Alright, I'm sick and my brain's half-dead but I'll give it a shot.

Alright, I'm sick and my brain's half-dead but I'll give it a shot.

Reading Response 7: Due TUESDAY November 23

Please note due date, not due before class this week but by Tuesday of next week (to compensate for the late posting).

1. First, as requested earlier, post your response to Peggy Awhesh's Martina's Playhouse.

I was a little confounded by Awesh's film, because it was hard to shake the feeling that I was watching a perfectly adorable yet not quite "artistic" home video. It seemed to me that I could give the film more credit as a documentary capturing a character (specifically Martina) than an experimental film playing with different forms. I did enjoy the other scenes involving the young woman more, and felt like I was on more familiar ground there, as she set up an engaging dialogue that sort of distorted the distance between subject and filmmaker. That was interesting to me, the part where Martina read the dense reading material to the associative imagery was interesting to me, Martina being adorable was just Martina being adorable. I'll have to watch it again to see if I feel differently/notice a greater complexity there (which there probably is).

Keller and Ward, "Matthew Barney and the Paradox of the Neo-Avant-Garde Blockbuster"

2. What has changed in the gallery art world that allows Barney to describe his work as “sculpture”? In other words, how has the definition of sculpture changed since the 1960s, and why?

The authors state that "the category of 'sculpture' has become unstable. It has moved away from the object based defining elements to a more expanded approach that includes "a whole range of practices that may have little in common, from site specific and media-based works, to performances, to architecture". Essentially, the act of sculpting art has expanded past the tangible. Under these new conditions, sculpture could be expressed through a film, or even by constructing a giant trench in the desert (Michael Heizer's "Rift"). The why is similar to why film had been pushed past modernism in the 60s. People were reaching past the constrictions of the art-form in its pure state, questioning the role of art, watching the lines between artistic mediums blur.

3. Tricky but important question: Why was minimalist sculpture seen as a reaction against the “modernist hymns to the purity and specificity of aesthetic experience”? In other words: Why do they say that minimalist sculpture is post-modernist?

Sculpture "outran both traditional and modernist notions of the relations between viewers and sculptural objects", much the way that Snow's Wavelength impacted the purist modernism of film. The authors state that "[minimalism]...issued a call to understand the expereince of art as public, in the sense that viewers were to discover the meaning of the object in their interactions". Minimalism was taken to the extreme (eg gray painted plywood), to the point where audiences were forced to relate to the art as something they were inherently connected to, and accept and/or question the process of art, which is a predominant trait of post-modernism.

4. Describe the role of the body in the works of Vito Acconci and Chris Burden. You may wish to consult the following links to supplement the descriptions in the readings:

If I'm understanding this right, and god knows if I am... The idea is that Acconci is substituting his own body as the object which the audience interacts with and thereby helps to create the sculpture, the work of art. Through the collaboration, in this case Acconci masturbating to the erotic cues of an unwitting audience, we see a work of art established through this connection, where the performance is shaped by how the audience acts. With Burden, on the other hand, they seem to suggest that he is questioning the idea of whether the body can be viewed as an object of sculpture, almost using his works of art to see if the theory holds water (to use a well worn phrase). Most notably with "Bed Piece", Burden lies in a bed in a museum for 22 days, without giving instructions to the staff, letting the myth of the body as sculptural subject be broken down (specifically how the staff deals with him, forcing them to treat him as an object though he cannot be, thereby forcing a moral dilemma). The article goes on to suggest his work was trying to question the myth of the artist as well.

http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci.html

http://www.ubu.com/film/burden.html

5. In the opinion of the authors, what are the key differences between performance art of the 1960s/1970s and Barney’s Cremaster cycle? What do they mean by the term "blockbuster" in relation to the gallery art world?

They state that performance art of the 60s/70s "set up a tension between presence and absence, between an event and its dispersal through time, the effect of which was to invite us to consider the relations between body and the ways in which it is mediated". They say the authenticity of the initial performance, the 'realness' is integral to how it is processed. What Cremasters does is turn a genuine performance into something of a spectacle, where the body is mythologized, given an abstract representation that lacks the grounded realism of performance art. The word blockbuster hints to the spectacle nature of Barney's films, where the lavishness of the production (read: the cost) along with its self-imposed scarcity of the DVD prints lead to a sort of ironic status for Cremasters: the film is a self-enforced rarefied commodity that comments on the idea that art cannot be seen as a commodity. The film "eschew[s] the last step of the blockbuster formula--in which it makes tons of money at the box office". The idea is that Barney has offered a critique of the blockbuster culture, only he undermines this by using the film to sell "products" associated with the films production, not to mention charging a great deal of money for the rare DVD prints of his work.

Walley, "Modes of Film Practice in the Avant-Garde"

6. What is meant by “mode of film practice”? Give two well known examples of non-experimental modes of film practice. Why does Walley argue that the concept of the mode of film practice can help distinguish between the experimental film and gallery art worlds?

The article states that the term "refers to the cluster of historically bound institutions, practices, and concepts that form a context within which cinematic media are used". In other words, how the film is made, how it is distributed and exhibited, shapes the experience of the film and thereby what mode of film it is. The experimental forms discussed in the article are "avant-garde cinema " and "artist film". However it goes on to state that there are other modes to consider, such as Art House Cinema which has "a set of formal conventions" that are "distinct from classical Hollywood cinema" (Hollywood being the second well known example). This distinction can help define the mode by its "norms of production, distribution, exhibition, and reception". Using these categories, one can emphasize the disparate qualities of experimental film and gallery art, and how each world uses the medium of film.

7. What are some of the key differences between the experimental and gallery art worlds in terms of production and distribution?

-Experimental production has an emphasis on personal projects, the work of one specific author, with limited collaboration. The process of production is headed up largely by the filmmaker, who often stars in the film, shoots the film, edits the film, and so on.

-Artists' Film is far more collaborative, at times approaching the same structural scale of the mainstream filmmaking process (eg Cremaster series). There are often separate individuals responsible for cinematography, editing, sound, composing, costume, set, etc. However, there is still a specific "author" at work.

-Experimental distribution has adopted a small-scale version of mainstream film distribution (set rental costs, share of ticket sales, etc). While this is not profitable enough to allow much financial success, it does help sustain future projects.

-Whereas Experimental distribution is scarce based on a lack of funds, Artists' Film capitalizes on the set conventions of the art world where the scarcity of a product is seen as a contingent element that raises their value in the art world. Therefore, the prints are purposefully limited in order to garner the most money from the product as possible.

Reading Response 6: Due Nov. 3 @ 5 p.m.

Reading Response 6: Due Nov. 3 @ 5 p.m.

Michael Zryd, "The Academy of the Avant-Garde : A Relationship of Dependence and Resistance"

1. What changes in the American avant-garde are associated with the rise of structural film and the creation of Anthology Film Archives in 1970? How does these changes affect:

The changes are of a general shift from the quasi-activist, underground slant of avant-garde filmmakers like Deren and Vogel (who forged ahead into unknown territory by taking risks and subsequently established a niche community), to the academically minded production and classification brought about by the archival system and the mindset that went with that.

a. The participants (filmmakers, critics) in the avant-garde community?

Before this shift, filmmakers were part of piece meal community where there were no real set parameters for showing films or for establishing who was a successful artist. These matters developed in an organic way and were perceived to be more flexible than the more rigid declarations of master filmmakers according to academia. However, academia also offered a certain protection for the filmmakers who sought out teaching positions and adapted to the new way that avant-garde film was being exhibited in the country. After all, the underground cinema had become something popularized and changed through the midnight screening culture. Structural film, and the important filmmakers of the period found their own new niche in the classroom, so it become something of a natural extension for the filmmakers to now exist in that world, to find economic security in that world.
b. Canon formation (which films are considered “important,” and taught in classes).

A group of specific "old guard" filmmakers, along with those who approach avant-garde film in a more academically formal way become the basis for the canon formation in schools. This is at the expense of artists who are still developing, and I imagine it could be said that this process could potentially stagnate the way that avant-garde film grows and adapts within the greater range of artistic voices.
c. Distribution and exhibition practices.
The rapid growth of film studies, and consequently the growth of academic rentals, slowly became the core for avant-garde distribution and exhibition. This has been argued to be a "retreat from the dynamism of the heroic 1960s", and certainly places the films within a completely different, more formal and evaluative audience. Whether that is a help or a hindrance to the genre is probably subjective.

2. Briefly explain the debate between autonomy and engagement within the avant-garde. How does this debate play out in the 1980s?

The idea is that avant-garde film should remain autonomous from a social/formal establishment of any kind, as the express concern of avant-garde cinema is to break hold of the convention of cinema that is prevalent (eg "antibourgeois and/or anti-Hollywood stance"). There is a fear that whatever revolutionary quality the avant-garde holds will be lost to the formation of new conventions imposed by academia. Avant-garde film can also be seen as a way to engage with society, in order to "break down distinctions between art and life". In the 1980s, these arguments lead to the nostalgia of the more democratic system of the 1960s, and created an atmosphere of resistance towards the moves of avant-garde cinema toward academia, and thusly created roadblocks to establishing a more stable economic situation.

3. What are the negative aesthetic connotations of the “academic avant-garde film”? What is the major critique from new filmmakers who emerged in the 1980s?

The negative aesthetic connotations is that the "academic avant-garde film" is something "conventional or formulaic", where the artist goes through the motions of creating an already established form and abandons discovery and innovations. There also seems to be some suggestion that the academic filmmaking becomes too insular, separate from any political or social relevance, separate from authentic life experience, existing more as a "theoretical interest only, with no practical application".

4. What are the five legacies of the academicization of the avant-garde?

The article lists the five legacies of academicization as follows:

1. The maintenance of distribution co-ops (from classroom as dominant sits of exhibition)

2. Regionalization (strong centers of avant-garde beyond the art scene in New York)

3. Publication opportunities for writing/dissemination of history, criticism, and theory of avant-garde

4. Employment for filmmakers (as faculty/technical personnel)

5. Development of new generations of avant-garde film-makers, critics, teachers, programmers, and archivists.

Marc Masters, “The Offenders: No Wave Cinema”

5. Name at least three similarities between the punk music scene and the punk/no-wave filmmaking scene, in terms of technology, style, and community.

In terms of technology, there was an consciously amateur attitude toward the instrumentation of the artform. With music, different people would pick up a guitar even if they've never touched one in their life and see what could be down with it, with film they would do the same with a camera. They also rotated positions in both film and music.

The styles were very committed to avoid staid conventions, to create a raucous and rebellious energy. As Nares said, "We brought this kind of raw energy and devil-may-care attitude that we got from rock 'n' roll". The article goes on to site stylistic choices like "unfocused artiness", "conciously [made] melodramas", and films as spectacles.

The film community was also linked to the music community, as the film screenings would take place at music venues like CBGB's and Max's Kansas City. They also took to storefronts and other venues not associated with avant-garde cinema, trying to connect their community as a more inclusive populace, which is fairly similar to the goals of music scene as well. (note: musicians would also act in the films, further blurring the lines between the music scene and the film scene)

6. What were the exhibition venues for punk/no-wave films such as those by Beth B. and Scott B., and how did the venues affect film content and style?

Well I answered that a bit with my explanation of the community, specifically CBGBs, Max's Kansas City, playing in-between different bands or the storefront on St. Mark's Place in East Village. The venues created an active participation of the audience, where they would engage with the film while drinking, smoking, talking, talking to the screen. It created a solid litmus test for what people liked and what they didn't, and when I film wasn't working the audience let you know fairly quickly.

7. What are some similarities and differences between the American avant-garde we have studied so far and the Punk or No Wave filmmaking in the late 1970s? Address the following areas:

a. Aesthetic similarities and differences (which filmmakers do the cite as influences, which filmmakers do they reject?)

b. Technological similarities and differences

c. Economic similarities and differences

d. Social similarities and differences

You get some similarities in the lower grade quality of film they use (Super 8, 16mm). The cheap film stock offers more control financially and also reinforces the idea of a throwaway film, a film that strives for perfection without being able to attain it (which sort of leads back to the idea of art as performance instead of art as object). There are also minimal plots, and experiments with dialogue that seem very reminiscent of Warhol, where improvisation is used almost as a way to stilt the dialogue and make the audience aware of the blurring line between reality and performance. The enjoy the act of "playing with the camera" but reject standardizations and formal constraints that the discoveries can lead to. Film, in their eyes should be continuing playful discovery with its plotting and form, and also the focus should be less on form than on content. They cite the new wave filmmakers as their influences (Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer) and of course Andy Warhol. There is also the use of non-actors, a film culture outside of the presence of studios and sets but instead out on the street (much like the French New Wave), everything lending itself to a low-fi, do it yourself aesthetic and technical approach.

Janet Cutler, “Su Friedrich, Breaking the Rules”

8. In what ways does Friedrich “break the rules” in terms of mixing filmmaking practices? How have different critics approached her different films? What kinds of avant-garde sub-genres has she explored?

They break the rules by mixing genres (experimental, doc, narrative) and film techniques (scratching, found footage, white leader/ambient sound, silence, spoken word), making up her own guidelines as she goes along, creating a story through context of juxtaposition. This leads to critics seeing her work in different ways, for instance either a reconstructed narrative or an experimental documentary or a "new autobiography" (which is to say that the filmmaker "understands...her personal history to be implicated in larger social formations and historical processes). In terms of subgenres, she has explored the psychodrama, the trance film, the structural film, and the diary film but does not succumb to "the idioms of avant-garde cinema".

9. What are some of the distinguishing characteristics of “Sink or Swim”?

It has a set structure that establishes 26 scenes, each corresponding to the alphabet from Z-A, all linked to some childhood memory. Some are silent, some include autobiographical voiceover, all chronicling the filmmaker's life with and ambivalence toward her father.

Sitney, “Structural Film”
Visionary Film, Chapter 12

You may find it helpful to read the first few pages of the other assigned reading for this week (James Peterson, “Rounding Up the Usual Suspects”) before tackling this chapter, focusing particularly on p. 72-76. Read that overview, which will review key concepts from the first half of this class, then tackle this chapter and answer the following questions.

1. How is structural film different from the tradition of Deren/Brakhage/Anger, and what are its four typical characteristics? What is meant by “apperceptive strategies”?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apperceptive

Sitney writes that structural film is "a cinema of structure in which the shape of the whole film is predetermined and simplified, and it is that shape which is the primal impression of the film". The importance of the shape takes full reign, and it's actual content is fairly minimalistic. The four typical characteristics are as follows:

1. Fixed Camera Position

2. The Flicker Effect

3. Loop Printing

4. Rephotography Off-Screen

Like the lyrical film, there is a shift away from any on-screen protagonist and instead the focus is on the camera. Sitney even cites Brakhage's creation of the lyrical film as a necessary building block for structural film to have emerged, though structural film has less to do with representing the personal vision of the filmmaker and more to do with representing the mind of the filmmaker. That is what is meant by apperceptive strategies, it's about the subsequent images attaining a representative quality to the consciousness of the filmmaker.

2. If Brakhage’s cinema emphasized metaphors of perception, vision, and body movement, what is the central metaphor of structural film? Hint: It fits into Sitney’s central argument about the American avant-garde that we have discussed previously in class.

Well, I think I touched on it briefly with my previous answer, but I believe it's essentially the idea of the structural film as a metaphor for how we think and feel (note: our own stream of consciousness) instead of how we see see. They are both linked with perception, but structural film is more internalized; it's "mental perception" as the dictionary link cites for the term apperceptive.

3. Why does Sitney argue that Andy Warhol is the major precursor to the structural film?

He seems to using Warhol as a stand-in for the catalyst of this movement because of Warhol's "genius for parody and reduction" which he levels against Avant-Garde film, destroying the "myth of compression and the myth of the filmmaker". He stood as a counter point to the modernism of Avant-Garde filmmakers up to that point, stripping the film down to its most essential elements. For instance, the fixed camera and the minimalism of Warhol's early films can be easily linked to the aesthetics of the structural film.

4. The trickiest part of Sitney’s chapter is to understand the similarities and differences between Warhol and the structural filmmakers. He argues that Warhol in a sense is anti-Romantic and stands in opposition to the visionary tradition represented by psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical films. But for Sitney’s central argument to make sense, he needs to place structural film within the tradition of psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical films. Trace the steps in this argument by following the following questions:

a. Why does Sitney call Warhol anti-Romantic?

Warhol's post-modernist repudiation of the concept of "art" and "the artist" put him in direct contention with the abstract expressionism movement (ie the importance of the artist, the process of art, etc) which is essentially a "Romantic school" of thought.

b. Why does Sitney argue that spiritually the distance between Warhol and structural filmmakers such as Michael Snow or Ernie Gehr cannot be reconciled?

The content of Warhol's films became more important than the form, leading to in-the-camera editing. With Snow and Gehr, the camera remains fixed, and the film focuses instead on a meditation on a "portion of space".

c. What is meant by the phrase “conscious ontology of the viewing experience”? How does this relate to Warhol’s films? How does this relate to structural films?

The phrase is used to call attention to how films make the audience aware of the actual process of existence or the nature of "being" that they/we experience. With Warhol's films, Sitney argues that this process is passive, but Warhol manages to tap into this feeling through the length of his film, specifically through the length of a gaze where we become aware of the pure nature of "gazing" as an essential element to how we exist. With structural films, they take this idea of how the audiences perception changes through duration and runs with it, though they add several other techniques such as freeze frames and rephotography to extend and alter the meditation of an image, leading to these ontological revelations.

d. Why does Sitney argue that structural film is related to the psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical tradition, and in fact responds to Warhol’s attack on that tradition by using Warhol’s own tactics?

Essentially, as I understand it from my reading, it taps into the ideas provoked by Warhol and attempts to resolve them through the form of filmmaking. Sitney sees structural film as an extension of lyrical film, where the ontological awareness provoked by Warhol's films is used within structural film to lend itself to a more realized "goal", an orchestration to some artistic end rather than a parodic statement of filmmaking itself.

5. On p. 352 Sitney begins an analysis of the Wavelength rooted in conveying the experience of watching it; this style of analysis is admittedly hard to read without having seen the film (we’ll discuss this style of analysis in class). Try your best so that you can answer the following question related to p. 354: What metaphor is crucial to Sitney’s and Annette Michelson’s interpretation of Michael Snow’s Wavelength?

The metaphor is consciousness itself, specifically how perceive things and those perceptions are linked to our recollections, a vast "horizon" of potential associations that can be linked anything. We piece these elements together cognitively until we are brought to a conclusion or "revelation". I'm not sure what the book means by the "view within the photograph" but as I understand the passage, it seems to be saying that the process of the room changing by both its seemingly separate events that culminate into one narrative and the way that we see the room itself shapes how we perceive our external world and come to specific thoughtful conclusions. It's of our cognitive process going down many dark and winding corridors, often unsteadily as the camera itself conveys, before we arrive at the epiphany of understanding.

For the rest of the chapter, focus on the discussions of the following films:

Paul Sharits: T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G

George Landow: Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc.

James Peterson, “Rounding Up the Usual Suspects”
[Found in "Kreul Articles" folder on your flash drives]

The following questions ask about three reading strategies for the minimal strain of the avant-garde. They are all previewed on p. 77. Your answers should incorporate details from the subsequent discussions of them (see page numbers in the parentheses).

6. What is the reading strategy associated with the “phenomenological schema” (include details and examples from 77-80)?

You read the film as a presentation to the "direct perception of the viewer" or as "the embodiment of some fundamental feature of consciousness".

Michealson, who was the chief proponent of this schema, analyzed Snow's work as a move to "explore the nature of consciousness", where he specifically is interested in how we see, remember, record, compose, and so on. She also cites Brakhage's films as trying to "present itself perceptually, all at once, to resist observation and cognition". There are three components that are part of this schema put to practice. First, if the passage is much longer than it takes the audience to understand what is on screen, and it "does not manipulate the temporal dimension of the action" than it is to be read as the passage of time (ex: One Second in Montreal). Second, aspects of the film are meant to be read as a metaphor for some contingent of how the mind works (ex: Wavelengths). Third, "aspects of the film are interpreted as metaphorical representations of cinema itself".

7. What is the reading strategy associated with the “art-process schema” (include details and examples from 80-85)?

You read the film as a "demonstration of the rigidity of the conventional process of filmmaking".

Paul Arthur uses Mothlight as an example of how a new viewer is engaging with film as an inspection of the process of the artistry as well as the final result. This is attained by four causes:

1. High rate of information change on screen

2. Poor legibility

3. Cognizance of film's fracture

4. An intuition that a look at the film strip would explain first three features

In this way, the film attempts to "destroy the illusionism of art" by examining the formal process, the individual aspects of the film itself.

8. What is the reading strategy associated with the “anti-illusion schema” (include details and examples from 85-90)?

You read the film where if it has "limited depth cues" and is "purging itself of all qualities not essential to the medium", than it is "intepreted as an assertion of the inherent qualities of the film medium".

Hanhardt essentially speaks of a particular brand of reasoning where the illusionary depth of film is seen as having negative connotations which the flatness of the image invoked by many Avant-Garde artists aspire to avoid or even call attention to by juxtaposing the two against each other.

Reading Response 4: Due Oct. 13 @ 5 p.m.

Reading Response 4: Due Oct. 13 @ 5 p.m.

First, write a brief response to the Ann Buchanan screen test. How is it similar to / different from the Fluxus films screened in class?

The Ann Buchanen screen test is extremely compelling because there's this innate sense of tension through the whole thing. Buchanen's subtle facial moments are emphasized by her effort to keep her eyes open, the way that her lips trembles slightly, or the way her jaw clenches imperceptibly, the tears rolling down her face, her eyelids fluttering without closing. It makes the viewer more aware of all the small movements that are expressed through effort and emotion, and after viewing the film you think of emotion not only in its broad categorical sense but as a growing minutia of infinitesimal gestures like bitting your lip or knotting your brow. I think it's similar to the fluxus films in that it's a film based more on a concept then a purposed narrative or a formal expression of some psychological state. However, I think Buchanan does infuse the film with her own narrative, that being someone who is trying not to blink for three minutes and the struggle of being able to do that and subsequently questions about her reasons for doing so and being so adamant about it.


J. Hoberman, Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Underground

1. What were some of the venues associated with the early underground film movement in New York City? What were some of the unique characteristics of the Charles Theater and its programming?

Some venues include American Underground Cinema, Julian Beck and Judith Malina's Living Theater, The Charles Theater, The Thalia, The New Yorker, and The Bleecker Street Cinema. The Charles was unique because of its "eclectic program" ranging anywhere from Fred Astaire Musicals to Noir B Movies to Marx Brothers movies to Orson Wells movies to the off-beat films at "the radical edge of the auterist spectrum". It was also unique because the lobby would feature artwork from local artists and it featured jazz concerts on Sundays and occasional panel discussions accompanying the films.

2. Which filmmakers did Jonas Mekas associate with the “Baudelairean Cinema”? Why did Mekas use that term, and what were the distinguishing characteristics of the films?
The article states that "Mekas's most important proteges were Ron Rice, Jack Smith, and Ken Jacobs" and that Mekas referred to "Flaming Creatrues, The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man, Blonde Cobra, and Little Stabs of Happines as the four films making up 'the real revolution of cinema today.'" Mekas used the term to relate back to the artist Baudelaire and Rimbaud who were novelists exploring similar themes, the idea of the coexisting nature of "beautiful and terrible, good and evil, delicate and dirty". Essentially, these were films that created poetry from the muck and mire of their artists surrounding environment.

3. Why did underground films run into legal trouble in New York City in 1964? What film encountered legal problems in Los Angeles almost on the same day as Mekas’s second arrest in New York City?

Underground ran into trouble because their content was often deemed lewd or obscene. Subsequently, there were legal issues in New York because they would not submit the films to the New York State Board of Regents for licensing and in so doing made it illegal for them to charge admission for tickets. Mekas was later arrested along with Ken Jacobs for screening Flaming Creatures on the same day as Mike Getz was found guilty of "exhibit[ing] an obscene film" in Scorpio Rising.

4. What were some of the defining characteristics of Andy Warhol’s collaboration with Ronald Tavel? What were some of the unique characteristics of Vinyl? How does Edie Sedgewick end up "stealing" the scene in Vinyl? (You may choose to add your own observations of the film based on our screening.)

Their films were defined by Warhol's long static takes where he almost never cut and would just the let the footage roll no matter what mistakes would occur on screen. Also the actors "came and went as they pleased, were always late, seldom learned their lines, quit without notice and uniformly panicked when the cameras started to roll". The article also states that Eedwick stole the scene by her "dynamic, spaced out presence...less a function of plot than compositional balance". I think that her presence was also curious in the ways she would interact with the other actors, disrupting the already stilted flow of narrative by, for instance, handing Victor a magazine she had been looking at or trying to hand back the candle that was being used in the torture scene. Her performance, if that's what you would call it, was on an entirely different plane than the others because she wasn't even trying to engage with Tavel's text but was still trying to engage with the film at times.

5. In what ways did the underground film begin to "crossover" into the mainstream in 1965-1966? What films and venues were associated with the crossover? How were the films received by the mainstream New York press?

The interest in underground film had piqued in 1965-1966 as a cultural phenomenon where "every magazine in the country...had run one sort of article or another on [it]". The Museum of Art organized a symposium stating the importance of a "New American Cinema" and the two venues in East Village (The Bridge and the Gate) started to regularly screen underground films as well. Films like Scorpio Rising, Inauguration of the Pleasure Doome, Sings of Fleshapoid, and My Hustler all were particularly successful as underground films but The Chelsea girls was something of a game changer. It's press reception had it billed as "the Illiad of the underground" and generally was held up by critics to be a triumph. However, a critic at the New York Times named Bosley Crowther continued to be stringently opposed to the movement, due in large part to its content. He is quoted as saying that "Andy Warhol and his underground friends...are pushing a reckless thing too far".

6. Why was Mike Getz an important figure in the crossover of the underground?

Mike Getz played a large role in getting underground films screened in legitimate theater venues, by grouping them in packaged programs and convincing his uncle (the owner of said movie houses) to show them via weekend midnight play. Due to his initiative it was revealed that this idea was financially lucrative (the first show sold out immediately), thus opening the door for greater crossover efforts.

7. How do Hoberman and Rosenbaum characterize Warhol’s post-1967 films?

Essentially they accuse Warhol and Morissey of exploiting the success of Chelsea Girls by producing films that were "technically improved but spiritually coarsened". The films become debased, overly sexualized shadows of Warhol's former successes. However, as the authors point out, Warhol did become a "catalytic figure in the history of on-screen sexuality" whose films featured unabashed homosexual content that would help destroy the taboos so firmly entrenched in American Cinema.

Robert Pike, “Pros and Cons of Theatrical Bookings”
[in folder: notes_from_the_creative_film_society_pros_and_cons_of_theatrical_booking]

8. What were some of the advantages and disadvantages to the move from non-theatrical to theatrical bookings for experimental films?

The advantages include:

Being able to make a larger amount of money, even able to the point of eclipsing the amount to recoup the expenses of the production. Also, since you are exposing your film to larger audience, you are able to attain a greater amount of prestige and notoriety (which can lead to more projects, possibly with major studios). Presumably it could also be considered an advantage to expose your experimental films to a greater variety of film viewers, provided by the heightened accessibility of theatrical booking.

Disadvantages include:

"Wear and tear on prints", which is apparently much greater than non-theatrical screenings to the consistently poor design of the 16mm projectors the theaters use to exhibit the film. Also, a "lack of respect by the exhibitors and projectionists for the physical prints and the subject matter" which again has links to the wear and tear of films (because since they don't respect the films, the don't handle them with care) along with having the films associated unpleasantly with the sexploitation movement (leading to them sharing a double bill and things of that nature).

9. What issues developed concerning non-exclusive and exclusive representation by distributors?

Generally the article suggests that non-exclusive distribution should only be used if you are exhibiting the film in a "non-theatrical market". That way, it gives the film the best range of coverage for presenting the work. However, if you are using theatrical distribution it is better to use exclusive representation so you can set your rates for the film more easily, preferably a rate that is not so high as the exhibitor views your film as a potential financial risk, but still keeping the filmmaker from being taken advantage of.

10. What problems did the Creative Film Society run into with devious theater owners?

They ran into several problems, first the theater owners used the billings of Underground films in order to disguise the "Beaver" films that they were actually showing (I assume that just means porn films). They also were "duping" the prints (I assume that means duplicating in some crude fashion) and sending them off to other theaters in the chain. Finally, they caught a theater not honoring their agreed upon schedule, arbitrarily showing the first half of one film and the second half another as one billing and mishandling the prints to the point of ruination.

Reading Response 3: Due Oct. 7 @ 5 p.m.

Reading Response 3: Due Oct. 7 @ 5 p.m.

1. Respond to Chieko Shiomi's Disappearing Music for Face. How does the minimalism and duration of the film affect your engagement with the image? How does the film relate to the following issues:
a. Maciunas's definition of art vs. his definition of "fluxus art-amusement"
b. art as object vs. art as performance and activity.

http://www.ubu.com/film/fluxfilm.html

My response to Chieko Shiomi's Disappearing Music for Face involved a continual change of how I was viewing the image in front of me. I think the fact that the image is so grainy and slightly out of focus lends to how much depth the film manages to achieve. At times, I found it interesting that the image itself was in a sort of stasis and yet the scratches and grains of the film lent life and erratic energy. Then, as the film moved on, the face became a sort of abstraction. At times I would imagine a city sky line forming, taking the place of teeth. There was also the strange gradual tonal shift where the smile disappeared, the whole film slowly gaining a somber feeling.

The film certainly is in line with the Fluxus ideal of art that anyone can create. I don't know if this film exactly fits the ideology of amusement though. It seems too slow, too deliberate. It seems to necessitate some deep brooding on the audiences' part which is decidedly against Maciuna's ideals proposed in his assessment of art vs. fluxus art-amusement. But then again, that was only my own reaction to the film, and I suppose if I really want to get complicated, there's nothing that says that you can't regard amusement in a serious way. Hmm.

As far as art as object vs. art as performance and activity, I do think that this film requires an engagement from the audience that is similar to art as performance and activity. It works so slowly that it's constantly reminding the audience of its medium (film), of the process at work.

2. Look up “Fluxus” and any of the Fluxus artists in the index of Visionary Film. Why are they not there? Are the Fluxfilms compatible with Sitney’s central argument about the American avant-garde?

Well Sitney thinks of the American avant-garde as a means to depict a psychological frame of mind. With fluxfilms, the intent often has little to do with the filmmaker. In fact, there is a express desire to remove the ego of the filmmaker altogether, to provide art as a pure substance. It seems rare that the flux films engage with provocative emotion, usually finding that line of filmmaking too self-serious. Instead, they play with the form of film, they parody, they mock, they celebrate joviality and silliness. This doesn't quite fit in with the framework of the Avant-Garde artist, whose psychological intent is chief among Sitney's interests along with the formal qualities of the work that the Fluxus artists likewise subvert.

Mary Jordan, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
[An .avi file of this documentary is on your flash drive. If you have difficulty playing it, try VLC Player and follow the instructions I put on your flash drive: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/]

3. What are some of the reasons suggested for Smith’s obsession with Maria Montez? What are some of your responses to the clips from the Montez films (especially Cobra Woman)?

Maria Montez was the catalyst for Jack Smith's obsession with film. I feel like every filmmaker has that moment where he falls in love with the medium, whether it be a single film or a series of films, and for Jack Smith it was the classic Universal pictures of the 40s featuring Maria Montez, which he had watched as a child. I think it likely also has something to do with a connection to his childhood, one of the few warm memories, some retreat of nostalgic happiness that Smith was constantly going back to. However, that's honestly just conjecture.

I do think it's interesting that Smith had that immediate interest in using experimental color, almost through an inspirational connection to the gorgeous technicolor used in Montez's films (such as Cobra Woman). The vividness of the Montez films, the glamor and theatricality, is something likewise mirrored in Smith's work. I do personally find it fascinating how the classical era of Hollywood film in the forties has this poignant mythos to it, with its diffused lighting, the way stars are portrayed as almost immortal beings, whose existence is meant for film and film alone. That's what struck me most by the Montez clips, that Smith could be attached to these films and to this woman not really as a real woman but as a transcended being, an almost pure representation of an identity. Though in my eyes, that identity doesn't really exist, it's a fabrication. And Smith's fascination with what could be considered a romantic illusion is a little contradictory to his ideals as an artist. Just a thought I had.

4. What were some attributes of the New York art community in the 1960s, and what was the relationship between the economics of the time and the materials that Smith incorporated in to his work and films? [How could Smith survive and make art if he was so poor in the city so big they named it twice?]

The art community of the 1960s, in my understanding, seemed to have two major attributes (perhaps there are many more, but this is primarily what I gleaned from the film). One, they defied convention, normalcy, and they were desperately trying to invent themselves beyond the restrictions of society. I think a great deal of the art in this time period is a reaction to repression as well, particularly of sexuality. Barriers constructed by society were being broken purposefully and forcefully, almost as a means of catharsis. Secondly, there was a quality of inclusiveness, which was something the flux film movement largely touched on as well. There is an idea now that anyone can make art, with any materials available to them. The underground film movement would take its costumes and props from the trash and turn their films into some grotesque/eloquent commentary on the state of society and of art. And anyone from any social strata could be an artist, all one needed was the will for it. Producing films in such a low economic strata also provided a freedom to the art as well. There is a great truth in the idea that the more money you need for a project, the less control you tend to have. With organic freedom being such an important element to the films of this time period, money could be seen as a death knell to the artistry.

5. What is John Zorn’s argument about Normal Love? How does his argument relate to some of the changes in the New York art world in the 1960s that we discussed in class? What are some arguments made about the influence of Jack Smith on other filmmakers (including Warhol)?

John Zorn argued that someone should have been filming Jack Smith filming, because that was the real art. The unique act of his creative process. This relates to a greater tendency of the art movement in the sixties, where a blurring of lines began to happen between artistic mediums. Within that consideration, the artistry of a film meshes with the artistry of the film's creation. The art films of this era abandoned the purity of form found in modernism, embracing a kind of performance quality that stressed an improvisation and spontaneity to an otherwise set piece of work (for instance, the performance of Invocation of Canyons and Boulders for Stan Brakehage changing from one performance to another based on how long you choose to loop the film for or Zen for Film changing from the scratches accumulating on the leader).

As far as Andy Warhol goes, the film seems to suggest that Warhol had an artistic obsession with Smith, and had been quoted saying that Smith was the only artist that Warhol would ever even try to emulate. There was an interviewee that stated that all of Warhol's most important ideas came from Smith, but seeing as how I'm not very familiar with Warhol's work and that the film doesn't go much further into than to simply say as much as that, I can't really expound on that at the moment. It is also interesting to note that Warhol was partly responsible for cult status that Smith had attained, whether or not that was a dubious honor for Smith to hold. Also interesting is that while Smith seemed vaguely contemptuous of Warhol he appeared in several of his films, relishing the chance to perform.

[Note: The Angell article states the following: "For Warhol, Jack Smith served as a early model of how to be a filmmaker...on an artistic and political level, especially in Smith's uncompromising commitment to a difficult, even doomed, aesthetic. Like Smith, Warhol would continue to draw upon the mythologies of Hollywood and the underworlds of drag queens and gay camp for the subject matter of his films." So that expounds on how Warhol had appropriated from Smith a bit more.]

6. What is meant by the slogan, “no more masterpieces” and how did Smith resist commodification (or the production of art products)?

One of the interviewees spoke of Smith's reaction to Flaming Creatures, namely that the film became something entirely different once it was finished and left his hands, and that afterwards Smith purposefully held off on finishing his products. What the film argues is that this was a new way to engage with the art of the film, without upholding individual works of art as masterpieces and subsequently debase the artistry by changing its purpose to fit in the capitalist system (the act of art as commodity thereby watering down the quality of the art). Whereas the traditional view of the film is that its importance supersedes the artist himself, Smith's film became a continuing performance where he would play the music on records himself and where he would continually edit the film as the screening was taking place. This way, the film was constantly evolving, the practice of art being in a perpetual state of motion. This way, no one could make the film something else, no one could sell it or distort it, because he had continual control of what the film actually was.

Here are some helpful links for those interested in the debate about the Jack Smith estate. This is not required, but this is fascinating, frustrating, and crazy (and it will put the documentary in a new light):

http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw25/0459.html
http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw25/0050.html
http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw25/0459.html

And a summary of the debate and legal proceedings. http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-03-02/news/flaming-intrigue/


Callie Angell, “Andy Warhol, Filmmaker”
[This can be found in the Kreul Articles folder from your flash drive]

7. How does Angell characterize the first major period of Warhol’s filmmaking career? What are some of the films from this period, and what formal qualities did they share? What are some significant differences between Sleep and Empire?

The first period of Warhol's filmmaking career was made up of minimalist films. They varied in length but were often known for extreme duration [Sleep-5 hours, Empire-8 hours]. They also were predominately silent static one takes, usually made up of a single unedited full length reel. The significant differences between Sleep and Empire were brought about due to the limitations of the Bolex. Because of the camera, Warhol could only take four minute shots on his quest to create his 8-hour minimalist film. This lead to Warhol using multiple shots, instead of one set shot like in Empire. Warhol also experimented with editing in Sleep, using repetition among his elaborate editing schemes. With Empire, however, the film remains completely unedited (as was more indicative of his films of the time period).

8. What role did the Screen Tests play in the routines at the Factory and in Warhol’s filmmaking?

The screen tests were a part of the attraction to the New York art scene, with Warhol at the epicenter playing the dual role of the entertainer and the director. It became part of the scene to visit the factory and participate in the Screen Tests, and it eventually consisted of a wide variety of artistic personalities both famous and unknown. This practice helped Warhol attract stars for his films and honed his skills at developing films in a serial fashion that demanded a great deal of overlap and multitasking. As Angell writes, Warhol would "work simultaneiously on a number of on-going series," going on further to cite Warhol using actors for several different projects in the same day of shooting. Warhol would also at times reuse his footage in several different projects.

9. How does Angell characterize the first period of sound films in Warhol’s filmmaking career? Who was Warhol’s key collaborator for the early sound films? What are some of the films from this period and what formal properties did they share?

Angell characterizes the first period of sound films as similar in form to the silent films, in that he was still shooting lengthy one takes and using a "stationary camera to explore a radical new conception of film not as constructed, "finished" product, but as a kind of delineated performance space, a specific temporal and physical framing within which planned or unplanned actions might or might not unfold". By that, Angell means that there was a great deal improvisation, and that mistakes and forgotten lines and technical faux paus were all part of the performance, all part of the work of art. Warhol collaborated heavily with Ronald Tavel, who was a writer and provided Warhol with copious amounts of dialogue to go along with the new possibilities of sound. Of course, Warhol ended up subverting these narratives through his inclinations for controlled chaos and improvisation (for instance, deliberately keeping actors from learning their lines). Warhol also worked a great deal with Edie Sedgwick, he became a key subject for his portraiture based films.

Some of the films from the period include Poor Little Rich Girl, Restaurant, and Afternoon. These are all Sedgwick films, based on the concept of "the individual personality engaged in self-creating performance". Also, it was with these films that Warhol began moving the camera in "slow pans and zooms" to follow Sedgwick, finally departing from the rigidity that his camera had been known for.

If you haven't seen Bruce Conner's A Movie, you can find a so-so copy at this link. I will try to work it into an upcoming class with other found footage films:
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/3-9tCeFX0Eo/



====================
Here are some extra links related to some things mentioned in class.

Here's a good documentary on John Cage (an episode of American Masters from PBS)
http://www.ubu.com/film/cage_masters.html

Here's Robert Rauschenberg talking about "Erased De Kooning"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpCWh3IFtDQ

Local coverage of the Cheese Sandwich Film Festival:
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20090325/ARTICLES/903254003


Here's the Facebook page for the Chips and Salsa Film Festival:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chips-and-Salsa-Film-Festival/308693306308

Here's a link to the entry I collaborated on, "Chip of Fools":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqtYXfectIQ

1. Post a brief response to one of the following Brakhage films: The Wold Shadow, Window Water Baby Moving, Dog Star Man Part 2, Dog Star Man Part 3.

I think Window Water Baby Moving was a fascinating movie as far as analyzing its impact on the viewer. In the beginning moments of the film, it felt like the most natural extension of Imagist Poetry I had seen so far in the class. It took a single moment, a pregnant woman laying in the bathtub with her husband near her, and seemed to evoke an amazing depth of intimacy in that small space of time. The way the editing went from the stomach (the womb), to the water, to the glances shared between the man and the woman felt like a meditation on the existence of love and the hope intrinsic in new life. As the film went on, though, it seemed to make a pointed collision between those intimate moments and the unabashedly graphic scenes of actual childbirth, almost forcibly making the audience accept that this too must be beautiful because each moment is necessarily linked to the other. It was difficult to watch, I think mostly because as a cultural thing we shy away from the reality of these situations (see: animated storks carrying babies to doorsteps). In any case, it felt like Brakhage was straining to depict childbirth as a whole truth, and I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't think of the graphic moments, the blood and viscera, as something deserving of awe as well.

Sitney, “Apocalypses and Picaresques”

2. Why does Sitney argue that synechdoche plays a major role in Christopher Maclaine’s The End, and how does the film anticipate later achievements by Brakhage and the mythopoeic form? (Implicit in this question: what is synechdoche? It is a figure of speech, but what kind?)

According to Dictionary.com synechdoche means: a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part"

In this particular sense, Sitney seems to be referring to how a part of the film (ie brief images) tend to clarify the greater whole of what the filmmaker is trying to say in a given moment. For instance, the images of a turnstile and of a bridge symbolize and clarify the suicide of one of Maclaine's characters. Not only that, but Sitney suggest that how one section ends seems to have an encompassing connection to the whole of the following section in his film. As far as how the film anticipates Brakhage and the mythopoeic form, Maclaine is already beyond the characteristic traits of the trance film at this point. His characters kill, they play, they engage with activity in the film, so the characters are already in a position of action where they can better evoke mythic connections. But more importantly, there is an underlying theme of the destruction of man that seems to be particularly linked to the ambitions of the mythopoeic form, because Maclaine's apocalyptic vision seems to carry some weight of myth itself. The vision is not one of stark realism, but an absurd fable wrought with the anxiety of times, a feeling of pessimism that is alienating and universal all at once.

3. What are some similarities and differences between the apocalyptic visions of Christopher Maclaine and Bruce Conner?

Sitney talks about the intentional provocation of ambivalence in Bruce Conner's vision by alternating between gestures of attraction and repulsion. For instance, A Movie contrasts the humor of the periscope spying on Marilyn Monroe to the violence associated with the Atomic Bomb. By Sitney's account of The End, it seems that Maclaine similarly uses extreme juxtapositions to accentuate a tonal mood, for instance a dying man's legs compared to a dancer's legs. However, with Maclaine I'm not certain that ambivalence is the desired effect (the book doesn't state one way or the other). It seems to me that the specific gesture in question would call an associative link between the joy of life and the despair of life, where Conner's link between the images seems more disconnected and extreme. In other ways their visions are similar obviously because they share "an apocalyptic despair", a pessimism inherent with the times. However, while Conner's work is imbued with irony, Maclaine's work suggests a genuine hope that is only snuffed out by an Atomic bomb at the film's finale.

Bruce Jenkins, “Fluxfilms in Three False Starts.”

4. How and why were the “anti-art” Fluxfilms reactions against the avant-garde films of Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger. [Hint: Think about Fluxus in relation to earlier anti-art such as Dada, and Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain."]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671180/Duchamps-Fountain-The-practical-joke-that-launched-an-artistic-revolution.html

Jenkins states that the flux film reaction against avant-garde films had to do with the "deadly serious" attitude of the Avant-Garde filmmakers. Because of this self-imposed severity, those of the fluxfilm movement chose to target them, through mockingly replicating their films while dispensing of their formal trademarks (complex editing schemes or personal content inherent in poetic films) or "less formal but more parodic" attempts like Dick Higgins' Invocation of Canyons and Boulders for Stan Brakhage which showed a close up of the filmmaker chewing in a continuous loop. These films, from the viewpoint of the filmmakers, flew in the face of the conventional thought that art must be bereft of silliness and ran amok with childish glee.

5. What does Jenkins mean by the democratization of production in the Fluxfilms?

He talks about a direct challenge to the idea of the authorship of a film through the practice of recreation, thereby allowing access to a true filmmaking collective in the process of production. The example he gives is of several different filmmakers filming the same tree, thereby decentralizing the film, denying the voice of any one true artist, allowing the medium to "dematerialize...in order to bridge the gap between art and life".

6. Critic Jonas Mekas divided avant-garde filmmaking into the "slow" and the "quick"; which filmmakers were associated with "slow" and which filmmakers were associated with "quick"? Which Fluxus films were "slow" and "quick" (name one of each)?

Slow Filmmakers:

Andy Warhol (long takes), Nam June Paik, George Brecht, Yoko Ono, Peter Moore

Slow Flux Film:

Zen for Film by Nam June Paik

Fast Filmmakers

Stan Brakhage (kinetic, highly edited), George Maciunas, Wolf Vostell, Eric Anderson, Paul Sharits

Fast Flux Film:

Sun in Your Head

7. How is the Fluxus approach to the cinema different from both Godard and Brakhage?

Jenkins writes that Godard and Brakhage both "spearheaded new cinemas". With Godard it was a shift of the narrative film to something that was a little more experimental but still largely accessible to those already indoctrinated with mainstream cinema. With Brakhage, Jenkins writes that he directed cinema inward to humanity's intimate experiences now seen through a new aesthetic of filmmaking ("the camera I/eye"). However, according to Jenkins both new cinemas bear some weight of the past, where Fluxfilms are an attempt at retaining the joyful conception of film, to unburden themselves of the memory of filmmakers before them and to abandon either homage or pointed avoidance of past conventions.

8. Why does Jenkins argue that Nam June Paik’s Zen for Film “fixed the material and aesthetic terms for the production of subsequent Fluxfilms”? How does it use the materials of the cinema? What kind of aesthetic experience does it offer? A version of the film (and other Fluxfilms) is available here:

http://www.ubu.com/film/fluxfilm.html

It fixed the material and aesthetic terms by being "inexpensively produced by circumventing the standard technologies of production...and post production". In other words, the filmmaker cleverly used a role of leader as the film itself, allowing the scratches that would eventually accumulate on it become a continual part of its evolution as a film. It's aesthetic experience is, in Jenkins' words, "imageless and anti-illusionist". It denies the process of making film, and any artifice that might develop through that process. In so many words, it provides the viewer with an absolutely pure experience that is constantly changing and adapting, living and breathing, sustaining a simple elegance.

For those looking for more information about Fluxus, here is an interesting podcast called "The Sounds of Fluxus" by the Poetry Foundation:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/audio/agat_may2010.mp3