William Eggleston: Stranded in Canton

by William Eggleston (photographer), Gus Van Sant (Contributor)

William Eggleston's pioneering video work, Stranded In Canton, has been restored and is finally available, almost thirty-five years after it was made. The book contains forty frame enlargements from the digital re-master, a brief appreciation from filmmaker Gus Van Sant, and a DVD of the 77-minute film itself, along with more than thirty minutes of bonus footage and an interview with Mr. Eggleston conducted at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival.

Genres: Photography, Art, Film

48 pages, Hardcover

First published November 3, 2008

About the author

Born in Memphis and raised in Sumner, Mississippi, William Eggleston was, even in youth, more interested in art and observing the world around him than in the more popular southern boyhood pursuits of hunting and sports. While he dabbled in obtaining an education at a succession of colleges including Vanderbilt and Ole Miss, he became interested in the work of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson, and began taking black and white photographs with the Leica camera a friend had given him. He began experimenting with color photography in 1965. Although processes for color photography had existed in various forms since the turn of the century, at that time it still was not considered a medium for fine art, and was mostly relegated to the world of advertising.

Eggleston was the first photographer to have a solo show of color prints at the MoMA in 1976. Accompanied by the release of the book William Eggleston's Guide, it was a watershed moment in the history of photography.

Reviews

[Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stranded in the 1970s
Review of the Twin Palms Publishers hardcover book (2008)
[This is a backlog review of one of the 2,000 or so books in my GR Read folder for which there was previously no review. The 2,000 were carried over into GR when I joined in 2010 and added them via a spreadsheet database of previously read and/or owned books. Some of these will be faster to re-read and review than others, esp. photography books 📷📸 ]

Shot in 1974 with a Sony Porta-Pak, the crazily careering Stranded in Canton documents a cast of hard-drinking Southerners with the intimacy, ease and instability of a seasoned participant. Whiffs of Southern Gothic are not new to Mr. Eggleston's work, but here they rise to the surface -- fierce, tragic and proud. - shrink wrap book cover blurb from The New York Times.

Photographer William Eggleston's collection of home movies "Stranded in Canton" had its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Sept. 14, 2005 in a paired screening with Michael Almereyda's documentary film William Eggleston in the Real World*. Eggleston has been described as the "father of colour photography" due to his early colour photos being the first ever to have a solo exhibition at the NYC Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1967.

Eggleston filmed about 30 hours of footage in the years 1973-74 and these were edited down to 76 minutes for the final film version. This book edition has 40 black & white stills included with the DVD of the film. Many of the photographs are blurry and out of focus, probably reflecting the frame rate of the early video camera. That does lend a somewhat smoky and misty quality to them though.

The film and photographs have the feeling of Eggleston having traveled back in time to secretly photograph and film these people in the early seventies. Many of the subjects seem quite oblivious to the camera and with the infra-red lens some of this may have been filmed almost in pitch darkness so people were even more likely to act uninhibited. The video technology itself was so new that many may not have even understood that a movie camera was being used. One interesting historical note is the informal performance footage of Memphis based blues guitarist/musician Furry Lewis (1899-1981) performing at a private house party. Lewis is the musician name-checked in the Joni Mitchell song Furry Sings The Blues on the Hejira (1976) album. Two photographs of Furry Lewis are included in the book.

Soundtrack
Listen to Joni Mitchell's Furry Sings The Blues on YouTube here or on Spotify here.
Listen to Furry Lewis on a YouTube playlist which begins here or on Spotify here.

Trigger Warning & Historical Trivia
There is one photograph of an unharmed chicken in the book, but one scene in the film captures the old-time carnival act of geeking chickens, although it is filmed at a night time street scene. In the days before such TV shows as Fear Factor, you could go to carnivals/circuses where a low-ranked performer would perform acts such as biting the heads of chickens or snakes or eating worms whole etc. for the entertainment of the paying crowds. The low-brow level of this "entertainment" caused the other carnies to disassociate themselves from the "geeks" or "geek men" which has gradually led to the word's modern day connotation of socially inept individuals.

Footnote
* There was a great line in the film where Michael Almereyda describes Eggleston's low-angle camera photographs "as if they were taken by the family dog." 🤣

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a little book package that includes the only film William Eggleston ever made. In the early 70's he purchased the first portable video recorder and took hours and hours of footage of his crazy friends (men and women of all ages, a veterinarian, blues singers, transvestites, you name it) around Memphis and New Orleans. It takes place at night, in bars, outside in parking lots, in people's houses, and basically anywhere he wanted to film. It's all fueled by the potent combo of whiskey and quaaludes. Some of it seems marginally scripted, but mostly it's just people cutting (very) loose being themselves (according to Eggleston some of the people didn't even realize the little machine he was holding was actually filming). It's exhilarating and depraved and gorgeous. There's one very disturbing scene of two chickens being beheaded by drunks who then suck the blood out of their necks, so beware! I had to turn away.

The cd includes two commentary tracks, a discussion with Eggleston after a screening, and extra footage. The book is composed of dark moody stills from the film and has a short afterword by Gus Van Zant.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eggleston is an odd creature, a pop artist confused for a regionalist, a photographer working in video. Stranded in Canton is a work of nighttime, a decisively different bird than the sun-soaked color photography that made him famous. The book is a curiosity, stills captured from the primitive camera used to shoot his friends and family in intimate proximity at dark gatherings and haunts. The DVD is the focus and the book acquires its poignancy from the bizarre scenes "Egg" captured on video. There are freaks and geeks here, to be sure, egged on by those around to be outrageous for the camera; a man bites the head off a chicken on a crowded New Orleans sidewalk and Eggleston intones in voice-over, a Burroughs-ian rumble wrapped in a refined Mississippi drawl, "I could never get with the geek scene, too many people there." But the family and friends are indistinguishable from the geeks, frozen on those pages, the infrared lighting and possibly substances setting them aglow, close enough for kisses and rhetoric or gunplay. Eggleston preached a democratic camera, but the video work is memorable for the larger than life characters he found at his elbow as often as not.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Start with Michael Almereyda's documentary "William Eggleston in the Real World". If you just can't get enough of the '73-'75 footage, then move on to Stranded in Canton. The book that accompanies the DVD is cheaply made and doesn't do much for me. The footage of Stranded is equal parts haunting and boring. Fascinating and stupid. And I say this as a huge fan of Eggleston's still photography. Eggleston claims in the extra features that this video work had no influence on the large format portraits made during this period that appear in the book 5x7. I disagree. Watching Stranded makes 5x7 come to life even more. And it's a luminous, amazing book. One of my favorite books of portraits by any photographer. Anyways, if you're a big fan of Bill, watch his home movies and be amazed. Just don't expect anything coherent with a narrative and you'll be fine.

Favorite quote: "You're an imposing asshole, Eggleston. A mirror would be better." - bar patron in Stranded in Canton

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable book and the video (DVD) that comes with the book is a masterpiece. A typical night out with Southern Goth beauty William Eggleston and his fellow friends and family in Memphis. Eggleston is more known for his brilliant use of color, but this vintage video shot in black and white is sort of like peeping under the blankets. Kind of horrifying yet beautiful at the same time. Visions of the blues and Elvis lurks in the very soul of Memphis, and Eggleston is an artist who can capture all that, and just let it dream in front of us. Essential book and DVD. Get it before it disappears in Collector's bookshelves and under lock and key.

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the film that counts here. "Stranded in Canton" plays like a Southern gothic travelogue created by Jack Smith, carefully constructed to feel off-hand and loose. Not incidentally, it was a major influence on "Trash Humpers." Not for most people, but fans of Harmony Korine and Robert Frank's wildest films will find much to enjoy.

[Sal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a tough one. My ***** rating is for the DVD included with the book. It is the only way to get a copy of Eggleston's remarkable home movies. Shot on primitive video back in the early '70s, I find their tawdry decadence hypnotic.