Foundry

This section watches the process of casting a bronze, heating the furnace and doing the pour.  It follows the Family photos because towards the end of his marriage Maurice was beginning to emerge from his darkness and started making sculpture. The furnace itself connects symbolically with the camps, although I only noticed this after I’d done it.

I was interested in the processes of making sculpture although there are many images I like that I left out.  Maurice and I both agreed that ‘Here is the sculptor making a sculpture’ could get pretty clichéd.  In his case the strength needed to manipulate clay, particularly for large forms, the energy used for that, is very much part of releasing something from deep inside.  So it seemed better not to show it, only to imply it.

When I was making another film years ago I visited a steel foundry in Sheffield.

                  


The mill seemed half a mile long, the doors were open and snow fluttered down outside.
Inside, the enormous furnaces roared, live with white light. I had a curious desire to embrace the white heat of the flames.
This image lives on in my mind and I was keen to see how bronze was cast. I made several visits with Maurice to the foundry. In the end I filmed a small casting he did with a friend.