VOTD: Pure, A Rockin' High-Testosterone Action Movie Montage

Over the past few years we've seen a lot of montages, re-edits and remixes based on footage from popular movies, and popular action movies in particular. But none is quite like Pure, which is almost brutal in the way it slices every bit of extraneous material away from the skeleton of the action movie. I might've watched this a dozen times over the weekend, and it is too good not to share.

Director/editor Jacob Bricca calls Pure "a meditation on genre, a commentary on visual cliches, and a celebration of the visceral pleasures of cinema." What I love about this edit is that it creates a sort of narrative throughline — the action hero is wary, then in pursuit. There's confrontation, an escape, and the inevitable car chase, which leads to an explosion-heavy climax, and the look back from the weary hero.

Along the way Bricca compares all sorts of visual standbys of the action movie — a gun being drawn, a man careening down a flight of stairs, or the beauty of an explosion. The title is well-earned — there's an entire story here (or many stories told in parallel) with absolutely no fat.

It's all made more powerful by being set to '7 Vs 8' by the Jesus Lizard — the band is rock reduced to a scary, crushingly rhythmic set of essentials, just like this clip cuts movies down to the bone. (The song is from their first single, but also appears on their first full length album, Pure.) The only thing I might like more than the use of '7 Vs 8' is a broader tentpole version cut to the band's song 'Blockbuster.' (Or the Melvins version, with JL frontman David Yow singing.)

Thanks to the awesome Gus Mastrapa for linking me to this.

Pure from Jacob Bricca on Vimeo.