worm's-eye view

"He was trying to get a sort of worm's-eye view," Martyn says.

The video is only 16 minutes long, yet I spent a good hour lying in place, overwhelmed by my worm’s-eye view of Rist’s natural world — which included footage of a charismatic pig and a giant pink breast.

The head-hopping from one character’s point of view to another’s, the way the narration swoops from cosmic heights to the worm’s-eye view of the physical damage wrought by the “white ravage,” the expansive and mythic language, the presence of otherworldly wolves and underwater communities alongside kids on porches and police cars and school nurses, all these otherwise clashing elements become, in this cast, a cohesive whole, telling us that this, too, is America.

In fact, he enjoyed the worm’s-eye view that servility offered to him.

But Wylie offers a unique, worm’s-eye view of the events of 2016.