Lianna and The Swimmer: Do you really think it’s that easy?

In this multiscreen, I’ve used the pool scene from Lianna (John Sayles, 1983) where the title character talks sexy to her lover and paired it with a scene from The Swimmer (Frank Perry, 1968), where the main character tries to reignite something with his former mistress, who is demonstrably uncomfortable with his presence and touch. The start of this video also uses pool shots from The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, 2008).

The Multi-screen exercise asks participants to use a multi-screen process to construct a ‘response’ to one or more of the films (or exercises) from another member of the workshop. All audio and visuals must come from the maker’s chosen texts, peers’ exercises or the objects chosen by other workshop participants.

Made at Middlebury video essay camp (Scholarship in Sound and Image Workshop on Videographic Criticism)

June 2026