The Stag Without a Heart explores the potential of the perpetual film loop and the complexities of the narrative drive. It was the outcome of an AHRC-funded Practice-led and Applied Research Project Award (2009–10). Croft collaborated with Booker Prize-nominated writer Deborah Levy to adapt Aesop’s Fable #214, ‘The lion, the fox and the stag’ into a circular monologue. The resulting allegorical tale of corruption, deception and the desire for power is delivered in the style of a classical Hollywood ‘mise-en-scène’, alluding to black and white American crime cinema. By undermining narrative conventions and laws of continuity through employing a seamless loop, Croft subverts the construction of on-screen film space and coalesces discrete forms of language and, as such, the spectator’s expectations.
Croft placed significant emphasis on traditional filmmaking production values, incorporating cinematic hallmarks into a visual art context. His rigorous methodological approach can be identified by his use of 35mm film stock, professional actors, pronounced cinematography, a stylised film set, a large crew and an emotive musical score. In so doing, the film distinguishes itself as its own genre of filmic practice, an interdisciplinary enterprise further indicated by its accessibility to viewers in environments ranging from the contemporary art gallery, the museum installation, and the looped video screening within a moving image festival.
The film was exhibited and screened in public institutions and galleries including MuHKA, Antwerp (2011), Raum fur Gegenwartskunst, Linz (2011) and Cornerhouse, Manchester (2012). It can be viewed on the The Stag Without a Heart website, which was developed with AHRC funding: http://www.stuartcroft.com/thestagwithoutaheart/index.htm The website includes a critical essay by Steven Eastwood, ‘The repetition of repetition’. Croft also convened an AHRC-funded research seminar (2010) on the project’s central themes, including papers from David Heinemann (Middlesex University), Deborah Levy, Janice McLaren (Photographers’ Gallery) and curator David Thorp.