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.