Fall

'Much of Ader's small body of work employs an engaging sense of deadpan humour as well as an underlying travel narrative of sorts. He made two short films in 1970, Fall 1, Los Angeles, and Fall 2, Amsterdam. In these films Ader points to his interest in how we become powerless in the face of forces beyond our control; indeed a sense of tragic inevitability lends weight to filmic scenarios that would otherwise devolve into slapstick. The Los Angeles film opens on Ader seated in a straight-backed chair on the roof of his house. Before he rolls down the roof and falls into the bushes, he seems to pause like a sleepwalker who wakes to discover he has no place to go but down. Fall 2, by contrast, begins more plausibly, as Ader bikes along the Reguliersgracht canal before riding off the edge and descending into the water with comedic willfulness.' (Cherix - In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960-1976, p. 54).

This artist book illustrates sequences of stills from the two films.