Biography:Born in 1971 and raised in Rochester, New York, Vijay Iyer is the son of Indian Tamil immigrants to the US. He received 15 years of Western classical training on violin...

, David Lang

David Lang (composer)

David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. He was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion.-Biography:...

, Harry Partch

Harry Partch

Harry Partch was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit just intonation.-Early...

, Steve Reich

Steve Reich

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...

 and Julia Wolfe

Julia Wolfe

Julia Wolfe is an American composer. She was born in Philadelphia, holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Princeton and Yale, and currently works in New York. Wolfe's music is rhythmically vigorous and often clangorously dissonant...

. Morrison is a Guggenheim fellow and has received the Alpert Award. He has received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts

Foundation for Contemporary Arts

Foundation for Contemporary Arts , originally known as Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, is a nonprofit based foundation in New York City founded by artists Jasper Johns , John Cage, Elaine de Kooning and others in 1963. FCA offers financial support and recognition to contemporary...

, Creative Capital and The National Endowment for the Arts. His work with Ridge Theater has been recognized with two Bessie awards and an Obie Award.

Decasia, his feature-length collaboration with composer Michael Gordon, was noted by J. Hoberman of the Village Voice as "the most widely acclaimed American avant-garde film of the fin-de-siècle." The director Errol Morris

Errol Morris

Errol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...

 commented while viewing Decasia that "This may be the greatest movie ever made". The film was commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta to be shown on three screen surrounding the musicians. Its DVD release is entitled Decasia: The State of Decay.

Filmography as director

• The Great Flood (2012)
• Tributes - Pulse (2011)
• The Miners' Hymns (2011)
• Spark of Being
  Spark of Being
  Spark Of Being is a 3-disc box set of music written by Dave Douglas and performed by his electric band, Keystone. Written for the Bill Morrison film by the same name, Spark Of Being was commissioned by Stanford Lively Arts, and was recorded at the Center For Computer Research in Music and...
  
  (2010)
• Release (2010)
• Dystopia (2008)
• Fuel (2007)
• Who By Water (2007)
• The Highwater Trilogy (2006)
• How To Pray (2006)
• Outerborough (2005)
• Gotham (2004)
• Light is Calling (2004)
• The Mesmerist (2003)
• East River (2003)
• Decasia
  Decasia
  Decasia is a 2002 found footage film by Bill Morrison, featuring an original score by Michael Gordon. The film is a meditation on old, decaying silent films and is similar in spirit to Lyrical Nitrate. It begins and ends with scenes of a dervish and is bookended with old footage showing how film...
  
  (2002)
• Trinity (2000)
• Ghost Trip (2000)
• City Walk (1999)
• Film of Her (1996)
• Nemo (1995)
• The World Is Round (1994)
• The Death Train (1993)
• Footprints (1992)
• Photo Op (1992)
• Lost Avenues (1991)
• Night Highway (1990)