Why Do Things Get in a Muddle? (Come On Petunia)

Why Do Things Get in a Muddle? (Come On Petunia)

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew

Status

Released

Release Date

Jan 1, 1984

Runtime

0h 34m

Original Title

Why Do Things Get in a Muddle? (Come On Petunia)

Director

Gary Hill

Description

This tape is the first of Hill’s works for which he deliberately wrote a screenplay. The title defines the piece’s starting point: Alice in Wonderland asks her omniscient father why things get in a muddle. They then talk on a metalinguistic level. A glimpse through the looking glass reveals an inversion of the customary order of things. The father ingests the smoke from his pipe, Alice does not so much blink her eyelids momentarily open as stare wide-eyed, and the playing cards fall out of the air in an orderly manner into the girl’s hand. (Gary Hill: Selected Works and catalogue raisonné, edited by Holger Broeker)