For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins

[...]
Something else is quicksand (apparently a myth,
someone told me). The prospect of drowning in the earth, like
being buried at sea: absurd. The scene from one of the Tarzan
films where Sean Connory plays a baddie. He steals a locket from
another one of the baddies. A chase through the jungle ensues,
with Sean smirking and cat-calling to the ropier, angrier baddie
who thrashes through the foliage after him, threatening ALL
MANNER [...] (Dramatic music: the music of 1950’s America:
Timpani, snare, brass – a militarised orchestra) At the height
of the pursuit, the other baddie – flailing wildly – surprises a
jaguar, which snarls and leaps and claws at his face (some sharp
editing here: the kind of editing required to get around the
absence of a jaguar – to smooth over the seam between stock
and original footage. The sequence of shots is something like
this: thrashing baddie, face on – perhaps wielding a machete
(sweaty, stubbly, murky tan, wild eyes, a loose, stained vest?)
– diagonal gesture across the shot and the vines blocking the
way (top right to bottom left); cut to stock footage of hissing
jaguar, hackles raised; cut back to baddie, surprised, a yelp; a
whip-pan to incorporate the leaping jaguar (a shadow against
shadows); a prop jaguar paw raking across the baddie’s face
quickly but not quite quick enough to convince; the baddie
clutching at his face). The baddie stumbles back then lurches
diagonally forward, away from the jaguar, groping blindly at a
wall of vine which promptly gives way. He collapses forwards,
straight into a [...] of quicksand. He sinks as he screams,
devoured by the sand; only his right forearm and hand remain
protruding, seemingly stuck. A shot of the hand: rigidified into
an agonised claw. Sean standing off some distance, shaking his
head, thinking ‘Poor schmuck’, or somesuch. He toys with the
stolen locket in his hand. He opens it; a close-up of the open
locket – a woman (mother, sister, lover, wife). He closes it with