Lines

Lines[1]

Series
Work In Progress
Original Broadcast Date
1988
Cast
Arthur Miller, Tim Jerome, Sally Rainer, Julie Renick, Joe Frank
Format
Telephone, Panel Discussion, Absurd Monologue, 1 hour
Preceded by:	The Street
Followed by:	Words

What's your name? "Nina." Where are you calling from?

Lines is the name of a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Work In Progress. It was originally broadcast in 1988.

Synopsis

Joe talks to a woman on a telephone chat line and asks an endless series of questions- being a clown in New York, first sexual experience. A woman and man fight about a woman caller who won't talk when she picks up the phone. Some people chat on a chat line. Panel discussions: a long distance couple whose passion is heightened by the distance between them; prison visitation experience heightened by further separating the parties; a man who covers his body with portable telephony equipment; the phone as the ultimate form of birth control. Joe talks to another woman on the chat line - he's suspicious of her, tries to fight with her, "when do you like to be touched?" Deep, distorted voice: a phone conversation as a chess game, computerizing a telemarketing call, people as unconscious voice stress analyzers, lonely people and answering machines, silence as an argument parry, excusing a missed psychiatrist appointment with recorded airport terminal sounds, bar room phones that supply artificial background sounds, the urgency of a ringing telephone, appearing suave on the phone no matter what you look like. Joe talks to the woman on the phone: people who believe they are in touch are deluded, conversation as a board game, being a certain way, bathing. A distorted voice talks about picking up a telephone in a booth and having a suggestive conversation with a strange woman. Joe and a woman engage in a telephone encounter. Panel discussion: telephone modulation as an allegory for human communication.

Interesting Facts

• Credit also given to Mark TeleVenture Conferenece Line of Van Nuys

Music

• "Self-Initiation" - Bill Nelson (from Chance Encounters In The Garden Of Lights, 1987) | Spotify
• "In The Jungle" - Man Jumping (from Jumpcut, 1984) | YouTube
• "Demon Raising" - Bill Nelson (from Chance Encounters In The Garden Of Lights, 1987) | YouTube

Commentary

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