The Avant Garde

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Policar

Carbonite Member
I'm not talking art films; I'm talking real honest-to-goodness avant garde. I posted in another thread about this (and my surprising love of avant garde despite the ridicule of my friends.)

Anyone seen much Brakhage, Warhol, etc.

Anyone recommend anything? Or even know where to get this stuff?

Personally, I hate the "psychodrama" stuff; it reminds me of bad David Lynch. The flicker films and purely formal stuff I absolutely love, though. Call my stupid and pretentious; you wouldn't be the first.
 
Policar said:
Anyone seen much Brakhage, Warhol, etc.
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I've seen a lot of Brakhage--mainly in school but in some exhibitions (The Whitney Biennial and such). Anyway, I'm a big fan (if one can be a fan) of Video Art. I love Joe Gibbons and Vito Acconci.
 
You are stupid and pretentious.

Just kidding.

I think that the problem is that most experiment stuff sucks. I am a nerd so I go to the "weird" film festivals and watch all the expeirimant stuff and most of is BRUTAL.

But once in a while, when it works, it can kill you.

Policar do you make stuff yourself?

-rook
 
Where do you go to these "weird" film festivals? I'd like to check one out.

I personally don't make anything like this and I don't have any desire to. I'm not even going to pretend I'm smart enough to work in this medium. As you said, bad avant garde stuff is just the purest trash...

I wish I could find more access to this stuff, especially Warhol. Netflix doesn't seem to be into this, nor do any local video stores, unsurprisingly...
 
I've seen Mothlight. Also seen Window Water Baby Moving. It's interesting work, especially since he spurns the use of music in his films. I'm not sure if Mothlight is meant to be deciphered. I think I remember reading that Mothlight was made when he was really broke. He couldn't afford any film so he pasted moth wings to negative. I think avant garde is worth checking out just to get inspired. You don't always need a three act narrative. I think Baraka counts as avant garde.
 
Policar said:
Edit: Stan from South Park is named after this guy. Weird.
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Thats cause he was a professor at U of Colorado (I think in Boulder), where Trey Parker and Matt Stone went. In "Cannibal the Musical" (Parker and Stones senior thesis film) Stan Brakhage makes an appearance, as one of the fathers in the begining.
 
Policar said:
I wish I could find more access to this stuff, especially Warhol. Netflix doesn't seem to be into this, nor do any local video stores, unsurprisingly...
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Alot of this material is unavailable on DVD because of the filmmakers. They intend for the films to be seen on film, in a theatre, lights down. There is however a Criterion DVD of Brakhage's work available- http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=184

I would never recommend Brakhage to people without them first asking to see true avante garde. Most of his films are silent and are pure form, as far from narrative you can get. But the dudes inspired more commercials, music videos and even narrative than you can shake a stick at.

To give people one more idea of how challenging his films can be I will tell the story of the first Brakhage film I saw, which I had to watch twice as I was writing a paper on it. It is called "The Text of Light". It's silent. It is a closeup of an ashtray with different light sources and objects reflected and refracted through the ashtray. This was all done a few frames at a time. It slowly fades and morphs into different shapes of light. Without being told you are looking at an ashtray, you would have no idea, it just seems to be dancing light. Oh yeah, and its runtime is 71 minutes. But it is beautiful, and it does have alot to say about how light works and its relationship to celloid. But for someone that isn't interested in that narrow subject it can be the slowest 71 minutes of your life. People who like it aren't pretetious, people who don't like it aren't stupid or somehow less sofisticated. It is what is is.
 
seejay1031 said:
People who like it aren't pretetious, people who don't like it aren't stupid or somehow less sofisticated. It is what is is.
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This insightful thought should translate to many different movie/film discussion/arguments.

EDIT: Doesn't sound like my kind of thing.
 
Actually, that sounds like a pretty cool movie. I'm sure I'd be bored to death by it, but it does exactly what good avant garde movies do: take one formal aspect (in this case light) and base a whole system of repetition and variation around it. The term "pure film" is totally appropriate and I actually kind of agree about the whole seeing them on film thing. You couldn't make "mothlight" with video because Brakhage is literally pasting objects onto the emulsion. There are a few tiny differences between film and video and what you can do (in camera tricks will be the big difference, but most of that can be emulated in post) but I don't really care which is used as long as the result is good.

But for "pure film" and stuff, there really will be a significant loss when it has to be done on video...you can't scratch directly onto the ccd after all (I hope...)
 
seejay1031 said:
..... people who don't like it aren't stupid or somehow less sofisticated. It is what is is.
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I agree on this viewpoint in general terms and only on the first part. I have met far too many people who are prententious and think less of anyone who does not like this style of film or they think that anything outside of the avant Garde.

I look at Brakhage's film strips and say 'Okaaaay. If that is what you are into." Like Pollack is with Art I can't help but chuckle. Something definately bizarre going on in the minds of these guys as in not normal people (Which is okay).

I know that may be a stretch but if I sat around with my DVX100 and shot light coming through glass, or took the footage and image mapped them into photoshop and scratched them up...

I'm not saying it may not be interestsing, beautiful and or shocking or deep I just think these people try to hard to be ... Something.

I dont know.

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I happen to be one of those people who has artistic talent (I say this humbly and can provide some artwork for the detractors) so I feel I can say something about it.

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I come from a school of thought that if it is good; it is good.

Schindler's List to Apacalypse Now to The Return of the Living Dead to Silence of the Lambs to Major League to Bull Durham....

Can I dig Avant Garde ? I guess it looks 'neat' but unless I'm riding on a blue unicorn it's just that.
 
i'm confused by the OP's assertion of some arbitrary difference between "art films" and "avant garde". personal taste aside, where would someone like matthew barney fall?

i recently took a more unconventional approach to a piece i shot and cut for the Stay DVD that was just released. The piece is called Departing Visions and is about as "arty" as you can get with a major studio funding you. in fact, they loved it. even marc forster gave me a call after seeing it. his exact words were, "thank you for your passion" (with a heavy german accent).

the reason i bring it up is that it gave me an opportunity to play with light in a number of ways. increasing my appreciation for the artistic potential of cinema. some might say bad art is more tragically beautiful than good art because it documents human failure so supremely.
 
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Avant Garde litteraly means "In The forefront". It is not the same as "Video Art", or "Art film". The French "Nouvelle Vague"could be considered "Avant Garde", for example, in the 50'ies and 60'ies, but are not "Art Films" per se.

In my opinion, Art Films are not Cinema- they are more often explorations of Visual Artists looking for "Visual expression" using the Film or video medium. They follow current or moder artistic trends, and there's no narrative concern in a traditional sense.

Being a "romantic" person and also someone that relates more with art untill the "impressionism" era (there are a few exceptions that I like post impressionism, but they are exceptions), I find it difficult to relate to artistic expressions related to the modern and post-modern art period.

I can see what they want to explore, but I just can't communicate with it.
 
sure. i suppose what confused me was the assertion that the works of Brakhage or Warhol somehow didn't fall into the category of "art films". regardless of whether or not they were on the vanguard.
 
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