Experimental Films and Filmmakers.

T

Tokarsky

Active member
I'm taking an experimental film theory course at school, and I'm all over the board with my thoughts on them. Some I love, some I want to walk out on unfourtunatly... I love Kenneth Angers stuff, Scorpio Rising may be my favorite out of his films I have seen, http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...q7TGIPYlQf-lJXpBg&q=kenneth+anger&hl=en&emb=1#
It captures, to me atleast, the popular culture of the early '60's quite well. Along with how he portrays homosexuality and homoeroticism of that time. Correct me if you feel differently. I also was exposed to the films of Stan Brakhage for the first time in class this week, amazing stuff. Mothlight was unlike anything I have ever heard of before let alone seen! The pacing, movement, and textures he creates left me speachless. The way he made that film alone was downright incredable, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaGh0D2NXCA&feature=player_embedded

All his films I saw left me pleased to say the least.

Feel free to let me hear your ideas on the work of Anger and Brakhage, and your favorite experimental/avant garde filmmaker and films. I'd love to learn about new stuff.
 
To be honest, I HATE them with a passion. Most, if not all "experimental" (very loose term) films I can't stand.

A few experimental films I can appreciate for it's beauty, it's ingenuity, for it's creativity and it may stir something inside of me. Only a fraction of those films I can actually watch the whole way through.

To me, an experimental film has to make up for a lack of a narrative (narrative in terms of a "story") by being short, sweet, and very engaging. If it's 10 minutes, it better have something to really carry me or else after 2 minutes I'm walking out.

I saw Wavelength in a class. My teacher urged us to not walk out. I wanted to so many times. If you don't know what it is, it's considered a famous Canadian film (how embarrassing!) where he "zooms" in for 40 minutes through a loft onto a picture. Very little happens, three people enter and exit, one guy falls, the days change, the f-stop changes, colors, and the sound changes pitch (eventually to an irritable pitch that vibrates your brain), but nothing else except an excruciatingly sloooooow zoom in. After that, I said "no more."

I blame TV.
 
Jon Starr said:
I blame TV.
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I realize that your statement is sort of a joke, but, really, what is more artistic than a well-crafted film (story, dialogue, visuals, music) that appeals to all of your sensory organs? We are a pattern seeking species and the problem with many "experimental" films is that we're searching for a "pattern" and sometimes can't find it. One may be there, but it could be locked in the mind of the filmmaker who has so heavily buried it that no one will truly be able to find it.

It's the age-old question: what is art? For me, I resist any attempt to define art in a way that allows anyone to do it. If anyone can do it, then it ceases to be special. If flinging feces at a wall puts you on the same level as Da Vinci or Van Gogh, then what's the point? There should be some talent involved with art, and (in my opinion) any "message" relayed with the art should be universally understood (or at least understandable by people other than the artist without it having to be explained to them).

Take this film for instance. It's simple, yet it had meaning that I could pick up on. It's meaning it not obtuse. It actually has a "pattern" (i.e. story) to it, albeit presented in a very simplified manner. There is honest-to-god talent behind it without seeming like the mental masturbation that a lot of experimental films seem to revel in.
 
Jon Starr said:
To be honest, I HATE them with a passion. Most, if not all "experimental" (very loose term) films I can't stand.

A few experimental films I can appreciate for it's beauty, it's ingenuity, for it's creativity and it may stir something inside of me. Only a fraction of those films I can actually watch the whole way through.

To me, an experimental film has to make up for a lack of a narrative (narrative in terms of a "story") by being short, sweet, and very engaging. If it's 10 minutes, it better have something to really carry me or else after 2 minutes I'm walking out.

I saw Wavelength in a class. My teacher urged us to not walk out. I wanted to so many times. If you don't know what it is, it's considered a famous Canadian film (how embarrassing!) where he "zooms" in for 40 minutes through a loft onto a picture. Very little happens, three people enter and exit, one guy falls, the days change, the f-stop changes, colors, and the sound changes pitch (eventually to an irritable pitch that vibrates your brain), but nothing else except an excruciatingly sloooooow zoom in. After that, I said "no more."

I blame TV.
Click to expand...

subtleinspiration said:
I realize that your statement is sort of a joke, but, really, what is more artistic than a well-crafted film (story, dialogue, visuals, music) that appeals to all of your sensory organs? We are a pattern seeking species and the problem with many "experimental" films is that we're searching for a "pattern" and sometimes can't find it. One may be there, but it could be locked in the mind of the filmmaker who has so heavily buried it that no one will truly be able to find it.

It's the age-old question: what is art? For me, I resist any attempt to define art in a way that allows anyone to do it. If anyone can do it, then it ceases to be special. If flinging feces at a wall puts you on the same level as Da Vinci or Van Gogh, then what's the point? There should be some talent involved with art, and (in my opinion) any "message" relayed with the art should be universally understood (or at least understandable by people other than the artist without it having to be explained to them).

Take this film for instance. It's simple, yet it had meaning that I could pick up on. It's meaning it not obtuse. It actually has a "pattern" (i.e. story) to it, albeit presented in a very simplified manner. There is honest-to-god talent behind it without seeming like the mental masturbation that a lot of experimental films seem to revel in.
Click to expand...


I agree with both of you, less so with Jon Starr's thoughts on experimental films in general. Yes, I just saw wavelength in Film Theory Wednesday night, and yes, at points it was unbearable, that pitch being the bulk of it, but the IDEA, CONCEPT, PRE-OCCUPATION whateverrrrr you wanna call it, of the film I found to be interesting, not the exicution of said film.

Like subtleinspiration stated about this form of film, I agree. Not everyone can do art. Period. End of conversation.... The best example of my strong feelings to why artist are artist and others that produce "art" are just people, would have to be "appropriated art". Especially in the experimental film end of it. I'll ask my Film Theory professor to borrow the DVD she played the first day of class. I wanted to kill somebody, there is no art in taking footage of Paris Hilton and cutting it on Windows Movie Maker and making some BS song about her being your best friend, throwing pitch shift on the audio, and playing at a film festival. THAT is not art, Anger's work is art. hahaha, I honestly hate to rant, but I had to after I actually heard someone feeling art isn't possible to be produced by everyone... hahahaha
 
I think it's just about what people expect out of a film. I watch and make films for one reason, entertainment. Yes it's about art, but it's also other things.

I appreciate art, and when I stare at a painting i can stay there for a good amount of time, but eventually I'll get bored and move on.

I feel the same about experimental film. I can really appreciate it sometimes, but when it goes longer than it should, and if often does, then I lose interest and go from enjoying it and appreciating it to really hating it.

But it's all about the individual viewer. Some will like it, and some won't. That's why I blame TV (not just in a joking sense).
 
In my book "experimental" is the sheer opposite of filmmaking.

It praises the absence of every craft a filmmaker should have as a feature.
Look at the Dogma stuff.
They feature no editing, shaky handheld, no lighting, bad sound and often bad acting as an art.

Hey everyone can do that, like even the most untalented shmuck can paint "modern art", just because you need next to no skills to do it.

Which brings me to my personal definition of art, that is:

Real art needs no artist to be art.

If you look at a "modern" painting (or any peace of "modern art"), ask yourself, would that thing be considered as art and would someone pay $15000 for it, if you or your kid brother have made it?

If the answer is "nay" than it needs a "noted artist" to be perceived as "art" and chances are it is no art at all.

If the answer is "yes" than it´s probably art and you should ask yourself why you and your kid brother are not in the art business.

just my ct2, Frank
 
I prefer to take experimental films as just that: experiments in film.

Experiments in color.
Experiments in lighting.
Experiments in camera movement.
Experiments in frame composition.
Experiments in editing.
Experiments in narrative.
etc.
etc.

And from those experiments, learn what works in what contexts, and learn to apply the successful techniques in future projects. And at least as important, learn what DOESN'T work, and learn to do it DIFFERENTLY in future projects.

As to the bigger question of "What is art?", I myself consider something art if the artist is creating it "honestly", in a spirit of seeking answers to questions, attempting to communicate something to other human beings. I think that some (a very small amount?) of the "art" that sometimes makes its way into galleries is not quite legitimate as art, in that the artist (perpetrator?) is merely trading on trends or maybe even his/her own name. For example, a single round spot of black paint on a white canvas, called "Untitled", would not be art (to me personally); on the other hand, if the artist had given it a title that made the viewer look at it more closely in an attempt to make a connection between the image and the title, THAT would be art (to me).

I think I'd definitely put some cinema into that group of "not quite legitimate as art".
 
Is "Breaking The Waves" experimental? or "Blue Velvet"? Of course. They are experimental films, done brilliantly.

Bad filmmaking is bad filmmaking. Commercial, experimental, or otherwise.
 
Well, I tend to think of true "experimental" films at simply excercises in form.

However, I think any interesting films has an experimental nature in it.

For instance, someone trying to capture a feeling, express an emotion, examine something- by throwing a camera up into a tree- is making a film using experimental methods. Hell, someone trying to do that with a PAN and TILT is also experimenting, as he doesn't know the outcome.

If the entire film is a guy throwing a camera in a tree, it tends to be an interesting exercise, but not something that speaks to the soul. But anyway, I'm not against them. I'm just wary of "experimental" as a label- it's loaded. It could mean anything.

In any case, I still chuckle when people define cinema as an art based only on STORY. It's incredibly limiting.

The absence of story or technical perfection doesn't mean it's not a film, or a damn good one for that matter. People obsessed with technical aspects and traditional story might find it bad, but that's their hang-up and their loss, in my eyes. People need to stop thinking in such incredibly tiny parameters within an artform that arguably has more possibilities than any other.
 
I mean... go look at a Cassavetes film projected on a large screen. There are sometimes long, long sequences where the focus is never quite right; in some cases it's completely off! Does this make A Woman Under the Influence a lesser film? Technical competence only gets you so far - I expect it and enjoy it from some filmmakers, like Kubrick, but only when it's at the service of something greater.

I think you might be surprised at how technically competent many of the best known experimental filmmakers were and are today. Just because Hollywood does it one way doesn't mean everyone has to follow. Look at the history of art - the way the Impressionists came after a long tradition of Renaissance painting, which at a glance seemed infinitely more technically refined.

Film as a medium is particularly driven by the further refinement and innovation that happens with technology, and is also unusually burdened by financial considerations when compared to the other arts, but I hope there's still room for someone to try something completely outside the established system (by which I mean narrative film - whether it's Michael Bay or Michelangelo Antonioni).

Artists like Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, James Benning, Bill Viola, Martin Arnold, Peter Tscherkassky, Ken Jacobs, Jordan Belson, Andy Warhol, Paul Sharits, Hollis Frampton, Michael Snow, Peter Kubelka, Jack Smith, Jonas Mekas, Ernie Gehr - I could keep on listing their names but they absolutely add and enrich the medium rather than detract from it, in my opinion. It's about finding new ways of seeing, and new modes of expression, rather than poor attempts to imitate commercial Hollywood fare.
 
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Warhol, Anger etc....these guys were way on the fringe of experimental to the point where the rest of us experimental folks go, Huh?

Do not lump these fringe filmmakers in with more commercial experimentalists. And like the above poster said, there is something to be gained from watching these fringe films and it's much more than, what not to do.
 
Just a quick note on Cassavetes:

Yes, he proves that technical prowess only gets you SO far. But a lot of people think he thought things sloppily or incorrectly. I beg to differ.

Cassavetes created a unique visual style, not on purpose. His philosophy and focus was that ACTORS were the most important things in a film- more so than anything else, and that the technology was there to SERVE the actor. So, the tech had to keep up with the actor, not the other way around.

Since his actors could be completely unpredictable in their movements, the camera sometimes takes a second to keep up with the actor. This creates things like out of focus shots, off center composition, underlit scenes. It creates a kinetic, out of control feeling. You FEEL the actors' moods. So Cassavetes wasn't lazy about technical aspects- he just saw them as a means to an end, and his CINEMATIC STYLE, his MIS-EN-SCENE, was affected because of his beliefs. Hence, a unique vision. And a great one.

And this comes from someone who also loves Tarkovsky and Bergman. Two directors I would consider perfectionists in the technical sense.
 
what's been said about Cassavetes is dead on. And this is why to say "experimental" films are boring is downright naive'.
 
jpastuch said:
The absence of story or technical perfection doesn't mean it's not a film, or a damn good one for that matter. People obsessed with technical aspects and traditional story might find it bad, but that's their hang-up and their loss, in my eyes. People need to stop thinking in such incredibly tiny parameters within an artform that arguably has more possibilities than any other.
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Amen.
 
jpastuch said:
In any case, I still chuckle when people define cinema as an art based only on STORY. It's incredibly limiting.

The absence of story or technical perfection doesn't mean it's not a film, or a damn good one for that matter. People obsessed with technical aspects and traditional story might find it bad, but that's their hang-up and their loss, in my eyes. People need to stop thinking in such incredibly tiny parameters within an artform that arguably has more possibilities than any other.
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I've never heard anyone say that cinema needs to have a story. Okay I've heard some, but it's usually very ignorant people that love Michael Bay. I, as well as many others see cinema is a visual medium, and that's all.

IMO, it's not about "thinking in such incredibly tiny parameters," it's about entertainment. If 'experimental' without a story keeps me entertained, then by all means. However, it usually doesn't. Story has a better chance of keeping me entertained. But it's all subjective after all.

For you, some of these experimental films are 'entertaining'. You probably use a different word, perhaps 'moving', or 'engaging', but when it comes down to it, it's what keeps us interested and watching.

To each their own I guess.
 
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