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