Avant Garde Cinema

[MacGuffin]

What have you seen? Which do you like? Obviously there are key names like Stan Brakhage and Michael Snow. But the other more lesser know ones should be talked about in here.

I saw Wavelength when it first appeared on Google Video about a year ago and loved it, but there's a nicer version floating around right now I'd really like to see, hopefully on my television. I also really want to see *Corpus Callosum, La Région centrale and <--->.

Stan Brakhage is, obviously, very talented and the way he approaches thematic material in his hand-painted works is genius, I think. While I've seen nearly everything on the By Brakhage set I own (and recommend everyone buy or in the very least rent before his consensus), I still need to see Wedlock House: An Intercourse because I can't recall if I actually watched it and his best work according to historians, Dog Star Man.

Some other names I will try to explore this summer include Ernie Gehr, the stuff I haven't seen by Bruce Conner (Report was amazing), Hollis Frampton, directors whose works are really strobe-lighty (that guy who did Outer Space... is The Entity required watching before this?), Jack Smith, and any others I may read about.

So please do discuss and recommend me stuff, if you want.

[Pop Trash]

Of more recent stuff (say post 1980) I like Matt McCormick's short films. The Subconcious Art of Graffitti Removal would be his masterpiece and one the best short films I've ever seen (Miranda July did the narration) But his other shorts are pretty good too. Incedently, he had a cameo in Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy as "Weed Dealer."

I also like Sadie Benning's shorts where she films little narrative stories. She used a Fischer Price Pixelvision camera which was marketed for little kids in the 80s but then discontinued and avant film artists started using them for their high grain aesthetic.

I'm a big fan of Chris Maker as well, but I imagine most people on this site are aware of him.

[MacGuffin]

Of more recent stuff (say post 1980) I like Matt McCormick's short films. The Subconcious Art of Graffitti Removal would be his masterpiece and one the best short films I've ever seen (Miranda July did the narration) But his other shorts are pretty good too.

I haven't seen that one, but I liked the one with the bear. Is it on DVD?


I'm a big fan of Chris Maker as well, but I imagine most people on this site are aware of him.

Forgot about him. I really need to give Sans soleil another go considering how much I liked La jetée.

[Pop Trash]

I haven't seen that one, but I liked the one with the bear. Is it on DVD?


Yeah, that's called Sincerely Joe P. Bear. That and Graffitti Removal are on a DVD collection called From Tugboats to Polar Bears. It also includes music videos he made for Sleater-Kinney and The Shins. If you google his name, it will bring up his website and you can order the DVD off of there. Other than that, Netflix might have it.

[MacGuffin]

Yeah, that's called Sincerely Joe P. Bear. That and Graffitti Removal are on a DVD collection called From Tugboats to Polar Bears. If you google his name, it will bring up his website and you can order the DVD off of there. Other than that, Netflix might have it.

Yep, Netflix has it. I'll probably check it out sometime over summer. Did you know McCormick played the dealer in Old Joy?

[Pop Trash]

Yep, Netflix has it. I'll probably check it out sometime over summer. Did you know McCormick played the dealer in Old Joy?

Yeah, I just said that.

[MacGuffin]

Yeah, I just said that.

Oops, sorry.

[Pop Trash]

Oops, sorry.

S'OK

[Pop Trash]

Also, it would be very hard for me to rate Brackhage's work. I mean I think I like Window Water Baby Moving and Mothlight the best (or at least remember them the most from the Criterion DVD) but the others it's like "do I like the swirly lines and images with the bluish tint or the swirly lines and images with the redish tint? Hmmm..."

[MacGuffin]

Also, it would be very hard for me to rate Brackhage's work. I mean I think I like Window Water Baby Moving and Mothlight the best (or at least remember them the most from the Criterion DVD) but the others it's like "do I like the swirly lines and images with the bluish tint or the swirly lines and images with the redish tint? Hmmm..."

Coincidentally, I like Window Water Baby Moving and Mothlight the least of all his work. The hand-painted stuff has far more depth than you may think, especially once you listen to Brakhage's remarks on the movies and read Fred Camper's comments, each piece becomes easier to understand. But some are more striking than others, as is the case with all movies.

[Pop Trash]

I suppose so. I suppose if I took more art crit classes in college I might be able to approach them more. Understanding why some abstract art works and some doesn't, that kind of thing. I find it easier to judge narrative films or at least semi-narrative leaning avant films (like the afore mentioned McCormick pieces) than the Brackhage style total abstractions.

[MacGuffin]

I suppose so. I suppose if I took more art crit classes in college I might be able to approach them more. Understanding why some abstract art works and some doesn't, that kind of thing. I find it easier to judge narrative films or at least semi-narrative leaning avant films than the Brackhage style total abstractions.

I think I still find some Brakhage movies quite beautiful even without the greater understanding I got from the Criterion set. Still, I mean, for a movie like Stellar, it's easy to see it focuses more on an idea (the enormousness of the universe) rather than a concept or structuralist idea (like Glaze of Cathexis). But such is the multifariousness of his work, and that is one of the reasons I like it so much. As I said however, I still haven't seen Dog Star Man, and many consider that the key movie of his career. I'm awaiting By Brakhage: Part 2 with all this said.

Also, I want people to feel free to talk about narrative movies, as you say, with avant-garde leanings. I'm talking about things like the camera movement in Irréversible, whatever.

[D_Davis]

What is avant-garde cinema?

[Derek]

What is avant-garde cinema?

This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde_cinema).

[MacGuffin]

Since there doesn't seem to be too much interest now, I'll just update this thread when I see something applicable if I can remember too in an effort to start conversation.

[D_Davis]

This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde_cinema).

Just wondering if there was a difference between avante and experimental.

[MacGuffin]

Just wondering if there was a difference between avante and experimental.

No, I don't think so.

[balmakboor]

Probably my three most cherished DVDs are avant garde/experimental. By Brakhage; the two disc Kenneth Anger set; and He Who Hits First, Hits Twice: The Urgent Cinema of Santiago Alvarez.

[MacGuffin]

Probably my three most cherished DVDs are avant garde/experimental. By Brakhage; the two disc Kenneth Anger set; and He Who Hits First, Hits Twice: The Urgent Cinema of Santiago Alvarez.

Yeah, when Kenneth's Anger good, he's really good (Eaux d'artifice, Puce Moment). I've never even heard of Santiago Alvarez, so I'll be sure to check Netflix. Edit: Ah, it's only on save.

[lovejuice]

Just wondering if there was a difference between avante and experimental.


No, I don't think so.

i have the very same doubt as d, and have to say am not very pleased with the wiki definition. will do some research, ie. asking a friend who's in film school, and get back on this.

[Melville]

For some reason I approach most avant garde movies with wariness, expecting to find them off-putting and pretentious. Sometimes my wariness is justified—I felt like Wavelength was a mildly interesting endurance test—but typically I actually end up really liking them and finding them a lot more exciting than most more straightforward films: they have a way of marrying viscerally gripping formalism to fascinating abstract issues. Some avant garde movies that I count among my favorites:

Scorpio Rising
The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes
Emak Bakia
Serene Velocity
Flaming Creatures
Pas de Deux

[MacGuffin]

i have the very same doubt as d, and have to say am not very pleased with the wiki definition. will do some research, ie. asking a friend who's in film school, and get back on this.

I just usually think of it as a (usually) non-narrative movie that contains hints of structuralism (whereas something like Wavelength is completely structuralist, but contains hints of a narrative).

[balmakboor]

Yeah, when Kenneth's Anger good, he's really good (Eaux d'artifice, Puce Moment). I've never even heard of Santiago Alvarez, so I'll be sure to check Netflix. Edit: Ah, it's only on save.

Alvarez was a Cuban newsreel maker who used the medium to make some of the most incredibly playful works of experimentation. I find something like L.B.J. (link below) to be as exhilarating as Scorpio Rising and in many of the same ways.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4oi9h_alvarez-lbj-1968_shortfilms

Nice that you single out Puce Moment by the way. It's certainly one of my favorite Angers. KKK is pretty great also.

[MacGuffin]

Alvarez was a Cuban newsreel maker who used the medium to make some of the most incredibly playful works of experimentation. I find something like L.B.J. (link below) to be as exhilarating as Scorpio Rising and in many of the same ways.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4oi9h_alvarez-lbj-1968_shortfilms

Nice that you single out Puce Moment by the way. It's certainly one of my favorite Angers. KKK is pretty great also.

Thanks for the link, but I never watch flash movies on the internet because you're not really getting the full experience when you do (except for something like Wavelength where there's really no other choice).

[balmakboor]

The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes


This has always seemed to me to be like a 20 min version of the final scene from the Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Like a search through dead bodies for a soul to find in the end that it had left the building. Like you can slice and dice the physical body any way you like and never come even close to locating the person that once inhabited it. They're about the limits of what science can understand.

[B-side]

As is evident by my sig, I'm really only recently seriously going into it. I watched the sporadic short here and there, but recently it's been a main focus, particularly the more surreal stuff. I've only seen Lucifer Rising from Anger, which I thought was OK. I don't know if you've seen Alan Schneider's Film, but that's pretty good and formally very interesting. It can be found here (http://www.ubu.com/film/beckett_film.html). The site that has it is focused entirely on experimental cinema. I'm assuming most of you know of it already. I find I have similar reservations as Melville quite often, thinking they could end up being transparent exercises in self-extrication, but also like him, I tend to end up rather enjoying them if only for utilizing the medium to do and say something new. When watching the Man Ray films I have, The Blood of a Poet and Un Chien Andalou, one can't help but notice how enamored these guys were with the potential of the medium, and these films so wonderfully express the joy and frustration these guys felt trying to manipulate the medium to fit their surreal visions.

[Qrazy]

Apparently King Vidor and Nicholas Ray both made avant-garde films after their Hollywood careers ended. Maya Deren is a staple. I don't really care for most avant-garde stuff but Meshes of the Afternoon is tops. Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera is class also.

Most of the Warhol and Yoko Ono films I've seen have been extremely obnoxious. I don't really care for Anger. Can't stand Flaming Creatures.

I'd be interested in watching more Michael Snow although I'm not all that enthused about Wavelength. Also want to see Man Ray, Hollis Frampton and Jonas Mekas. Brakhage is good, not in love with any of his stuff but some I like quite a lot. Bruce Conner I like.

I have Mary Ellen Bute's Finnegan's Wake and Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim. Might watch those sometime soon. Also need to watch more Akerman.

[B-side]

Just watched Not I. It's basically a filmed Samuel Beckett play. The entire 13 mins consists of a mouth speaking in jumbled, fragmented sentences referring to the state of mind and the traumatic experience of a woman. The fact that the woman speaks so quickly and with such inflection you end up fairly convinced what she speaks of happened to her, yet she never says "I", hence the title. It's an interesting take on memory and the way we process harmful events. Her fractured monologue succeeds in rendering the viewer nearly as confused and dumbfounded as she was/is. A rewatch is likely in order to fully grasp the gravity of her situation as I found it a bit difficult to latch onto her words being as I was distracted by the mouth itself rather often.

[MacGuffin]

Apparently King Vidor and Nicholas Ray both made avant-garde films after their Hollywood careers ended. Maya Deren is a staple. I don't really care for most avant-garde stuff but Meshes of the Afternoon is tops. Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera is class also.

Most of the Warhol and Yoko Ono films I've seen have been extremely obnoxious. I don't really care for Anger. Can't stand Flaming Creatures.

I'd be interested in watching more Michael Snow although I'm not all that enthused about Wavelength. Also want to see Man Ray, Hollis Frampton and Jonas Mekas. Brakhage is good, not in love with any of his stuff but some I like quite a lot. Bruce Conner I like.

I have Mary Ellen Bute's Finnegan's Wake and Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim. Might watch those sometime soon. Also need to watch more Akerman.

Maya Deren, ah! I forgot. There's a nice DVD I really need to rent that compiles most of her work. I admit I saw Meshes of the Afternoon but on the computer, probably before the DVD came out. I liked Man with a Movie Camera, but did not find it great as entertainment. It's technical value is recognizable. I will probably have to see it again at some point.

Warhol and Ono do seem a bit obnoxious, but clearly the former has more merit: I mean, Ono films a fly for fifteen minutes and calls the movie Fly? No thanks. I'm holding out for a release of As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty before I tackle Mekas' work. But I do like his style, that I know of. I may make a video diary myself this summer with some environmental compositions.

I've heard good things about Su Frederich. I liked Jeanne Dielman by Akerman, as it is one of those movies that is technically a narrative, but it contains many avant garde elements, such as the structuralism that shadows over the entire movie.

[Derek]

I would say the term "avant-garde" implies a conscious decision to avoid all or most traces of narrative, exploring the potentials of the medium outside of "restrictions" like story, character, perhaps even meaning itself. "Experimental" is more broad - narrative films can be experimental or at least contain experimental techniques. I suppose if a film is purely experimental, implying that it abandons all traditional concerns of narrative cinema (or at least attempts to meet those concerns in original ways, ie they do not preclude emotional involvement), that it is when it crosses into the avant-garde. So essentially, I would suggest avant-garde as a sub-division of experimental.

[Derek]

I've heard good things about Su Frederich. I liked Jeanne Dielman by Akerman, as it is one of those movies that is technically a narrative, but it contains many avant garde elements, such as the structuralism that shadows over the entire movie.

I still haven't seen Jeanne Dielman, but that's a film I would say is experimental but not avant-garde.

[MacGuffin]

I would say the term "avant-garde" implies a conscious decision to avoid all or most traces of narrative, exploring the potentials of the medium outside of "restrictions" like story, character, perhaps even meaning itself. "Experimental" is more broad - narrative films can be experimental or at least contain experimental techniques. I suppose if a film is purely experimental, implying that it abandons all traditional concerns of narrative cinema (or at least attempts to meet those concerns in original ways, ie they do not preclude emotional involvement), that it is when it crosses into the avant-garde. So essentially, I would suggest avant-garde as a sub-division of experimental.

But what about in a situation like Wavelength, where there is narrative, but it is not the forefront of the movie?

[MacGuffin]

I still haven't seen Jeanne Dielman, but that's a film I would say is experimental but not avant-garde.

Yeah, I guess that's probably right.

[Derek]

But what about in a situation like Wavelength, where there is narrative, but it is not the forefront of the movie?

There can be events, even shades of narrative, in avant-garde films (Dog Star Man, Outer Space, Meshes, etc.) but narrative is in the service of form rather than the other way around. I suppose that's the big distinction.

[MacGuffin]

There can be events, even shades of narrative, in avant-garde films (Dog Star Man, Outer Space, Meshes, etc.) but narrative is in the service of form rather than the other way around. I suppose that's the big distinction.

Alright, that seems understandable. Can you tell me if it is necessary to see the horror movie featured in Outer Space before watching Outer Space itself? I know the movie is called The Entity. I'm just wondering if Outer Space is some sort of criticism of that movie or horror movies in general, or better yet a film about the mood of horror movies (the screenshot I saw suggested a strobe light effect over the image of a house... it looked pretty creepy).

[Derek]

Alright, that seems understandable. Can you tell me if it is necessary to see the horror movie featured in Outer Space before watching Outer Space itself? I know the movie is called The Entity. I'm just wondering if Outer Space is some sort of criticism of that movie or horror movies in general, or better yet a film about the mood of horror movies (the screenshot I saw suggested a strobe light effect over the image of a house... it looked pretty creepy).

I haven't seen The Entity, but I can't imagine seeing it beforehand would have any effect on how you saw Outer Space. I actually think it would be best to go in knowing as little about it as possible, plus Tscherkassky's film is only 10 minutes. It's on Youtube, watch it now.

[MacGuffin]

I haven't seen The Entity, but I can't imagine seeing it beforehand would have any effect on how you saw Outer Space. I actually think it would be best to go in knowing as little about it as possible, plus Tscherkassky's film is only 10 minutes. It's on Youtube, watch it now.

Yeah, I will definitely watch it. I'm gonna rent the Experiments in Terror DVD though because I hate watching streaming video. Plus, that DVD has a short by Damon Packard, so sort of a two for one deal not to mention the other shorts on the DVD.

[Qrazy]

I haven't seen The Entity, but I can't imagine seeing it beforehand would have any effect on how you saw Outer Space. I actually think it would be best to go in knowing as little about it as possible, plus Tscherkassky's film is only 10 minutes. It's on Youtube, watch it now.

LFL?


(link for laziness)

[Derek]

LFL?


(link for laziness)

HYGLMF (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTarJ0Op7W8)

(here you go, lazy motherfucker)

[B-side]

Outer Space was, uh, wow. Tscherkassky's manipulation of the footage really evokes a sense of visceral anxiety. And the way the film strip practically eats her alive, tears her in half and pits her against herself...

[balmakboor]

Thanks for the link, but I never watch flash movies on the internet because you're not really getting the full experience when you do (except for something like Wavelength where there's really no other choice).

Wow. You know I didn't even notice it was Flash. I've actually watched the whole thing on that link and found it quite watchable. It is admittedly much better though on my DVD. Anyway, I'd say try to see it along with the equally brilliant and experimental 79 primaveras somehow or another.

I'll be watching some James Broughton this weekend. I'm pretty excited. He was one of Stan Brakhage's favorite Beat filmmakers.

[origami_mustache]

I love Bruce Conner's work.

Joris Ivens's Rain is one of my favorite films of all time.

[B-side]

I love Bruce Conner's work.

Joris Ivens's Rain is one of my favorite films of all time.

Acquiring now. Will report back with my thoughts soon.

[B-side]

Acquiring now. Will report back with my thoughts soon.

Yeah, that didn't do much for me. Some nice shots here and there, but eh.

[balmakboor]

Acquiring now. Will report back with my thoughts soon.

Just wondering if that was a pun.

Which didn't you like? Rain or Bruce Conner?

[Melville]

This has always seemed to me to be like a 20 min version of the final scene from the Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Like a search through dead bodies for a soul to find in the end that it had left the building. Like you can slice and dice the physical body any way you like and never come even close to locating the person that once inhabited it. They're about the limits of what science can understand.
Unfortunately, I don't remember the final scene from the Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. I posted some thoughts about The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes a long while ago:

http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=1854&postcount=7
http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=16630&postcount=20

[balmakboor]

Unfortunately, I don't remember the final scene from the Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. I posted some thoughts about The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes a long while ago:

http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=1854&postcount=7
http://www.match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=16630&postcount=20

As I remember it, Kaspar Hauser ends

with an autopsy where doctors examine Hauser's brain and find an abnormality. They then disperse and the head doctor bops away down the street satisfied that he now has an explanation for why Hauser was the way he was.

I read The Complete Idiots Guide to Philosophy once upon a time. I feel ill equiped to understand what you're saying in the above links.

[baby doll]

There can be events, even shades of narrative, in avant-garde films (Dog Star Man, Outer Space, Meshes, etc.) but narrative is in the service of form rather than the other way around. I suppose that's the big distinction.I guess that rules out Hollis Frampton's Nostalgia, Peter Greenaway's Vertical Features Remake and even Michael Snow's Wavelength (where the distance traveled by the camera is itself narrative), whose forms are inseparable from their stories.

[MacGuffin]

I guess that rules out Hollis Frampton's Nostalgia, Peter Greenaway's Vertical Features Remake and even Michael Snow's Wavelength (where the distance traveled by the camera is itself narrative), whose forms are inseparable from their stories.

For Wavelength, I was talking more about the man collapsing in the center of the room, but I guess that is part of the same thing because it affects the space and the sound.

[Melville]

I read The Complete Idiots Guide to Philosophy once upon a time. I feel ill equiped to understand what you're saying in the above links.
Oh, sorry about that. I guess my comments about the movie got lost in the more technical discussion. Basically, what I was saying is that the film breaks down our notions of a body as a representation of a person. It starts by showing us whole, intact bodies, which we automatically think of as dead people. But then, during the autopsies, it focuses on very specific features of the mutilated bodies—for example, in extreme closeups of glimmering pools of blood—which forces us to view the flesh as an aesthetic object rather than a person. Thus, the film emphasizes that the bodies have no "innate meaning"—their meaning is entirely contextual. That's part of the reason that the film is so horrifying to watch: it takes what we think of as a person and transfigures it into raw matter with only purely aesthetic meaning. But what makes the movie so interesting is that it doesn't present the body as a meaningless lump of flesh that we mistakenly think of as a person. It begins by acknowledging that the bodies do have their meaning as human bodies, as the remains of people, and then it breaks down that meaning; it presents the autopsy as a process, almost an absolution, that frees the bodies (and us) from the meanings that had become fixed in them over a lifetime.

[balmakboor]

Oh, sorry about that. I guess my comments about the movie got lost in the more technical discussion. Basically, what I was saying is that the film breaks down our notions of a body as a representation of a person. It starts by showing us whole, intact bodies, which we automatically think of as dead people. But then, during the autopsies, it focuses on very specific features of the mutilated bodies—for example, in extreme closeups of glimmering pools of blood—which forces us to view the flesh as an aesthetic object rather than a person. Thus, the film emphasizes that the bodies have no "innate meaning"—their meaning is entirely contextual. That's part of the reason that the film is so horrifying to watch: it takes what we think of as a person and transfigures it into raw matter with only purely aesthetic meaning. But what makes the movie so interesting is that it doesn't present the body as a meaningless lump of flesh that we mistakenly think of as a person. It begins by acknowledging that the bodies do have their meaning as human bodies, as the remains of people, and then it breaks down that meaning; it presents the autopsy as a process, almost an absolution, that frees the bodies (and us) from the meanings that had become fixed in them over a lifetime.

Now that I understand. :)

[Pop Trash]

Yeah, I will definitely watch it. I'm gonna rent the Experiments in Terror DVD though because I hate watching streaming video. Plus, that DVD has a short by Damon Packard, so sort of a two for one deal not to mention the other shorts on the DVD.

Good for you. Plus the E.I.T. DVD is way cool. I love the stuff Other Cinema puts out.

[Melville]

Now that I understand. :)
That smiley is confusing me. I can't tell if you're being sincere or not.

[balmakboor]

That smiley is confusing me. I can't tell if you're being sincere or not.

Sincere.

[balmakboor]

It's funny. Smileys were invented to help avoid misunderstandings of intent in online writing. But, now there are so many different "smileys" that they lead to a whole new level of misunderstanding.

Imagine the difference in my words above if followed by:

:) or :frustrated: or :crazy:

[MacGuffin]

fasozupow, were you the fan of Tribulation 99?

[balmakboor]

fasozupow, were you the fan of Tribulation 99?

Very much so.

But, ahem, I'm balmakboor who would rather be alvmakboo now.

[MacGuffin]

Very much so.

But, ahem, I'm balmakboor who would rather be alvmakboo now.

The "bal" is for Craig Baldwin? Anyways, can you tell me anything about the movie and how it is like?

[balmakboor]

The "bal" is for Craig Baldwin? Anyways, can you tell me anything about the movie and how it is like?

Yes, "bal" for Baldwin. He got trumped recently by "alv" for Alvarez though.

Trib 99 is about 40 minutes long and constructed entirely out of found footage that Baldwin has stored up in his San Francisco studio. Lots of old b-grade sci-fi and science class educational films from the 50s and old film noirs and, well, whatever he decided to stitch together.

The film is narrated by Baldwin in a hushed whisper as if he's telling us secrets that he could be hunted down and killed for telling. It's basically a paranoid, conspiracy theory, sci-fi, end of the world yarn with a healthy dose of Mayan prophecy (the whole 2012 thing).

I think it's a great example of making something out of nothing. Of re-investing dead and forgotten material with new meaning.

I think I personally like it so much because I enjoy science fiction, science, and conspiracy theories. I always think of it as the sort of movie the JFK assassination theory nut from Slacker would make.

Oh, and by the way, it is very skillfully edited as are all of Baldwin's films.

[MacGuffin]

That sounds interesting, as I too enjoy reading conspiracy theories, as far-fetched as they usually are. It was described on the Other Cinema Films website as a "pseudo-pseudo-documentary", which along with your comments and Michael Sicinski's praise of it, intrigues me.

[balmakboor]

That sounds interesting, as I too enjoy reading conspiracy theories, as far-fetched as they usually are. It was described on the Other Cinema Films website as a "pseudo-pseudo-documentary", which along with your comments and Michael Sicinski's praise of it, intrigues me.

I would call most of his films pseudo-pseudo-documentaries except for Sonic Outlaws which I'd simply call a documentary -- and a very intriguing one at that. I reviewed it -- rather too long-windedly -- here:

http://blogcritics.org/video/article/movie-review-sonic-outlaws/

[balmakboor]

Btw, do you have a link to the specific Michael Sicinski writings on Trib 99 you are referring to?

[MacGuffin]

There are a few writings on Craig Baldwin on his website, as well as many other things worth taking a look at if you are into avant garde cinema:

http://www.academichack.net/

[balmakboor]

There are a few writings on Craig Baldwin on his website, as well as many other things worth taking a look at if you are into avant garde cinema:

http://www.academichack.net/

Cool. I see he likes Mock Up on Mu as well. I think it may be his masterpiece, but it's too early to tell for sure.

[origami_mustache]

Robert Breer if you're into animation.

[Derek]

I guess that rules out Hollis Frampton's Nostalgia, Peter Greenaway's Vertical Features Remake and even Michael Snow's Wavelength (where the distance traveled by the camera is itself narrative), whose forms are inseparable from their stories.

Yeah, that is a shame, huh? Because my definition was concrete and not up for discussion.

[origami_mustache]

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Tsukamoto, 1989) 29

care to share any thoughts?

[Boner M]

Watched 3 from the box set last night.

First was Harry Smith's Interwoven, which I'd already seen as part of Early Abstraction. It definitely works better with the Dizzy Gillespie piece that Smith originally synced it with rather than the Beatles songs, but overall I think these early works merely feel like interesting blueprints for his later opus, Heaven and Earth Magic.

http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/HarrySmith.jpg

Next up ws my first experience of Jonas Mekas, Notes on the Circus. The title, I'm guessing, is something of a joke, since there's absolutely no intellectual pretense to Mekas' sped-up abstractions of circus footage accompanied to bawdy country music. At one point there's a brief superimposed image of a toddler gawking at all the action, and the piece does evoke a sense of childlike wonder... by obfuscating the specifics of the actual performances it almost feels like a recollection of the overwhelming sensations one feels as a child when exposed to a similar spectacle for the first time.

http://www.avclub.com/assets/images/articles/article/24569/ag1_jpg_595x1000_q85.jpg

Then there's Bruce Baillie's Here I Am, which is essentially snippets of verite-ish footage from a school for emotionally disturbed children, only Baillee elides any concrete details of the location and uses footage of the kids simply being kids; playing on swings, solving puzzles, and generally presented as thinking individuals. The ingenuity of Baillie's poetic realism reminded me a lot of Killer of Sheep; the shots of around the swing set, with the chains twisting all the way to the top and then quickly being released, were especially evocative. The bookending sequences, filmed from a moving vehicle through thick clouds of fog, emphasises a sense of this institute's isolation from the rest of the world, but Baillie's quietly compassionate filmmaking style gives a poignant sense of the minds of the children at odds with their institutionalisation.

http://www.sf360.org/photos/baillie.jpg

[baby doll]

Yeah, that is a shame, huh? Because my definition was concrete and not up for discussion.Well, my previous post was a passive-aggressive way of trying to open up a discussion. Mission accomplished.

I see "experimental," or the more politically correct "avant-garde" (Sicinski often uses a-g for short), as a convenient blanket term to group together a vast aray of films who, for different reasons (form, content, length), can't find wide commercial distribution. In the case of filmmakers like Kenneth Anger and Jack Smith, the settings in which these films were originally shown makes them alternative as much their content. (And as Jonathan Rosenbaum has noted, the early appeal of both filmmakers was the chance to see homoerotic content, which you couldn't see in the mainstream cinema--and largely, still can't.) Today the main places to see a-g films in North America are festivals like Toronto and New York, which can't really be considered alternative venues, although the fact is that none of these films will be playing at your local art house anytime soon. Craig Baldwin's Mock Up on Mu found a distributor and will probably come out on DVD, because it's close enough to the length of a conventional feature film, and it even has a narrative with actors (as does George Kuchar's Hold Me While I'm Naked), so does that make it not an a-g film? If we accept that Baldwin's film is avant-garde, then what about Guy Maddin or the early features of Alain Resnais? But then, if we accept that Baldwin, Maddin and Resnais can be avant-gardists in the mainstream by experimenting with form, can filmmakers who deal with content antithetical to mainstream tastes using conventional forms of storytelling and découpage (take any number of Sundance films) be considered avant-garde, or does, for instance, the form of a thriller bring the content of a Frozen River in line with mainstream tastes, thereby making it not avant-garde? I guess, yes.

[B-side]

Just wondering if that was a pun.

Which didn't you like? Rain or Bruce Conner?

I'm not sure I'm getting the pun.

It was Rain I didn't like. Haven't seen any Conner yet.

[MacGuffin]

I'm not sure I'm getting the pun.

It was Rain I didn't like. Haven't seen any Conner yet.

Bruce Conner has a masterpiece called Report. Report back to us when you see it.

[B-side]

Bruce Conner has a masterpiece called Report. Report back to us when you see it.

Ah. Heh. I'll go check it out.

[balmakboor]

http://media2.moma.org/collection_images/resized/975/w500h420/CRI_112975.jpg

Have you ever settled in to watch the work of a new filmmaker and finished the evening with the feeling that what you just saw made everything you'd seen previously fade into the background? This may sound like hyperbole and, truthfully, it is, but that just happened to me tonight -- more or less.

I watched disc two, the middle years, in the three disc set of films by James Broughton. I'd been wanting to see his work for many years ever since reading Stan Brakhage's lavish praise of his work in the book Film at Wit's End. Well, his praise was definitely on the mark. There are eight films on the disc. It starts with his famous work The Bed. It lived up to its reputation. I feared that maybe I'd just seen the best and the rest of the evening would be a slog.

Then I watched The Golden Positions, This Is It, Dreamwood, and the autobiographical Testament and I seriously was experiencing heart palpatations. I've never sat down and watched eight short films in a row that totally captivated me in this way or to this degree. I now know why Brakhage called him the wittiest of directors.

One word of warning -- if you could call it that -- is Broughton was a total beatnik/hippie. One thing is for sure, this is the most nudity I've ever seen in two hours in my life. There is a major free-love, Earth goddess, Taoist mixture of vibes here. There is even a scene where just about the bravest actor I've ever seen crawls on the ground in the woods, licks the soil, urinates on the ground, takes a dump, rolls around some more, digs a hole, and then fucks the earth. This scenes puts the floating outer space bubble scenes in The Fountain to absolute shame.

More than anything though, this Broughton guy has one amazingly poetic eye with the camera. Wow.

[MacGuffin]

Sounds awesome, balmakboor; queued.

[B-side]

Ah. Heh. I'll go check it out.

Not having any luck finding Report anywhere.

[MacGuffin]

Not having any luck finding Report anywhere.

I saw it at a museum, but it's also on KG.

[B-side]

I saw it at a museum, but it's also on KG.

Unfortunately, it's only available grouped with 7 others. While this likely isn't a bad thing in theory, my ratio needs time to catch up with my downloads. I'm .6 away from 40 gigs and need my ratio to go up .058 before I reach 40.

[MacGuffin]

Unfortunately, it's only available grouped with 7 others. While this likely isn't a bad thing in theory, my ratio needs time to catch up with my downloads. I'm .6 away from 40 gigs and need my ratio to go up .058 before I reach 40.

Can't you just get the one? I don't think it's just one file. Probably seven grouped together in a single folder.

[Qrazy]

Unfortunately, it's only available grouped with 7 others. While this likely isn't a bad thing in theory, my ratio needs time to catch up with my downloads. I'm .6 away from 40 gigs and need my ratio to go up .058 before I reach 40.

Download the torrent file onto your harddrive. Then open it in your client and only select the files you want.

[B-side]

Can't you just get the one? I don't think it's just one file. Probably seven grouped together in a single folder.

Heh. I didn't even think to check that out. Yeah, I'm getting it now.:P

[B-side]

Report was highly disturbing stuff. The final 5 mins or so being the highlight as Conner juxtaposes a myriad of images together to predict the former 7 mins. The shot of the bullet destroying the light bulb being a stand-out, as well as the bull being killed by spears. By placing the build-up after the shooting, Conner only served to make the film that much more devastating.

[B-side]

Report was highly disturbing stuff. The final 5 mins or so being the highlight as Conner juxtaposes a myriad of images together to predict the former 7 mins. The shot of the bullet destroying the light bulb being a stand-out, as well as the bull being killed by spears. By placing the build-up after the shooting, Conner only served to make the film that much more devastating.

Whereas A Movie is better viewed as an experiment and an indication of what's to come, it seems. Not bad viewing by any means, but nowhere near as impacting as Report.

[Melville]

Sincere.
OK, good. I was worried that I had completely lost my powers of communication.


Report was highly disturbing stuff. The final 5 mins or so being the highlight as Conner juxtaposes a myriad of images together to predict the former 7 mins. The shot of the bullet destroying the light bulb being a stand-out, as well as the bull being killed by spears. By placing the build-up after the shooting, Conner only served to make the film that much more devastating.
Sounds great. I've been trying to find a streaming version online, but without any luck. Is there any way to see this movie without stumbling on it at a museum or joining Karagarga?

[origami_mustache]

Sounds great. I've been trying to find a streaming version online, but without any luck. Is there any way to see this movie without stumbling on it at a museum or joining Karagarga?

probably not.

[Duncan]

Yeah, I saw Report in a class, then downloaded it from kg.

Melville, sounds like you liked Serene Velocity even more than I did. That Ernie Gehr quote is one of my favourites from any director. I actually met him after seeing his film For Daniel at the MoMA in NYC. Seemed like a humble, gnomish, gentle, elderly man, and all around pretty awesome.

[B-side]

Both Quay bros. shorts I've seen have been great. Street of Crocodiles being the superior one. I remember being bored to tears by The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, but their shorts are something else.

[balmakboor]

So, in my eyes, Irreversible qualifies as an avant garde/experimental film. Agree?

[MacGuffin]

So, in my eyes, Irreversible qualifies as an avant garde/experimental film. Agree?

No, it's a narrative movie with experimental aspects. From the things I have heard, Enter the Void is more avant-garde.

[balmakboor]

No, it's a narrative movie with experimental aspects. From the things I have heard, Enter the Void is more avant-garde.

I guess I don't feel that having a narrative rules a film out of this category. Heck, Dog Star Man is a narrative film.

[baby doll]

So, in my eyes, Irreversible qualifies as an avant garde/experimental film. Agree?I would say that it assimilates a-g techniques into a traditional narrative. It's still an awesome movie.

[Ezee E]

Irreversible is pretty experimental in its techniques, but still as narrative as Memento is. Nothing wrong with that.

[balmakboor]

I just watched disc one from the James Broughton set -- twice. These four films are from the late '40s and are separated from the films on disc two by 20 years of writing poetry. I loved these films as well especially Mother's Day and The Pleasure Garden. The main difference with these films over the latter ones is these play like throwbacks to Chaplin era silent comedy while the latter are hippy era work. Both periods of work are beautiful, romantic expressions of all the varieties of erotic experience (Broughton was openly gay even before it was relatively safe to be so) and both are in love with the human body. Of course,the late '60s/'70s work enjoyed the added freedom of being able to explore the human form through nudity.

He's becoming something of a favorite for me. I'll finish up with disc three -- his final films from the late '70s and '80s -- soon.

[MacGuffin]

Watched some Bruce Conner shorts, but none of them amazed me like Report (though, to be perfectly fair, they're all at least adaquete, and very well-edited). A Movie and America is Waiting are probably better than I am giving them credit for. Permian Strata was good when the Bob Dylan music came on, but is it really any more than just a situation where a filmmaker finds really good footage to go with the music? Also, Mea Culpa is kind of boring, but I guess it's okay/watchable for what it is (a movie about lightbulbs).

[MacGuffin]

Quick thoughts on the, in my opinion, lackluster "Experiments of Terror" collection:

Outer Space (1999): Unsurprising that this is the best of the set. Had to prepare myself and set expectations, considering how highly lauded this is. Expectations met. This is incredible editing meant to create an unsettling and highly engrossing sense of disorientation. Masterful!

Ursula (1961): I don't get it. A dumb story with some overlapping visuals in the middle. No sense of atmosphere; awful.

Journey Into the Unknown (2002): Certainly not as offensive as the last one in how it exists for no reason other than to waste my valuable time. Starts out kinda like an atmospheric horror sort of film noir, then slowly becomes novel, then boring, and then a waste of time. Ruins the atmosphere with the photographs.

The Virgin Sacrifice (1970): Starts out promising and is actually quite okay, but it's too bad the occult imagery is a mixed bag: those skeletons that float around are really lame looking and the sets look cheap.

Tuning the Sleeping Machine (1996): This is so bad. Obnoxious music, awful cliché visuals; really film school 101 for someone who probably just watched, I don't know, maybe a Kenneth Anger movie and then some Stan Brakhage hand-painted films? The point is, well, I don't know. Hard to sit through.

Dawn of an Evil Millennium (1988): Pretty good stuff, especially when it veers past the gore jokes that take over the first half and goes into science-fiction territory, but it's nowhere near as good as the version of Reflections of Evil that I saw. But still, pretty good.

[Bosco B Thug]

Quick thoughts on the, in my opinion, lackluster "Experiments of Terror" collection:

Outer Space (1999): Unsurprising that this is the best of the set. Had to prepare myself and set expectations, considering how highly lauded this is. Expectations met. This is incredible editing meant to create an unsettling and highly engrossing sense of disorientation. Masterful!

Ursula (1961): I don't get it. A dumb story with some overlapping visuals in the middle. No sense of atmosphere; awful.

Journey Into the Unknown (2002): Certainly not as offensive as the last one in how it exists for no reason other than to waste my valuable time. Starts out kinda like an atmospheric horror sort of film noir, then slowly becomes novel, then boring, and then a waste of time. Ruins the atmosphere with the photographs.

The Virgin Sacrifice (1970): Starts out promising and is actually quite okay, but it's too bad the occult imagery is a mixed bag: those skeletons that float around are really lame looking and the sets look cheap.

Tuning the Sleeping Machine (1996): This is so bad. Obnoxious music, awful cliché visuals; really film school 101 for someone who probably just watched, I don't know, maybe a Kenneth Anger movie and then some Stan Brakhage hand-painted films? The point is, well, I don't know. Hard to sit through.

Dawn of an Evil Millennium (1988): Pretty good stuff, especially when it veers past the gore jokes that take over the first half and goes into science-fiction territory, but it's nowhere near as good as the version of Reflections of Evil that I saw. But still, pretty good. Greencine Daily's review of the recently released 3rd Experiments in Terror sparked my interest in Netflixing these. I believe they said this most recent release is the most consistent and accessible, with one entry by Guy Maddin. I'll give these a go someday.

[MacGuffin]

Greencine Daily's review of the recently released 3rd Experiments in Terror sparked my interest in Netflixing these. I believe they said this most recent release is the most consistent and accessible, with one entry by Guy Maddin. I'll give these a go someday.

Nice. Let us know how it is.

[Derek]

I've been making my way through the Avant-Garde 2: Experimental Cinema 1928-1954 DVD over the past couple days and it's a sizable decrease in quality from the from the first set. I'm starting to realize that outside of Brakhage and Deren, there's not too much avant-garde from the 40s and 50s that interests me much.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sFazFMx0L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

I wrote some brief thoughts on some of the shorts, so here's everything ranked roughly in order of preference:

PRO

nada

pro

House of Cards (Joseph Vogel, 1947) 16 min.

Holy shit, it’s the first half of Lost Highway 50 years earlier. Inspired by film noir’s play of shadow and light and wounded male psyches, Vogel examines the suppression memory and tragedy and its inevitably violent resurfaces through a use of doubling and the seamless integration of flashbacks into the protagonists current struggle to accept the murder he has committed. Rough-around-the-edges for sure, but Vogel tackles some interesting themes pretty thoroughly for such a short film.

The Fall of the House of Usher (James Sibley Watson & Melville Webber, 1928) 13 min.

The Way to Shadow Garden (Stan Brakhage, 1954) 11 min.

Interim(Stan Brakhage, 1952) 24 min.

Pretty interesting expression of the anxiety of teenage romance, the shared trepidation of the couple similar, but conveyed through vastly different body language. The film exists for one moment in particular, but what is special is the post-sex at communication and the same fumbling and awkwardness that led to the initial encounter inevitably drives the two apart afterward.

mixed

Pacific 231 (Jean Mitry, 1949) 10 min.

Late Autumn (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1950) 15 min.

The Extraordinary Child (Stan Brakhage, 1954) 12 min.

Christmas, U.S.A. (Gregory Markopoulos, 1949) 13 min.

Adventures of Jimmy (James Broughton, 1950) 10 min.

Geography of the Body (Willard Maas, 1943) 7 min

The quasi-poetic voice-over is distracting, but this nonetheless remains an interesting experiment in the close-up and its ability to use the fragmentation the human form into fascinating abstract variations that call into question things we’ve long taken for granted. Doesn’t amount to much, but worth a look.

con

The Mechanics of Love (Willard Maas & Ben Moore, 1955) – 5 min.

The Potted Psalm (Sidney Peterson & James Broughton, 1946) 18 min.

The Cage (Sidney Peterson, 1947) 28 min.

Eyeball makes its way loose from head, rolling around town. Film stresses the limitations of visions and the ability of cinema to expand and reshape. To what end? Not more films like this, please.

Rebus-Film No. 1 (Paul Leni, 1925) 15 min.

CON

Visual Variations on Noguchi (Marie Menken, 1945) 4 min.

You know how most people, even those who’ve never seen an entire avant-garde film have certain preconceptions of them being disorienting, weird for the sake of being weird and, well, the “p” word. Don’t let those people know this film exists.

[baby doll]

CON

Visual Variations on Noguchi (Marie Menken, 1945) 4 min.

You know how most people, even those who’ve never seen an entire avant-garde film have certain preconceptions of them being disorienting, weird for the sake of being weird and, well, the “p” word. Don’t let those people know this film exists.So I just watched this on Ubu Web (http://www.ubu.com/film/menken_noguchi.html), and I can't see how any one could construe this as pretentious. I mean, it's a pretty straightforward documentation of some avant-garde sculptures with a score by an avant-garde composer.

[Qrazy]

So I just watched this on Ubu Web (http://www.ubu.com/film/menken_noguchi.html), and I can't see how any one could construe this as pretentious. I mean, it's a pretty straightforward documentation of some avant-garde sculptures with a score by an avant-garde composer.

This is the primary reason. That score's use of sound and echoes screams exaggerated importance. Plus the arbitrarily jerky camera movements, jump cuts and back and forth movement of the camera are pure film school. To label this a straightforward documentation of sculpture is to be willfully blind to the film's entire approach.

[Qrazy]

For anyone interested in seeing Rodney Graham Lobbing Potatoes at a Gong (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=71492417452673 49954)...

This is an absolutely terrible version of the film but it gives you the general idea. The film itself is intentionally silly and funny perhaps to some extent thoughtful but primarily silly and funny.

[B-side]

Dream Work blew me away. Even better than Outer Space. Not as aggressive, but so much more unsettling.

[MacGuffin]

Dream Work blew me away. Even better than Outer Space. Not as aggressive, but so much more unsettling.

I'm going to have to check out more of his stuff. If you didn't know, Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine is also supposed to be pretty amazing. Outer Space was a masterpiece, I thought.

[Derek]

This is the primary reason. That score's use of sound and echoes screams exaggerated importance. Plus the arbitrarily jerky camera movements, jump cuts and back and forth movement of the camera are pure film school. To label this a straightforward documentation of sculpture is to be willfully blind to the film's entire approach.

Truth. It relies on the nature of the sculptures it photographs and rapid movements rather than any unique or thoughtful cinematic techniques. There is no detectable formal strategy, just randomness that's meant to be construed as meaningful. Feigning importance is exactly what it's doing.

But I'm glad you checked out the one I hated anyway, soori. :)


Outer Space was a masterpiece, I thought.

I love it too, but where's the exposition!?

;)

[MacGuffin]

I love it too, but where's the exposition!?

;)

Oh, man, I'm trying to remember which recent movie I called out for this... A Snake of June?

[Derek]

Oh, man, I'm trying to remember which recent movie I called out for this... A Snake of June?

That and Shoot the Piano Player.

[B-side]

I'm going to have to check out more of his stuff. If you didn't know, Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine is also supposed to be pretty amazing. Outer Space was a masterpiece, I thought.

I downloaded another 4-film set of his off KG. It's got Motion Picture, Manufraktur, Get Ready and Miniatures, a sort of experimental documentary, I guess. It's not listed on IMDb. Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine is on YouTube. I'll check it out on there.

[MacGuffin]

Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine is on YouTube. I'll check it out on there.

I wouldn't.

[B-side]

I wouldn't.

I doubt the quality is that compromised.

[MacGuffin]

I doubt the quality is that compromised.

Quality is always compromised when you watch something on YouTube. That's a fact.

[B-side]

Quality is always compromised when you watch something on YouTube. That's a fact.

I'm aware. I was only saying that I doubt the quality is compromised to the point where it's not even worth checking out.

[trotchky]

I wouldn't.

I wouldn't, either. If you're going to watch something on youtube, why not make it something that was made with the intention of being watched on youtube? Brightside, see the link in my sig for a truly hilarious piece of cultural satire by one of our generation's greatest avant-performance-video artists.

[MacGuffin]

I'm aware. I was only saying that I doubt the quality is compromised to the point where it's not even worth checking out.

I would argue that it is. I never count a computer viewing, YouTube or not, as an actual viewing not only because of the small screen, but because of compression on streamed movies (which includes everything on YouTube or Ubuweb — although for Ubuweb, most of those movies don't exist on any better quality format aside from rare film prints). Compression, meaning the video quality is sacrificed. In order to put something on YouTube, one would have to compromise the size of the file to meet YouTube standards. This means that the videos that you watch on there are depressed to a much lesser quality; in most situations, massive pixelation occurs because the quality is dumbed down. How does this affect watching movies on YouTube? I guess it all depends on how much you care about the movies, and whether you feel like half-watching the movie (again, pixels are taken out of the movie in order to play it on YouTube; a much lesser number of pixels are left over from the original print) is truly getting the whole experience, emotionally and intellectually. Many movies, especially experimental, require the images that are being shown to be of a great quality to get the point across (take Brakhage for example, whose hand-painted movies are just that: painted, and you wouldn't want to bother looking at a classic painting with holes in it).

[MacGuffin]

Sorry if I came off a little harsh, Brightside. I just wanted to express my feeling towards the YouTube format, and hopefully allow you to see some cons about watching movies on it. I really only feel YouTube is good for stuff like the video in trotchky's signature, for interviews and for concert footage.

[B-side]

I would argue that it is. I never count a computer viewing, YouTube or not, as an actual viewing not only because of the small screen, but because of compression on streamed movies (which includes everything on YouTube or Ubuweb — although for Ubuweb, most of those movies don't exist on any better quality format aside from rare film prints). Compression, meaning the video quality is sacrificed. In order to put something on YouTube, one would have to compromise the size of the file to meet YouTube standards. This means that the videos that you watch on there are depressed to a much lesser quality; in most situations, massive pixelation occurs because the quality is dumbed down. How does this affect watching movies on YouTube? I guess it all depends on how much you care about the movies, and whether you feel like half-watching the movie (again, pixels are taken out of the movie in order to play it on YouTube; a much lesser number of pixels are left over from the original print) is truly getting the whole experience, emotionally and intellectually. Many movies, especially experimental, require the images that are being shown to be of a great quality to get the point across (take Brakhage for example, whose hand-painted movies are just that: painted, and you wouldn't want to bother looking at a classic painting with holes in it).

I don't think Tscherkassky's films require that you see them in their most pristine condition, especially considering they're in black and white and use manipulated found footage. Well, most are/do, anyway.

[MacGuffin]

I don't think Tscherkassky's films require that you see them in their most pristine condition, especially considering they're in black and white and use manipulated found footage. Well, most are/do, anyway.

What about the strobelighting in Outer Space used to emphasize and explore the sense of disorientation that the movie is very much so about? I'm sure it's not nearly as strong on YouTube as it is on the Experiments of Terror DVD. The illumination is dumbed down because pixels are sacrificed. You're basically watched a 50 x 50 pixel video stretched out to, I don't know exactly, 100 x 300 sized video? Something with that general ratio.

[B-side]

Sorry if I came off a little harsh, Brightside. I just wanted to express my feeling towards the YouTube format, and hopefully allow you to see some cons about watching movies on it. I really only feel YouTube is good for stuff like the video in trotchky's signature, for interviews and for concert footage.

I understand. I don't watch full length movies on YouTube largely for the very reasons you stated. My preferred method of watching a film is on my TV, but that's not always possible or convenient. Short films I tend to try and find streaming versions of. If the condition is too poor, I don't bother. I don't see how holding out to see Tscherkassky's films on DVD would make much of a difference. Their quality isn't exactly reliant on clarity of image.

[B-side]

What about the strobelighting in Outer Space used to emphasize and explore the sense of disorientation that the movie is very much so about? I'm sure it's not nearly as strong on YouTube as it is on the Experiments of Terror DVD. The illumination is dumbed down because pixels are sacrificed. You're basically watched a 50 x 50 pixel video stretched out to, I don't know exactly, 100 x 300 sized video? Something with that general ratio.

Obviously there is some sacrifice, but in this case I don't know that the sacrifice is so huge that it means I can't see them until I manage to find a DVD with all of the films of his I wanna see.

[MacGuffin]

Short films I tend to try and find streaming versions of. If the condition is too poor, I don't bother. I don't see how holding out to see Tscherkassky's films on DVD would make much of a difference. Their quality isn't exactly reliant on clarity of image.

Why would you hold short films in a lesser stature than full-length movies, exactly? You wouldn't watch full-length movies on YouTube but you would watch short-length movies? Is it because you can watch more in shorter periods of time? Because that's not exactly a good thing. That, on top of the fact that you seem to not care about quality or the artist's original intentions (at least, to the extend that you can with avant-garde cinema, given its availability issues) worries me a little bit. And that's just what I am saying. Watching Outer Space on DVD does make a difference. It makes a big difference.

[MacGuffin]

Obviously there is some sacrifice, but in this case I don't know that the sacrifice is so huge that it means I can't see them until I manage to find a DVD with all of the films of his I wanna see.

Even Ubuweb is better than YouTube, because the movies on there are not commercially available and are mostly pristine considering their availability. The power of watching Outer Space on YouTube is immensely different from seeing it on DVD, judging from the part I saw on YouTube. You are getting an idea of Outer Space, but I can't exactly say you are getting the experience of seeing it.

[B-side]

Why would you hold short films in a lesser stature than full-length movies, exactly? You wouldn't watch full-length movies on YouTube but you would watch short-length movies? Is it because you can watch more in shorter periods of time? Because that's not exactly a good thing. That, on top of the fact that you seem to not care about quality or the artist's original intentions (at least, to the extend that you can with avant-garde cinema, given its availability issues) worries me a little bit. And that's just what I am saying. Watching Outer Space on DVD does make a difference. It makes a big difference.

If I thought any less of them, I wouldn't watch them as often as I do. It's not a matter of legitimacy. And no, I wouldn't overload myself with short films anymore than I would full-length films. I never said I didn't care about the artist's intentions. It's only what I said. Waiting for a DVD is not always plausible or convenient and in the case of Tscherkassky's films I've seen, they've not required absolute clarity of image. They're black and white and use manipulated found footage. I see everything that needs to be seen and experience it just the same. Sure, it's not the absolute best way to see them, but I don't have much of a choice.

[B-side]

Even Ubuweb is better than YouTube, because the movies on there are not commercially available and are mostly pristine considering their availability. The power of watching Outer Space on YouTube is immensely different from seeing it on DVD, judging from the part I saw on YouTube. You are getting an idea of Outer Space, but I can't exactly say you are getting the experience of seeing it.

I could discuss just as you could. You can say your image quality was a bit better, but that doesn't mean all that much in this case.

[MacGuffin]

If I thought any less of them, I wouldn't watch them as often as I do. It's not a matter of legitimacy.

It's not the number of short films that you watch which annoys me, it is the number of short films that you watch on YouTube.


Waiting for a DVD is not always plausible or convenient and in the case of Tscherkassky's films I've seen, they've not required absolute clarity of image. They're black and white and use manipulated found footage. I see everything that needs to be seen and experience it just the same. Sure, it's not the absolute best way to see them, but I don't have much of a choice.

If Tscherkassky wanted the movies to be released with YouTube quality, he would have made them YouTube quality to begin with. You are not seeing the movie the way he originally intended, so you are not seeing Peter Tscherkassky's Outer Space. It's as simple as that.

[MacGuffin]

I could discuss just as you could. You can say your image quality was a bit better, but that doesn't mean all that much in this case.

It was a lot better. That's because I actually watched the movie.

[B-side]

It's not the number of short films that you watch which annoys me, it is the number of short films that you watch on YouTube.

Wanna point me to a way to see the short films I watch in their alleged "real" format that doesn't require a lot of money or precious KG ratio? I'd love that.


If Tscherkassky wanted the movies to be released with YouTube quality, he would have made them YouTube quality to begin with. You are not seeing the movie the way he originally intended, so you are not seeing Peter Tscherkassky's Outer Space. It's as simple as that.

If Murnau wanted his movies to be seen at home on a TV screen he would've made them that quality to begin with.

[B-side]

It was a lot better. That's because I actually watched the movie.

So did I. It was damn fine.

[B-side]

By the way, I only watch on YouTube as a last resort. The only Tscherkassky I've seen on YouTube is Outer Space.

[MacGuffin]

Wanna point me to a way to see the short films I watch in their alleged "real" format that doesn't require a lot of money or precious KG ratio? I'd love that.

Library, Ubuweb?


If Murnau wanted his movies to be seen at home on a TV screen he would've made them that quality to begin with.

Unfortunately, YouTube wasn't around in the 1920s. But seriously, there's a difference between watching a DVD — which is sometimes even approved by a director or in the very least, manufactured from a print owned by a company and actually made from an original print — than there is watching a movie on YouTube, where the videos come from an unknown source or a DVD made from a print and then drastically cheapened in quality.

[B-side]

Library, Ubuweb?

The streams I've seen off Ubuweb were awful, but I didn't seem to have much of a choice. As for library, I live in a small town. Our library only has Discovery channel docs. They can order stuff, but that takes a while and you are just as often on a waiting list as you aren't. Not to mention I've already got loads of late fees.


Unfortunately, YouTube wasn't around in the 1920s. But seriously, there's a difference between watching a DVD — which is sometimes even approved by a director or in the very least, manufactured from a print owned by a company and actually made from an original print — than there is watching a movie on YouTube, where the videos come from an unknown source or a DVD made from a print and then drastically cheapened in quality.

Both require a drop in quality. If the films I was watching required the utmost clarity of image to truly appreciate, I'd try my best to get a hold of them on DVD or via torrent, but once again, that tends to require money or KG ratio. I wouldn't bother if they were so bad or pixelated that I'd be distracted by it.

[MacGuffin]

Both require a drop in quality. If the films I was watching required the utmost clarity of image to truly appreciate, I'd try my best to get a hold of them on DVD or via torrent, but once again, that tends to require money or KG ratio. I wouldn't bother if they were so bad or pixelated that I'd be distracted by it.

But it is transfered directly from an original print, so you are getting the images the director originally intended regardless of the print's age (this is not my concern), whereas with YouTube, you are getting transfers of transfers of transfers.

[B-side]

But it is transfered directly from an original print, so you are getting the images the director originally intended regardless of the print's age (this is not my concern), whereas with YouTube, you are getting transfers of transfers of transfers.

You keep bringing up "what the director intended" as if what I'm seeing is the complete opposite of what you saw on your glorious DVD. I didn't watch it through a piece of saran wrap and blown up to full-screen. We watched the same thing. Yours was a bit sharper than mine. We can both discuss it just the same. Would I prefer to see it on DVD? Of course. But you're not fooling me by trying to say you seen something I didn't. In fact, I have a copy of it ripped from the DVD I got off a KG torrent. I take it that STILL isn't good enough, eh?

[MacGuffin]

You keep bringing up "what the director intended" as if what I'm seeing is the complete opposite of what you saw on your glorious DVD. I didn't watch it through a piece of saran wrap and blown up to full-screen. We watched the same thing. Yours was a bit sharper than mine. We can both discuss it just the same. Would I prefer to see it on DVD? Of course. But you're not fooling me by trying to say you seen something I didn't. In fact, I have a copy of it ripped from the DVD I got off a KG torrent. I take it that STILL isn't good enough, eh?

Mine wasn't only a bit sharper than yours, but it also had more pixels than yours. The version you saw was missing pixels originally composed by the director due to YouTube's compressing. Also, we can't discuss it, because you could not have experienced the same emotional resonance as I did, as I saw the movie with a greater contrast, and henceforth, a stronger strobelight, which obviously makes for a greater impact and emphasis. Avant-garde movies are not about storylines or narrative, but about the technicalities involved behind filmmaking or the structure behind it (hence, structuralist cinema). I'm sure the copy you have ripped from a DVD is fine so long as it is an untouched copy, but why can't you just rent the DVD from Netflix or see if your library can use the interlibrary loan system and project it on a bigger screen, if you want to see it so bad?

[B-side]

Mine wasn't only a bit sharper than yours, but it also had more pixels than yours. The version you saw was missing pixels originally composed by the director due to YouTube's compressing. Also, we can't discuss it, because you could not have experienced the same emotional resonance as I did, as I saw the movie with a greater contrast, and henceforth, a stronger strobelight, which obviously makes for a greater impact and emphasis. Avant-garde movies are not about storylines or narrative, but about the technicalities involved behind filmmaking or the structure behind it (hence, structuralist cinema). I'm sure the copy you have ripped from a DVD is fine so long as it is an untouched copy, but why can't you just rent the DVD from Netflix or see if your library can use the interlibrary loan system and project it on a bigger screen, if you want to see it so bad?

You're assuming an awful lot. I didn't experience the same emotional resonance as you?:confused:

You just know this, eh? I mean, clearly we can't discuss it because you saw a slightly improved version of it. I absolutely could not discuss the details. Let me ask you this: What if I saw Kagemusha on Blu-Ray? It's clearly been adjusted from the original print. Does that mean I didn't see the real film? Obviously Kurosawa didn't intend it for Blu-Ray. What about VHS? Those aren't as sharp as DVD's, so did I see Blue Velvet when I saw it on VHS?

[trotchky]

You keep bringing up "what the director intended" as if what I'm seeing is the complete opposite of what you saw on your glorious DVD. I didn't watch it through a piece of saran wrap and blown up to full-screen. We watched the same thing. Yours was a bit sharper than mine. We can both discuss it just the same. Would I prefer to see it on DVD? Of course. But you're not fooling me by trying to say you seen something I didn't. In fact, I have a copy of it ripped from the DVD I got off a KG torrent. I take it that STILL isn't good enough, eh?

I think part of Clipper Ship Captain's point is that film, being a visual medium, is all about visual communication. This is especially true in the case of experimental or avant garde film, where there is often no narrative to speak of and meaning is entirely dependent upon the imagery.

If someone gave you a second-hand tape of The Beatles' Abbey Road that was recorded on a handheld mic from a scratched up CD on single speaker, you wouldn't argue that you had the same experience as if you had listened on a pristine vinyl record, would you? So why should film be any different?

[MacGuffin]

You're assuming an awful lot. I didn't experience the same emotional resonance as you?:confused:

You just know this, eh? I mean, clearly we can't discuss it because you saw a slightly improved version of it. I absolutely could not discuss the details. Let me ask you this: What if I saw Kagemusha on Blu-Ray? It's clearly been adjusted from the original print. Does that mean I didn't see the real film? Obviously Kurosawa didn't intend it for Blu-Ray. What about VHS? Those aren't as sharp as DVD's, so did I see Blue Velvet when I saw it on VHS?

No, you didn't, because the imagery wasn't as strong, nor was it fully intact. I didn't just see a slightly improved version of it, I saw it. If you saw the movie Kagemusha on Blu-Ray, then this is going right back to the things I said earlier; it's perfectly fine, because it's mastered from an original print (by Janus Films, I believe), as is VHS copies.

[B-side]

I think part of Clipper Ship Captain's point is that film, being a visual medium, is all about visual communication. This is especially true in the case of experimental or avant garde film, where there is often no narrative to speak of and meaning is entirely dependent upon the imagery.

I'm well-aware of the visual nature of film and more to the point, avant-garde cinema. You're still not convincing me I didn't see a film because some quality was lost in the version I watched. Like I said before a dozen times, if the drop in quality was so much I was distracted or truly felt like I wasn't getting the entire experience, I wouldn't watch it. Go ahead and watch the YouTube cut of Outer Space. It's more than adequate. The difference between it and DVD isn't a big one.


If someone gave you a second-hand tape of The Beatles' Abbey Road that was recorded on a handheld mic from a scratched up CD on single speaker, you wouldn't argue that you had the same experience as if you had listened on a pristine vinyl record, would you? So why should film be any different?

Bit extreme.

[B-side]

No, you didn't, because the imagery wasn't as strong, nor was it fully intact. I didn't just see a slightly improved version of it, I saw it. If you saw the movie Kagemusha on Blu-Ray, then this is going right back to the things I said earlier; it's perfectly fine, because it's mastered from an original print (by Janus Films, I believe), as is VHS copies.

Mastered from an original print, but still adjusted. Not the director's intention. What about films shot digitally? What about the streams available on Criterion's site? Clearly those are no better...

[trotchky]

I'm well-aware of the visual nature of film and more to the point, avant-garde cinema. You're still not convincing me I didn't see a film because some quality was lost in the version I watched. Like I said before a dozen times, if the drop in quality was so much I was distracted or truly felt like I wasn't getting the entire experience, I wouldn't watch it. Go ahead and watch the YouTube cut of Outer Space. It's more than adequate. The difference between it and DVD isn't a big one.

No one's saying you literally didn't see the film; we're saying you saw it in less than optimal conditions, so much so that meaning was compromised.




Bit extreme.

Not really.

[B-side]

No one's saying you literally didn't see the film; we're saying you saw it in less than optimal conditions, so much so that meaning was compromised.

Less than optimal? Of course. Meaning compromised? Hardly.


Not really.

I'd say so. I'm not watching an amateur's attempt at recreating Outer Space on a broken camera.

[trotchky]

Clearly those are no better...

There's nothing clear about it. It's an issue of gradation. How far from the original product can you stray before it stops being the same product? Does every copy have to be an exact replica? No, I don't think so. I do think, however, that the image quality of YouTube videos is poor enough that it detracts from the meaning of a film.

[trotchky]

I'd say so. I'm not watching an amateur's attempt at recreating Outer Space on a broken camera.


Good, because that's not where my analogy went. I'm not talking about a complete re-staging of an original work of art, I'm talking about a duplicate of that work.

[B-side]

There's nothing clear about it. It's an issue of gradation. How far from the original product can you stray before it stops being the same product? Does every copy have to be an exact replica? No, I don't think so. I do think, however, that the image quality of YouTube videos is poor enough that it detracts from the meaning of a film.

BUT THEY'RE NOT RIPPED FROM THE MASTER PRINT!

Here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTarJ0Op7W8) Outer Space on YouTube. Tell me about all the parts I missed.

[B-side]

Good, because that's not where my analogy went. I'm not talking about a complete re-staging of an original work of art, I'm talking about a duplicate of that work.

Might as well be. Outer Space is a rip of a rip. That's it. It's not perfect, but it's not so poor that I didn't see pretty much the same thing you did. If you wanna insist I just "don't get it" or didn't see what you saw because it'll help you sleep at night, then go ahead, but you're not convincing me. If you wanna make a case against watching films on YouTube, try using one that actually has color and would greatly benefit from being seen on the big screen or on DVD. Considering part of Outer Space's appeal is the degradation of the original content, you're not going much of anywhere.

[MacGuffin]

Mastered from an original print, but still adjusted. Not the director's intention. What about films shot digitally? What about the streams available on Criterion's site? Clearly those are no better...

All of these come from an original print, adjusted or not. They are the directors original intention. YouTube movies are compressed, they are missing pixels. Take this image I made in paint since you seem to not understand:

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7955/23064143jpg.jpg

Everything I have made white, hypothetically, is removed, and then the image is squeezed together in its missing spots on YouTube in the state of compression in order to comply with the size restrictions.

Let's take a closer look at a frame from Outer Space on YouTube:

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/9921/picture1hjf.png

It looks okay, here. A little small, but I guess it could be fine, right? Wrong. Let's zoom in a little bit...

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/3326/picture2ggx.png

...and more...

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7598/picture3vsx.png

Until you can see that this movie is pixelated as hell as a result of removing pixels as seen in the Touch of Evil picture above.

[trotchky]

BUT THEY'RE NOT RIPPED FROM THE MASTER PRINT!

Here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTarJ0Op7W8) Outer Space on YouTube. Tell me about all the parts I missed.

You're asking me to tell you something that's impossible to describe in words. It's not an issue of "parts," it's an issue of the whole. Specifically, the quality of that whole. If meaning is communicated through process, the clarity of that process must necessarily matter. There is a point in quality degradation at which meaning ceases to exist entirely; we can agree on that, yes? Okay, so, it should follow that as a statement diminishes in clarity, by degrees, so too does it diminish in meaning, by degrees. YouTube, I feel, reaches a point on the "quality" spectrum low enough to significantly endanger meaning.

[MacGuffin]

Might as well be. Outer Space is a rip of a rip. That's it. It's not perfect, but it's not so poor that I didn't see pretty much the same thing you did. If you wanna insist I just "don't get it" or didn't see what you saw because it'll help you sleep at night, then go ahead, but you're not convincing me. If you wanna make a case against watching films on YouTube, try using one that actually has color and would greatly benefit from being seen on the big screen or on DVD. Considering part of Outer Space's appeal is the degradation of the original content, you're not going much of anywhere.

What difference does it make whether a movie is in black and white or in color? Each artistic decision is based around tones. After all, black and white are colors, too, and in black and white movies, you don't really see just black and just white, you see many different tones of grey. In color movies, you see many different tones overall of many different colors.

[B-side]

All of these come from an original print, adjusted or not. They are the directors original intention. YouTube movies are compressed, they are missing pixels. Take this image I made in paint since you seem to not understand:

Dude. The streams on Criterion's site are not from the original print. They are copies of the DVD burned to their severs. A rip of a rip. Surely those Criterion guys are evil for doing this. What of torrents? Rips of rips of varying degrees of quality. I'm well aware of the loss in quality. You're reiterating the same thing.

[MacGuffin]

Dude. The streams on Criterion's site are not from the original print. They are copies of the DVD burned to their severs. A rip of a rip. Surely those Criterion guys are evil for doing this. What of torrents? Rips of rips of varying degrees of quality. I'm well aware of the loss in quality. You're reiterating the same thing.

Yes, but they're all intentionally high quality. YouTube is not.

[B-side]

What difference does it make whether a movie is in black and white or in color? Each artistic decision is based around tones. After all, black and white are colors, too, and in black and white movies, you don't really see just black and just white, you see many different tones of grey. In color movies, you see many different tones overall of many different colors.

So the spectrum is far greater. You also didn't address my last point:


Considering part of Outer Space's appeal is the degradation of the original content, you're not going much of anywhere.

[B-side]

Yes, but they're all intentionally high quality. YouTube is not.

Who says they're not? Some are more concerned with quality than others. Same as people who upload torrents.

[MacGuffin]

So the spectrum is far greater. You also didn't address my last point:

YouTube compression is not the degredation Tscherkassky intended. Furthermore, if I took a copy of Merzbow's "Degredation of Tapes" and took out parts of it or if I took out parts of William Basinski's "The Disintegration Loops" it wouldn't be the same thing that the artists originally intended.

[trotchky]

So the spectrum is far greater. You also didn't address my last point:

I think I can field this one.

Another metaphor: If I listened to Guided By Voices through a solid foot of concrete, that wouldn't make it a legit listening experience just because Guided By Voices made lo-fi music, would it?

[MacGuffin]

Who says they're not? Some are more concerned with quality than others. Same as people who upload torrents.

Criterion is concerned with quality, otherwise nobody would care and they wouldn't be acknowledged as they are today. Same with Netflix (who even sends out emails asking if the quality of the streaming movie that I saw on Netflix was good, and it always is, because they care). Karagarga, too, they're not just going to allow any rip. With YouTube, a computer-generated algorithm decides the quality of the footage uploaded.

[B-side]

YouTube compression is not the degredation Tscherkassky intended. Furthermore, if I took a copy of Merzbow's "Degredation of Tapes" and took out parts of it or if I took out parts of William Basinski's "The Disintegration Loops" it wouldn't be the same thing that the artists originally intended.

Hyperbole. I'm not missing scenes. I'm missing quality of image in a film that absolutely does not need that quality. The better the quality, the better the experience, obviously, but I've never met anyone so dedicated to convincing me I'm shitting on a director's original intent than you.

[MacGuffin]

Yeah, I should indeed reiterate that I do watch Netflix streaming movies on my Xbox 360 (and I'm about to actually go watch Hukkle right now!), but the quality is always more than adequate because I have a fast internet connection. I even saw The Red Ballon in high-definition on there and it looked amazing. So, I wouldn't really have as much of a problem with Netflix's streaming, because it actually looks good and you are actually getting the experience that you would if you were to see it on a DVD. (Not to mention you're actually watching it on a TV through the Xbox 360.)

[B-side]

Criterion is concerned with quality, otherwise nobody would care and they wouldn't be acknowledged as they are today. Same with Netflix (who even sends out emails asking if the quality of the streaming movie that I saw on Netflix was good, and it always is, because they care). Karagarga, too, they're not just going to allow any rip. With YouTube, a computer-generated algorithm decides the quality of the footage uploaded.

I never said those people weren't. A rip of a rip is still that. You've gone from being concerned if it comes from the original print to being concerned with image quality. So even if a torrent I downloaded was a rip of a rip of a burn, but the original rip came from the original source, it'd be OK?

[MacGuffin]

Hyperbole. I'm not missing scenes. I'm missing quality of image in a film that absolutely does not need that quality. The better the quality, the better the experience, obviously, but I've never met anyone so dedicated to convincing me I'm shitting on a director's original intent than you.

Hey, I'm just discussing this! No need to vilify me. As I illustrated in the previous post, you're not actually seeing the full movie. At least with something such as Netflix Watch Instantly, you're seeing the entire image if you have a decent internet connection.

[MacGuffin]

I never said those people weren't. A rip of a rip is still that. You've gone from being concerned if it comes from the original print to being concerned with image quality. So even if a torrent I downloaded was a rip of a rip of a burn, but the original rip came from the original source, it'd be OK?

What are you talking about when you say "a rip of a rip"? Are you referring to torrents? Because the process of ripping something to a computer is only as compressed as the ripper makes it, and likewise, Netflix streaming is only as decent as your internet connection. With YouTube streaming, it doesn't matter what your internet connection is, because the image quality is pre-determined.

[MacGuffin]

Also, the original print and the image quality are synonymous. If you are watching a Criterion DVD, you are watching the original print with good image quality. If you are watching something on YouTube you are watching a compressed rip of the DVD of an original print.

[B-side]

Hey, I'm just discussing this! No need to vilify me. As I illustrated in the previous post, you're not actually seeing the full movie. At least with something such as Netflix Watch Instantly, you're seeing the entire image if you have a decent internet connection.

It's funny. I can't think of anyone who would be this determined to convince me I'm not "truly" seeing a film unless I see it on DVD. Ignoring that the DVD could be complete trash and a burn of the original DVD, it's still silly. You could argue a drop in quality all day, and it'd be silly to debate that, but you act as if you saw a completely different film than I did. I've never even attempted to watch a film on YouTube that was so compromised that I'd have been better off not even seeing it, yet you seem to think I did just that with Outer Space. It's not a fucking painting being seen through fogged plastic with sunglasses on. It's a film that was compressed to go on YouTube. If it helps you, I'll gladly concede my viewing was a bit compromised, but seriously, stop pretending I watched Casablanca when you watched The Godfather.

[MacGuffin]

Okay, after talking about this for two hours, I think it's pretty safe to say, I'm done! Although, I will admit that this discussion does have me questioning the quality of Netflix Watch Now streaming and I will go ahead and take a look at that right now and report back with my findings.

[MacGuffin]

Well, it appears to be down right now.

[B-side]

Okay, after talking about this for two hours, I think it's pretty safe to say, I'm done! Although, I will admit that this discussion does have me questioning the quality of Netflix Watch Now streaming and I will go ahead and take a look at that right now and report back with my findings.

You win. I didn't see Outer Space. I saw ouTer SPAce. Whatever it takes to get you to realize that I wasn't trying to betray Tscherkassky's intent. Obviously my viewing was a sham and I'm a liar for saying I saw it.

[MacGuffin]

You win. I didn't see Outer Space. I saw ouTer SPAce. Whatever it takes to get you to realize that I wasn't trying to betray Tscherkassky's intent. Obviously my viewing was a sham and I'm a liar for thinking I saw it.

No, no. No need for that. I realize I was being a bit harsh, and probably only half-awake (it's 2:18 AM and this conversation started two hours ago — as it progressed I realize now a lot of it was probably me talking out of my ass because I'm partially in the sleepwalking state, I think), but I hope that you can still see some faults of watching movies on YouTube. I won't hold it against you, though, and I apologize if I came off as rude. In the morning, I will probably look at this thread and think to myself: 'What the fuck was that?' Anyways, I still do watch streaming movies on Netflix — and while (could anybody clarify here?) I think picture quality is determined by internet connection and mine always has full bars I think — even if those are projected on my television via Xbox 360.

[MacGuffin]

Seriously, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Some of my points are true obviously, but I mean, you are watching the movie, just, well... I don't know how else to say this but not the way the artist intended. But you are watching the movie, so who cares? I don't know. I really don't know what I am saying. I'm going to go sleep now. I hope you'll forgive me for being brash again.

[B-side]

No, no. No need for that. I realize I was being a bit harsh, and probably only half-awake (it's 2:18 AM and this conversation started two hours ago — as it progressed I realize now a lot of it was probably me talking out of my ass because I'm partially in the sleepwalking state, I think), but I hope that you can still see some faults of watching movies on YouTube. I won't hold it against you, though, and I apologize if I came off as rude. In the morning, I will probably look and this thread and think to myself: 'What the fuck was that?' Anyways, I still do watch streaming movies on Netflix — and while (could anybody clarify here?) I think picture quality is determined by internet connection and mine always has full bars I think — even if those are projected on my television via Xbox 360.

I appreciate your candor, regardless of whether it came off as harsh or not. It's a discussion well worth having. I never said watching these films on YouTube was ideal, merely the means to an end. I don't have a job or parents with money to throw around, so this is about the best I can do right now. Sure, I get Netflix here and there when I can somehow get the money to do it, but it's becoming harder and harder now that I don't donate plasma anymore.:|

Sorry for the needless overshare, but it gives you an idea of the desperation of a cinephile with very limited resources.

[B-side]

Seriously, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Some of my points are true obviously, but I mean, you are watching the movie, just, well... I don't know how else to say this but not the way the artist intended. But you are watching the movie, so who cares? I don't know. I really don't know what I am saying. I'm going to go sleep now. I hope you'll forgive me for being brash again.

It's all good.:)

[MacGuffin]

I appreciate your candor, regardless of whether it came off as harsh or not. It's a discussion well worth having. I never said watching these films on YouTube was ideal, merely the means to an end. I don't have a job or parents with money to throw around, so this is about the best I can do right now. Sure, I get Netflix here and there when I can somehow get the money to do it, but it's becoming harder and harder now that I don't donate plasma anymore.:|

Sorry for the needless overshare, but it gives you an idea of the desperation of a cinephile with very limited resources.

I truly am sorry. I feel bad not really knowing the circumstances (although having some idea). I feel better knowing that'd you probably see them the proper way if you could.

[B-side]

I truly am sorry. I feel bad not really knowing the circumstances (although having some idea). I feel better knowing that'd you probably see them the proper way if you could.

It's fine. I definitely would see them the proper way if I could.

[MacGuffin]

It's fine. I definitely would see them the proper way if I could.

By the way, I took a look at the video streaming on Criterion's Auteurs site, and sure enough, you're right, there is pixilation (at least in the preview). So, yeah, looks like I'm wrong here. Now the real question is are we actually seeing the movie? I'm going to change my mind and say, yeah, okay, you're seeing the movie, but there are better ways to see it, obviously. I'm not entirely certain my assertion about pixels going missing is accurate, but you can see why the fact that the pixilation exists period raises some question.

[B-side]

By the way, I took a look at the video streaming on Criterion's Auteurs site, and sure enough, you're right, there is pixilation (at least in the preview). So, yeah, looks like I'm wrong here. Now the real question is are we actually seeing the movie? I'm going to change my mind and say, yeah, okay, you're seeing the movie, but there are better ways to see it, obviously. I'm not entirely certain my assertion about pixels going missing is accurate, but you can see why the fact that the pixilation exists period raises some question.

Of course. It's not like we disagree on the fundamentals here.:lol:

[Qrazy]

So. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MagAokRb3vk)

[baby doll]

So. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MagAokRb3vk)What? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-x9ygQEGA)

[Derek]

The last two posts may have saved this thread. Thank you Qrazy and baby doll.

[MacGuffin]

Lame.

[trotchky]

Brightside used to be so strapped for cash he donated plasma to supplement his income?

[Derek]

Lame.

Yes, your self-aggrandizement over the past two pages was quite lame. And it's too bad you'll never get to see any of Matthew Barney's films since he's explicitly stated they are only meant to be viewed in the theater. Same for Bruce Conner.

[MacGuffin]

Yes, your self-aggrandizement over the past two pages was quite lame. And it's too bad you'll never get to see any of Matthew Barney's films since he's explicitly stated they are only meant to be viewed in the theater. Same for Bruce Conner.

Yeah, I'm not sure why I was acting that way. But as for Matthew Barney and Bruce Conner, it's not like you get the opportunity to see their movies in a theater every day; as for Peter Tscherkassky, you can see Outer Space on DVD. That's all I was getting at, I think. Although I won't fault Brightside for watching it on YouTube if that's the way he chooses to watch it.

[Derek]

Yeah, I'm not sure why I was acting that way. But as for Matthew Barney and Bruce Conner, it's not like you get the opportunity to see their movies in a theater every day

That was my point and I thought Brightside made it clear that outside of blind-buying a DVD, he did his best to seek out the highest quality print. My point was only that I'm glad the bickering is over. :)

[trotchky]

Can we get a little elaboration on the "donating plasma" thing, though, Brightside?

[Qrazy]

Lame.

I saw your prior to editing post. Let the laughter out, it feels good.

[MacGuffin]

I saw your prior to editing post. Let the laughter out, it feels good.

I realized that laughing wouldn't cover up the lame posts I made.

[Qrazy]

I realized that laughing wouldn't cover up the lame posts I made.

Meh we all get into lengthy and inconsequential arguments now and again. Tortoise sex heals all.

[MacGuffin]

Speaking of Avant Garde Cinema, I really want to watch Side/Walk/Shuttle by Ernie Gehr.

[B-side]

Can we get a little elaboration on the "donating plasma" thing, though, Brightside?

Yeah. I used to donate blood plasma with my friend. He lives with his fiancee now, though, so we kinda just stopped. That was the only way I could make any money.

[trotchky]

Yeah. I used to donate blood plasma with my friend. He lives with his fiancee now, though, so we kinda just stopped. That was the only way I could make any money.

Interesting. Thanks.

[B-side]

Just finished downloading Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine. Can't wait to check it out. This one's for you, Clipper.;)

[Qrazy]

Yeah. I used to donate blood plasma with my friend. He lives with his fiancee now, though, so we kinda just stopped. That was the only way I could make any money.

Medical studies. You can do 2 day stays at some places and make a 1000 dollars or so. I haven't done any but my friend has and vouched for their safety and legitimacy.

[B-side]

Medical studies. You can do 2 day stays at some places and make a 1000 dollars or so. I haven't done any but my friend has and vouched for their safety and legitimacy.

Huh. That'd be awesome. I'll have to look into that.

[B-side]

I'm currently acquiring L'ange and The Woman Who Powders Herself from Patrick Bokanowski.

[Sycophant]

Medical studies. You can do 2 day stays at some places and make a 1000 dollars or so. I haven't done any but my friend has and vouched for their safety and legitimacy.

That's how Robert Rodriguez got the money to make El Mariachi.

[B-side]

So, uh, The Woman Who Powders Herself is all manner of disturbing. It's a nightmare on film, and moreso than pretty much any film I've ever seen.

[B-side]

I'm working on acquiring some Bruce Baillie stuff.

[B-side]

Downloading some Martin Arnold shorts. Apparently he's a lot like Tscherkassky, so I had to jump on it.

[Spaceman Spiff]

So, uh, The Woman Who Powders Herself is all manner of disturbing. It's a nightmare on film, and moreso than pretty much any film I've ever seen.

How did you get this? I've wanted to see this for a while now.

[B-side]

How did you get this? I've wanted to see this for a while now.

KG has all of his work, I believe. I'm sure someone here could hook you up with an invite if you want one.

[Boner M]

I'm working on acquiring some Bruce Baillie stuff.
Did you end up doing so? I just borrowed a DVD of his from the library; it's part of a series called 'Screening Room with Robert Gardner' from the 70's, where avant-garde filmmakers are interviewed as their work is screened and discussed (there's one for Peter Hutton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Breer, Jonas Mekas and a few others... I plan on acquiring them all at some point). 4 films of Baillie's are shown in their entirety; Castro St., Tung, To Parfisal and The Gymnasts, with an excerpt from On Sundays. With of the exception of the clunky subtitled poetry in Tung, all five have almost managed to make Baillie my new favorite A-G filmmaker ever. To Parfisal in particular is a gorgeous nature-based reverie, and offers proof that Malick might not be the sui generis maverick he's touted as (Baillie's film has a pervasive Wagner piece, tall grass swaying in the wind, ships at sea, etc). Anyway I pretty much suck at reviewing this kinda shit, so I'll just say it's all great and check it out.

The interview with Baillie nearly hits Space Ghost levels of absurd awkwardness (Baillie arrives 10 minutes late so Gardner talks to an academic who ends up staying for the entire interview, when Baillie does show the academics blather together for what seems like an eternity). Baillie does come across as the nature-boy naif that his films suggest, which is reassuring.

[B-side]

Did you end up doing so? I just borrowed a DVD of his from the library; it's part of a series called 'Screening Room with Robert Gardner' from the 70's, where avant-garde filmmakers are interviewed as their work is screened and discussed (there's one for Peter Hutton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Breer, Jonas Mekas and a few others... I plan on acquiring them all at some point). 4 films of Baillie's are shown in their entirety; Castro St., Tung, To Parfisal and The Gymnasts, with an excerpt from On Sundays. With of the exception of the clunky subtitled poetry in Tung, all five have almost managed to make Baillie my new favorite A-G filmmaker ever. To Parfisal in particular is a gorgeous nature-based reverie, and offers proof that Malick might not be the sui generis maverick he's touted as (Baillie's film has a pervasive Wagner piece, tall grass swaying in the wind, ships at sea, etc). Anyway I pretty much suck at reviewing this kinda shit, so I'll just say it's all great and check it out.

The interview with Baillie nearly hits Space Ghost levels of absurd awkwardness (Baillie arrives 10 minutes late so Gardner talks to an academic who ends up staying for the entire interview, when Baillie does show the academics blather together for what seems like an eternity). Baillie does come across as the nature-boy naif that his films suggest, which is reassuring.

I've seen Mass for the Dakota Sioux, which I remember rather enjoying, and I think another one of his. Didn't he direct that short film that is essentially a one-take shot of a fence set to a fairly popular song?

[B-side]

All My Life is the film I was thinking of.

[MacGuffin]

All My Life is the film I was thinking of.

I think thoughts on La vie nouvelle would be appropriate here, based on what I saw in Sombre - certainly not a film with a conventional approach to narrative cinema. It's almost like Stanley Kubrick directing some artsy serial killer movie with a cinema verde camera style along the lines of [REC]. Produced by Lars von Trier.

[B-side]

I think thoughts on La vie nouvelle would be appropriate here, based on what I saw in Sombre - certainly not a film with a conventional approach to narrative cinema. It's almost like Stanley Kubrick directing some artsy serial killer movie with a cinema verde camera style along the lines of [REC]. Produced by Lars von Trier.

I wish I had something to say about it. I tried watching it during a day when I wasn't in the mood for a film and you can kinda guess what happened as a result of that. Some interesting stylistic flourishes, but I was fairly bored overall. Sombre sounds good from what you've described it as. I have that and Un lac.

[Russ]

Anyone here familiar with the work of Ken Jacobs? I'm in the process of making my way through his magnum opus, the nearly 7 hour Star Spangled to Death, and it's really a fascinating work. He started it back in the 50's, but it was only recently completed -- reminds me quite a bit of this generation's field of audio cut-up collagists like Vicki Bennet and Negativland --he uses lots of found footage of similar themes - hopelessly dated racial stereotyping contained in old nature/safari documentaries, Mickey Mouse cartoons, Hollywood embarrassments (one scene, I forget the sourced film, features an all-black Heaven with plenty of fried chicken and watermelon!) and interspersed with footage he shot in New York of fellow underground filmmaker Jack Smith, and Jerry Sims, plus political critiques (Nixon's famous Checkers speech, Bush's Iraq rants, American imperialism) and literally everything under the sun that went into creating this film of not-so-pretty American history. It's imminently watchable, although I wish I had something other that cheap media players, so I could frame advance in order to catch the frequent appearance of full screen, but split-second, subliminal text that is peppered throughout the feature.

From what I've seen so far, I'd very highly recommend this one.

[B-side]

So I watched some more of Bruce Conner's stuff. The highlights of the 7 being Vivian, Mea Culpa, Breakaway and Take the 5:10 to Dreamland. Of the 8 films of his I've seen, Report remains the pinnacle, but the aformentioned 4 have plenty to offer as well.

[Boner M]

Has anyone seen James Benning's Landscape Suicide? Probably the best feature-length A-G films I've seen, I think - certainly the kind of subject matter (the relationship between physical environment and personal pathology) that only non-narrative cinema is really equipped to address. There's an excellent in-depth analysis at this guy's blog (http://theseventhart.info/2010/01/10/flashback-71/) which Benning himself lauds in the comments section, but Rosenbaum's capsule review is better for the uninitiated:


All of James Benning’s features can be regarded as shotgun marriages in which he attempts to wed his distinctive formal talents and interests–framing midwestern landscapes with beauty and nostalgia, using ambiguous offscreen sounds to create narrative expectations–with an intellectual and/or social rationale. Landscape Suicide is almost certainly his most successful and interesting foray in this direction since his One Way Boogie Woogie of ten years ago. Delving into two murder cases–Bernadette Protti’s seemingly unmotivated stabbing murder of another teenage girl in a California suburb in 1984, and Ed Gein’s even more gratuitous mass slayings and mutilations in rural Wisconsin in the late 50s–Benning uses actors to re-create part of the killers’ court testimonies, juxtaposed with the commonplace settings where these crimes took place. Boldly eschewing the specious psychological rhetoric that usually accompanies accounts of such crimes, he creates an open forum for the spectator to contemplate the mysterious vacancy of these people and these places, and their relationships to each other. The performances of both actors, Rhonda Bell and Elian Sacker, are extraordinary achievements, and the chilling, evocative landscapes have their own stories to tell; the fusion of the two creates gaps that not even the film’s confusing title can fill, but the space opened up is at once powerful and provocative.

[soitgoes...]

I've only seen Deseret which was awesome. I'll try and check this one out.

[Ivan Drago]

Anyone here familiar with the work of Ken Jacobs?

I saw part of his film Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son in a History of Experimental Film class this past Wednesday. I thought it was cool but freaky at the same time. I really want to see Rock Hudson's Home Movies.

Because I've really enjoyed the class and most of what I've seen in it, here are the films that I liked the most from it.

Removed (Naomi Uman) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEkMKdf_9Fs)
Ballet Mecanique (Leger/Murphy)
Man With A Movie Camera (Vertov)
L'Age D'Or (Luis Bunuel)
Rose Hobart (Joseph Cornell)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren)
At Land (Maya Deren)
Mothlight (Stan Brakhage)
Eye Myth (Stan Brakhage)
The Dante Quartet (Stan Brakhage)
Dog Star Man: Prelude (Stan Brakhage)
Window Water Baby Moving (Stan Brakhage)
Women I Love (Barbara Hammer)
Dyketactics! (Barbara Hammer)
Optic Nerve (Barbara Hammer)
Big Wrench (Chris Burden)
A Movie (Bruce Conner)
Recreation 1 (Robert Breer)
Notes on the Circus (Jonas Mekas)
Fireworks (Kenneth Anger)
Wavelength (Michael Snow)
(nostalgia) (Hollis Frampton)
Spirals (Oskar Fischinger)
Kreise (Oskar Fischinger)
Allegretto (Oskar Fischinger)
Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son (Ken Jacobs)
Alone: Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold)

[B-side]

I wanna go to whatever class you're going to.

[origami_mustache]

I watched about 75% of those in my experimental film class as well.

[Derek]

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j94/DSmith724/vlcsnap-2011-05-01-14h45m54s131.png

As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Jonas Mekas, 2000)

Consisting of footage from over ten years of home movies pieced together in rapid montage, often with overlapping images and dissolves and audio consisting of everything from classical music and field recordings to Mekas’s own commentary or old recordings of him or his daughter playing music, As I Was Moving Ahead, I Occasionally Glimpsed Moments of Beauty defies all odds in becoming a remarkably experimental avant-garde feature that is both formally audacious and emotionally vibrant. Personal documentaries tend to fall into one of three categories: those leaning towards histrionics in presenting a person or people who are unique or exceptional in one way or another, those relying on narrative strategies to create a clearly defined character arc or the potential for surprising revelations, and those who present their subject from a more objective perspective. Jonas Mekas instead opts for a more improvisational approach that allows for a free-flowing of intimate, drama-free moments of life to play off one another in non-linear fashion.

As I Moved Ahead… is an intensive (at nearly 5 hours, how could it not be) meditation on the material world that exhibits a universal form of beauty formed entirely from subjective experiences. The structure of the film – 12 chapters, themselves divided by title cards offering brief yet exact descriptions of what’s to come – extracts the possibility of melancholy or bittersweet eulogizing, a tendency almost inherent to watching people age and mature because Mekas does not view the past with nostalgia or regret, but rather as images and experiences that live with him in the present in a state that is as, if not more, powerful as when those events originally happened. The soundtrack, which is entirely contrapuntal, excises the images from the past and recontextualizes them in the present as Mekas splices them together, giving them new meaning and relations as they flash and speed past us, little trifles and slices of life which accumulate power and crystallize into something mysterious yet concrete – images that adhere to a cohesive unified vision captured amidst daily living. Expressing his philosophies on life and beauty, Mekas’s commentary seeks to retune our vision towards an appreciation of the ordinary and every day, the moments and visions that make up the bulk of our time yet are quickest to flee from our memory.

Multiple times throughout, Mekas refers to himself as a “filmer” rather than a “filmmaker”, the distinction being that he filmed things for no other purpose than his irrepressible desire, in the moment, to film them. Central Park in the summer, snowstorms in the winter, people and places throughout old SoHo and simple times spent with his friends and family make up for a majority of the proceedings – a furious flurry of innocuous moments and little nothings that presumably have no place in cinema yet ultimately define our existence from moment to moment. Mekas has no larger agenda, never presupposing any sort of grandiosity or assigning greater importance to these images and memories than they deserve, only reveling in their beauty by playing these glimpses and fragments off one another in jazz-like fashion, giving the film ebbs and flows that pass through the comic and the serious without being dragged down by the weight of time or regret.

It is quite clearly the work of man who wants simply to celebrate the happiness of his life by presenting it in all its fragmented glory, as it exists in memory. Using his masterful editing skills, Mekas has constructed his so-called “masterpiece of nothing” and in doing so, has escaped nothingness by transforming into something sublime and magical. This film is the flash which he will see the moment before he dies. If only we could all be so lucky to have that moment constructed before we’re on our way out.

[elixir]

I heard Mekas speak a few week backs at a screening of some avant-garde short films. Cool guy. Haven't really seen any of his work though besides the one thing he showed. Good review.

[B-side]

I've had that on my computer for months. I watched the first part and haven't been back to it. I enjoyed what I saw, though.

[Ivan Drago]

I've only seen parts of The Life of Andy Warhol and Notes on the Circus, but I love Mekas as a filmmaker regardless, in how and why he captures life through film. The 2-minute clip I saw of As I Was Moving Ahead... makes me want to see more of it.

[origami_mustache]

Face To Panty Ratio (Richard Kern, 2011)
(http://vimeo.com/23739500)
is this avante garde?

[StanleyK]

I haven't seen any avant-garde films lately, but this night I dreamt I saw one (it was pretty weird, much like most real ones). Does that count? Should I make like Buñuel, grab a camera and start filming?

[Pop Trash]

Face To Panty Ratio (Richard Kern, 2011)
(http://vimeo.com/23739500)
is this avante garde?

Doesn't matter. 10/10.

[Ivan Drago]

Downloading some Martin Arnold shorts. Apparently he's a lot like Tscherkassky, so I had to jump on it.

Let me know what you think.

In other news, thanks to Stan Brakhage and The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes, I will never stomach a hamburger ever again.

[B-side]

Let me know what you think.

I ended up watching one. Pièce touchée. Not really sure what I thought. I'd have to watch it again. I have Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy, so I'll try and check that out here soon.

[Ivan Drago]

I ended up watching one. Pièce touchée. Not really sure what I thought. I'd have to watch it again. I have Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy, so I'll try and check that out here soon.

The only other one I've seen from Arnold is Passage A L'Acte, and I haven't been able to finish it yet. The same repetitions happen so often and so fast compared to Alone.

EDIT: I clearly did not go far enough. This movie is awesome.

[Russ]

Barbara Rubin's Christmas on Earth (aka Cocks and Cunts) has just been uploaded to Ubuweb.

http://ubu.com/film/rubin_christmas.html (Definitely NSFW!)


Barbara Rubin’s 29-minute Christmas on Earth is the filmic record of an orgy staged in a New York City apartment in 1963. This double projection of overlapping images of nude men and women clowning around and making love is one of the first sexually explicit works in the American postwar avant-garde. Today Christmas on Earth generates a small but passionate discourse in avant-garde film circles. Many consider it to be an essential document of queer and feminist cinema, though others dismiss it as the worthless effort of a naive amateur. It is still largely unknown to art history. Christmas on Earth in fact deserves to be located within a larger esthetic discourse on contemporary art forms such as Happenings, expanded cinema, and installation. Rubin “was one of the first people to get multimedia interest going around New York,” Andy Warhol said. Further, Rubin’s filmmaking practices were a type of performance and sexual agitprop that foreshadowed the emergence of critical body art at the end of the 1960s. An investigation into the little-known history of Barbara Rubin and her singular work Christmas on Earth deepens our understanding of a period when artists pushed self-determined and guiltless sexuality into the public sphere to catalyze social revolution.


For all intents and purposes, "Christmas on Earth" is a performance art film about genital worshipping. At 29 minutes, Barbara Rubin has created the ultimate study on the celebratory and erotic nature of free-love. The film is tinted in various colors, hence the title, and finds various individuals engaging in sexual activity. Men with women, men with men, women with women, and several orgies throughout.

:eek:

I thought it was great! And it has an awesome soundtrack of oldies that rivals anything Anger ever put together.

[soitgoes...]

Barbara Rubin's Christmas on Earth (aka Cocks and Cunts) has just been uploaded to Ubuweb.

http://ubu.com/film/rubin_christmas.html (Definitely NSFW!)





:eek:

I thought it was great! And it has an awesome soundtrack of oldies that rivals anything Anger ever put together.

If there's any rubbing of clitorises, I'm out. That shit's gross.

[Ivan Drago]

If there's any rubbing of clitorises, I'm out. That shit's gross.

Hey, it was an extreme closeup. Of course I'm gonna be grossed out.

[Russ]

Invisible Ghost (Joseph H. Lewis, 1941) *½
Deanimated (Martin Arnold, 2002) ***


http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff324/astrojester/IG1_rsz.jpg


Pioneer avant-garde artist (or video terrorist, if you prefer), Martin Arnold, appropriated an old poverty row thriller that Bela Lugosi made for Monogram studios and gave a unique spin on a familiar formula: murders taking place in a spooky house. This post-modern experimental piece opens up a world of possibilities. As always, of course, mileage varies according to interest in both the genre and the experiment itself.

The film proper is a standard cheapie one-off playing on Lugosi's cult of celebrity at the time. It's easy to dismiss the entire affair as a perfect disaster consisting of wooden actors reciting insipid dialogue from an inane script. Martin's remix, however, shows that something intriguing exists beneath the dull veneer of this horror quickie.

The original film begins with Lugosi having dinner opposite an empty place setting, meant to represent his deceased wife on one of their anniversaries. She appears to him as an apparition, or so he thinks, and he becomes "hypnotized" and starts murdering a bunch of people all up in his place. Of note is the fact that not all of the actors are bad: the house servant, played by Clarence Muse, has great presence (and the best lines). The fact that he wasn't treated like the stereotypical Mantan Moreland character was a credit to the African-American screenwriter, Helen Martin, whom astute viewers may remember from a number of television and film roles, but I'll always remember her as the grandmother who gave Emilio Estevez what-for for trying to repossess her car in Repo Man. But I digress.

Arnold takes the film and edits out certain extraneous scenes, but most importantly, he slowly starts to remove expository dialogue (actually, pretty much all the dialogue -- digitally altering mouth movement), leaving only cursory greetings and acknowledgements, before gradually digitally removing entire characters, one by one, until the final act of the film is the house itself sans characters -- but retaining musical cues, empty rooms and camera pans to nowhere, and elements of a plot that is no longer apparent. It's a disorienting treatment that radically enhances both the film's atmosphere and the surprising directorial flourishes that may not originally have been quite so apparent.

I won't pretend to understand exactly what statement (if any) Arnold is attempting to make with this left-field approach. It certainly lacks the playful, subversive humor of his groundbreaking masterwork, Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgqH3PK6-3Q). But it does enable the viewer to see a film in an entirely different light, indeed, to look inside the makings of said film and to differentiate good elements from bad, to see where films take a wrong turn. And to contemplate on the separate conceptual meanings of space and absence of space as it applies to cinema. Certainly, it's not a revisionist take that's for everyone; likely it's one for very few. But it's certainly one of the more provocative deconstructions produced lately.


http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff324/astrojester/IG2_rsz.jpg


http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff324/astrojester/IG2A_rsz.jpg

[soitgoes...]

I'm a fan of Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy. I'll have to give this one a look.

[Yxklyx]

Where'd you get this? rapidshare?

[Russ]

yeah..

[B-side]

yeah..

HE GOT IT FROM A DVD HE BOUGHT WITH CURRENCY

[Ivan Drago]

yeah..

Damn.

Link me, please?

[Yxklyx]

Damn.

Link me, please?

Just google around...I saw it somewhere...

[Boner M]

Anyone familiar with/a fan of Michael Robinson? He has a vimeo account with his work here (http://vimeo.com/user2964244). Hypnogogic cinema at its finest; I especially recommend Light is Waiting.

[elixir]

Anyone familiar with/a fan of Michael Robinson? He has a vimeo account with his work here (http://vimeo.com/user2964244). Hypnogogic cinema at its finest; I especially recommend Light is Waiting.

My film teacher showed us Light is Waiting last year...led to some of the better discussion in class. It's definitely good. I can't look at Full House the same way anymore. :P That's the only one of his I've seen though. I'll be sure to check out the rest.

[B-side]

Just watched Light is Waiting. The part with Jessie and Michelle at the end ruined my shit.

[Boner M]

It took me a while to realise that the island part at the end was from Full House (haven't watched it in nearly 20 years) and not just the cast superimposed over some random footage.

[Boner M]

http://content6.flixster.com/photo/12/93/61/12936132_gal.jpg

Philippe Garrel's Le révélateur - his silent debut feature - is the kind of totally mysterious, sui generis work that could only have been made by a precocious 19-year-old with a cast and crew on LSD, amidst the turbulent political context of the fallout of the May '68 French counter-culture revolution. Which sounds like the groundwork for some trippy, hippy-dippy psychedelic freak-out; but though it's plenty surreal, the film is really a sombre, dreamlike piece of elliptical family melodrama in high contrast b&w. But even that barely describes the feelings that Garrel creates through his stunning chiaroscuro imagery, that harkens back to the elemental, primal qualities of early cinema. The barebones story involves a young boy's quasi-rebellion against his parents as they are chased by some unseen force; that his rebellion consists of wandering on his own, fiddling with an aerosol can (an insular gesture of apathy more than anything, as well as environmental disregard) seems to be Garrel's way of aghastly expressing horror at the listlessness of a potential new generation to come. Everything in the film is writ large, and it's an epically haunting and haunted work with textures unlike anything I've encountered in a film before - the closest I can think of are Lynch's early shorts or Terence Davies' Trilogy and The Long Day Closes.

Available here (http://www.ubu.com/film/garrel_revelateur.html)

[Ivan Drago]

I especially recommend Light is Waiting.

That was AWESOME!

[Boner M]

Some of you might (or should) be interested in this: A 3-part, 2hr-long interview with avant-garde filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky (http://vimeo.com/29857570).

Some of the best formalist perspectives on narrative cinema that I've encountered. The John Ford discussion is particularly good.

[B-side]

Some of the best formalist perspectives on narrative cinema that I've encountered. The John Ford discussion is particularly good.

I'm half-erect just thinking about it. Will watch.

[Boner M]

http://imgs.littlewhitelies.co.uk/uploads/2009/05/dvd-centralbazaar.jpg

Central Bazaar: New York-born, British-based filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin gathered a group of artists together in a room for a two-week period, and had them explore their (mostly sexual) fantasies. This document of the experiment runs nearly 2.5 hours (edited from 15 hours of footage), and is devoid of diegetic sound for the most part; Gavin Bryars' drone score is omnipresent, and the film's best considered an audiovisual collaboration between him and Dwoskin. Thus, what the featured participants are actually doing is secondary in emphasis to the searching intensity with which Dwoskin's lingering camera takes to their faces and gestures and body language in a state of total uninhibitedness. It also has a beautiful, psychedelic use of color; the background is a stark red curtain (not unlike Lynch's red rooms) and the participants dress and paint themselves like components of the canvas. Can't say I didn't struggle with it, as it took several sittings to complete - but mostly it's hypnotic, and the overall cumulative impact justifies the tedious stretches.

Russ, B-Side, Melville, fans of Jack Smith, Ken Jacobs et al should apply. Qrazy should avoid.

[Raiders]

Hollis Frampton's (nostalgia)--or Hapax Legomena I: Nostalgia--is an interesting experiment that is less a film than it is a study in audio/visual associations. Frampton's technique is simple but his efforts are multi-layered. A series of photographs, each representing their own memory or story, is placed on a dish and burned while narration is spoken. The twist is that the narration is for the following photo, the one we don't yet see, and is timed as such as the words never overlap onto the photo they are actually describing. This is combined with the way the photographs are filmed which is looking down on them as they burn and wither and as such we can see them as they die away from memory and context (which has already been given and which we have moved on from), so that as the new narration overwrites what we have heard, so too does the image as mentally described burn away in our mind right in front of our eyes. The revelation of this is a wonderful and surprisingly immersive viewing experience for a film that holds no real traditional cinematic qualities but rather uses the tools of cinema, that of sight and sound, to experiment with exactly how a viewer interacts with what they see cut together with what they hear.

I will admit that by the end, I grew somewhat weary of the film which even at its length felt a little too long. This is to say the experience, once figured out, is not as dynamic as some of the most successful films in the avant garde/experimental/diary genre of filmmaking; by the midway point, I was on board and from there kind of drifted with the experience. Still, let that not diminish what is otherwise a very "cool" experiment.

[soitgoes...]

Yeah, I loved this one to the end. My excitement actually built as it went on. Great use of the medium. Glad someone else here has seen it.

[B-side]

Yeah, I loved this one to the end. My excitement actually built as it went on. Great use of the medium. Glad someone else here has seen it.

:|

Boner and I both loved it a while back.

[soitgoes...]

:|

Boner and I both loved it a while back.
And I'm glad that someone here has seen it.

[B-side]

And I'm glad that someone here has seen it.

You hurt me in my heart with your negligence. It's the couch for you tonight.

[soitgoes...]

You hurt me in my heart with your negligence. It's the couch for you tonight.I didn't know you'd seen it. I apologize.

[B-side]

I didn't know you'd seen it. I apologize.

You make Hitler look like a saint.

[soitgoes...]

You make Hitler look like a saint.
It's because I'm tolerant of the Jewish People isn't it! You could never accept my non-antisemitic ways!

:runs off crying:

[B-side]

It's because I'm tolerant of the Jewish People isn't it! You could never accept my non-antisemitic ways!

:runs off crying:

*screams into the distance* You'll see! You'll see how much better this world is without the Jews controlling everything!

[elixir]

Stephen Dwoskin has died. :(
http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-stephen-dwoskin-1939-2012/

Might check another one of his his tonight, and if not soon.