7 minutes

Playing Alive reassembles the entire career of John Travolta to create a new and unexpected portrait of the Hollywood actor. The video turns appropriated imagery from over forty of Travolta’s films into an existential meditation focusing on his numerous onscreen death scenes and the dichotomies of mind and body, real and fake, and alive and dead. It transforms dialogue from his films into an interior monologue about his dissatisfaction with Hollywood and his place in it while simultaneously positioning his acting career in the context of Scientology, the religion he follows off screen.

"...a metaphysical review of John Travolta's career that is unlike any film-star tribute you'll ever see."
- Douglas Perry, The Oregonian