The Thrilling Journey of Research: Kevin Walker and Jack Auen Discuss Chronovisor

      Blending the physical and metaphysical, *Chronovisor* tracks Columbia professor Béatrice Courte on her journey to investigate the eponymous device. Father Pellegrino Ernetti, an Italian monk, claimed to have co-invented a machine that could capture images of the distant past. Committed to uncovering its history, Béatrice spends countless hours in libraries sifting through ancient texts. The film's striking visuals include the text of these books, shown in English alongside the original Italian or French. Ernetti claimed to have taken a photograph of Jesus’ crucifixion, although this image later proved to be a fake. As Béatrice learns about Ernetti’s mysterious disappearance, she delves deeper into her research. There are whispers that the chronovisor was destroyed to stop military misuse.

      When I first viewed *Chronovisor,* I thought it was entirely fictional. However, I later discovered that Ernetti was a genuine figure who made grand assertions about the chronovisor, including releasing a photo of Jesus that was later identified as a postcard of a statue. The film’s unsettling quality arises from the blend of fact and fiction, as the chronovisor has morphed into an urban legend. Anne-Laure Sellier portrays Courte, who is herself an actual professor. Despite the film’s stillness and introspection, the inclusion of Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite *The Planets* as the score infuses it with a significant dramatic intensity, establishing an ongoing sense of subdued anxiety. Rather than elaborating on Béatrice's personal life, *Chronovisor* immerses itself in complex questions about the nature of fiction and the limits of understanding history beyond one's perceptions. The film's ghostly atmosphere is amplified by Leo Zhang's 16mm cinematography.

      I had the opportunity to speak with directors Kevin Walker and Jack Auen the week prior to its release this Friday through Grasshopper Film. Film at Lincoln Center will precede it with *Bibliomania*, a series featuring films centered on academic pursuits, which we also discussed.

      **The Film Stage:** Did you ever consider commissioning a score, or was using Holst’s *The Planets* always part of the plan?

      **Kevin Walker:** We never considered commissioning a score; we needed to work faster than that. Creating one would have taken quite a bit of time and we were under tight deadlines. No offense to contemporary composers, but it's tough to surpass what Holst created in the early 20th century. It was royalty-free and fit perfectly, so it felt like the right choice. We selected the most impactful moments from four recordings to integrate into the film.

      The first time I watched the film, I viewed it as purely imaginary. By the second viewing, I recognized its real-world foundation. Afterward, I searched “Chronovisor” on YouTube and found a plethora of conspiracy videos. Do you consider yourselves part of a larger effort to build this lore?

      **Jack Auen:** We certainly hope so. When we first encountered the conspiracy, we approached it as fans, just like anyone else would. We undoubtedly watched most of those YouTube videos you mentioned, anything we could find online. To be honest, those didn’t quite satisfy our curiosity, which inspired us to dig deeper into primary sources and attempt to enhance what was available more than any other online content we had seen.

      How do you discern the boundary between examining a true history and adopting a conspiracy theorist perspective?

      **Jack Auen:** That’s an excellent question.

      **Kevin Walker:** Yes, it's a line that historians continuously navigate while trying to establish the factuality of events. There's always a degree of faith involved. Conspiracy theories may just represent a slightly weaker version of that faith. We didn’t focus on the conspiratorial aspects when making this film. Our primary interest was in the device itself and its possibilities, rather than determining whether the conspiracies are accurate.

      **Jack Auen:** We considered what it would mean if this device truly existed and how it would fuel the desire for knowledge, reflecting the temptation that comes with such a device.

      I came across a YouTube channel claiming to show a film of Jesus’s crucifixion as captured by the Chronovisor, which was clearly generated by AI. This indicated to me just how profound this fascination runs.

      **Kevin Walker:** It's amusing how those videos always feature film grain, dust, and gate weave, yet I doubt the Chronovisor would have that. They usually present it in Academy aspect ratio, resembling a film rather than a Chronovisor's output. Nonetheless, we find those online versions entertaining.

      The film also feels like a commentary on being perpetually online, though Béatrice's scholarly pursuits lend a facade of healthiness compared to someone scrolling on TikTok for eight hours. Do you view it as a commentary on getting lost in rabbit holes?

      **Jack Auen:** While making it, we