48 Scythes.
In the dictator’s death-cult, the scythe is a symbol of prosperity.
The dictator owns the symbolic scythe. He is the one who determines when it represents food, fertility, or starvation. All questions return to the problem of timing. All time was defined by the dictator.
I think again of my father’s films and his edits, the jump-cuts from the baby to the bird in the mown hay, that one small patch of meadow that was actually scythed. You can tell by how the hay lays, by the angle of the cut. You can tell the blade was curved.
The hay is a text.
[Still of scythed hay from video]
I want you to imagine it.