PRODUCTION MEETING 29/01/11

After lengthy discussions on whether our piece would be based on an object, word or poem, we finally settled on the word 'Occult'. We felt that this opened up many possibilities for 'experimental' filmmaking and we could kick the traditions of Satanic representation commonly seen in films such as 'The Wicker Man' (d. Robin Hardy 1973) and 'The Skeleton Key' (d. Iain Softley 2005). 

In order to begin research, I created a mood-board of images that I could find when searching 'the occult'.

EXPERIMENTAL SEMINAR

During this week we have had the opportunity to meet our new tutor, Martine. In this session she worked through some varied examples of experimental film and as a result, my eyes were opened to a broader scope of what the word 'experimental' encompasses. So far, I have been researching pieces of early french surrealist cinema, and now I understand that experimental is much more than a difficult understanding of the work. 


Blue Monday Duvet Brothers 1984
This is another example of found-footage associational form (as I researched earlier with 'A Movie'). It is a music video for New Order's 'Blue Monday', remixed from the original video. It experiments with digital video editing and juxtaposes found-footage imagery. It has a highly political message, much like 'Koyaanisqatsi', which is a trademark of the decade.

Intervals Peter Greenaway 1969
Intervals is an experimental piece set in Venice. In the piece, the details of the location are revealed very slowly and it is not until the near-end that we understand where we are. This is much unlike traditional cinema, in which the location/setting is revealed first through establishing shots etc. The relationship between sound and visuals is beautiful and we see the changes in the places shown through careful editing.

Nostalgia Hollis Frampton 1971
Nostalgia is an autobiographical piece that is made on film. Throughout, we see a series of photos burned on a hot plate. The soundtrack is the filmmaker, reminiscing and describing the photos. The images and dialogue are on very different times. At one moment we can be hearing about the photo on screen, and then we are hearing about the future, or a photo we have already seen, or are about to see. This visual/aural juxtaposition is very interesting indeed.

Star Guitar (the Chemical Brothers) Music Video by Michel Gondry 2002
This music video is a fantastic example of cinematography and editing. It is a series of moving shots that pass many different landscapes on moving vehicles, cleverly put together so that we barely notice that the shot has ended and another has begun.

Fisticuffs Miranda Pennell 2003
This piece relocates the western London bar brawl to a working men's club. Six people throw each other around and make punches at each other, but their bodies are seemingly invulnerable, with no physical damage done (inspired by westerns). The piece is highly choreographed and the location and setting s tantamount to the exact timing of the 'dance'.
Link to 'Fisticuffs' 


Telling Lies Simon Ellis 2000
An example of how text and animation can make for a highly effective experimental film. The words on screen appear to tell what each character is thinking compared to what they are saying. I found this piece unusual because it was a comedy, and I had initially not associated experimental films with the comedy genre, and also hadn't thought to use text as a creative device.
Link to 'Telling Lies' 


An Optical Poem Oskar Fishchinger 1938
This was one of the most interesting pieces that I watched. It was an experiment in creating the mental visuals associated with music. The method of making the film was just as interesting, the images drawn or collaged onto film before being reprinted. 

BUÑUEL

Luis Buñuel


"In a world as badly made as ours, there is only one road - rebellion" Buñuel, 


Another classic avant-garde filmmaker, and a crucial member of the early French movement was Luis Buñuel. His work moves from surrealist experimentation in the 1920s, to commercial comedies and melodramas in the 1950s to postmodernist cine d'art in the 60s and 70s. His nationality spans several countries, France, where he made his earliest and most celebrated films, Spain, where he was born and holds his cultural roots, and Mexico where he later became a citizen. 
Buñuel claimed that his project was to pierce the self-assurance of the powerful. He satirised his own class, to which he unashamedly belonged, a middle-class Catholic upbringing of which he understood the pettiness and neuroses evident. 


"I am still an atheist, thank God" Buñuel


He criticised religious hypocrisy, bourgeois complacency and patriarchal authority in his work, and they often themed male desire, in which women were mere projections of it. Desires, both sexual and political, were entwined throughout his films.


Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) 1928

This film was Buñuel and Salvador Dali's entry into the Parisian surrealist group. Allegedly, Buñuel went to the first screening with rocks in his pockets to 'respond to the audience'. But the film was received well, despite Buñuel expecting and hoping for an adverse reaction. He claimed that his next film would not have its sting be subverted by praise. 
The film's opening scene is still shocking today. The words 'Once upon a time' (in French) are displayed before we see Buñuel smoking a cigarette, sharpening the blade of his razor. He then exits onto a balcony, and watching a sliver of cloud cut the moon in half, prises open a woman's eye and cuts it across. This scene sets the viewing context for the whole film, reminding us that we must see with a different eye. 

Historically the film was a violent reaction against the avant-garde of the day, which was aimed at artistic sensibility and the audience's reaction. Buñuel and Dali set out to create a film with a myriad of different readings, hence rendering these analyses redundant. As Dali put it, the intention of the film was to "disrupt the mental anxiety of the spectator". In the film, as in dreams, there is a dislocation of time and space. The disruptions occur through the use of inter-titles, which appear to be key to the 'narrative', but in fact, are useless. After the opening sequence, we see the words "eight years later" (in French), for example. A street and beach occupy the same space outside the room, dislocating space. Interpretation is thus pointless, and psychoanalysis is useless, and to accept the film for what it is, is to let the images and emotions seduce, without seeking an explanation. 

Like Cocteau's Le Sang d'un Poète, Un Chien Andalou is an example of Buñuel's references to his upbringing, which is what makes it so relevant within his body of work. It was also his only silent film, which perhaps makes it stand out among his other works. 
The actual aim of the piece is entirely inspirational - the fact that a film can be made with no readings at all is experimental in itself and represents a fluidity of images that need not be interpreted, but can be merely enjoyed. This sort of experimentation interests me greatly and I would love to try some experiments of this nature. 


Information on Buñuel from Senses of Cinema

Information on Un Chien Andalou from Senses of Cinema

COCTEAU

I have decided now to examine the films of some of the most famous surrealist filmmakers, starting with early cinema.


Jean Cocteau
Cocteau was one of the most multi-talented artists of the 20th Century. He was famed for his work as a writer, painter, poet, playwright, set designer, film director and actor. Cocteau's first film was 'The Blood of a Poet' or 'Le Sang d'un Poète' (1930). It is widely understood to be semi-autobiographical, reflecting on events of Cocteau's own life, his own private theories and mythology on the world of imagination, and the people that affected and influenced him in a profound way. 

Suicide in the film

The film begins with a shot of a chimney beginning to collapse followed by many statements suggesting that poetry should be read as you would read the work of the greatest painters (for Cocteau, this was Pisanello, Uccello and del Castagno). As such, the film insists on being deciphered in this way - with the ultimate enigma revealed as Cocteau himself. 

Surrealist dream-like imagery

It is difficult to describe the many elements of the film, so I will attempt to be brief and concise. The film moves across many different spaces and times, and the idea that artistic effort is a self-inflicting act of suffering is prevalent throughout, with motifs related to dramatic death and suicide. Influences from Cocteau's life are clear (his father committed suicide) and this is true also of the stylistic elements. The movements of the poet are derived from ballet, and Cocteau was influenced heavily by friends he met through the Parisian theatre. Dreamlike sequences in the film can be related to an Opium addiction that Cocteau suffered from (and was hospitalised for) following the untimely death of a close friend and poet. It explores the world of imagination and psychological irrationality, and for this reason the complex surrealist visual imagery works well. 


Information from Senses of Cinema

ASSOCIATIONAL FORM

Another example of associational form from the film 'Scorpio Rising' d. Kenneth Anger 1964. It is a film that juxtaposes the themes of biker-culture, the occult, Nazism and Catholicism. 


This first scene is the opening sequence, and a biker fixing and cleaning his bike is shot in close-up to the song 'Wind Up Doll' by Peggy March. 

This next sequence has an interesting story. When Kenneth Anger was editing 'Scorpio Rising', an educational film for a Lutheran sunday school was delivered to him by accident. Amused by the kitschiness of the film, he decided to incorporate the footage into his own film. You can see here how the film draws parallels between Scorpio and Jesus, heralding the biker culture as a re-run of cultures and followings of the past. It is just the same, but in a different time, and with a different reason.

I think that this scene is particularly effective and I am affected personally by the associations created by the sequence. I think that similar effects could be used in my group's work.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM

The first project of this semester is to create an experimental film inspired by a word, object or poem.


As a student that is not too familiar with experimental works, I need to do a little bit of research on what an experimental film is and what types of experimental film exist. 


Also known as avant-garde, experimental films are knowingly non-conformist. They work against the norms and traditions of the cinema institution and are often made by singular independent filmmakers. 


The first text that I studied was FILM ART: AN INTRODUCTION (9TH EDITION) by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. In order to make sense of the huge amount of introductory knowledge that the book presented me with, I decided to write the key information in a sketchbook and present the research that I had done around some of the films mentioned in the text. This was more to organise my thoughts around the subject as a beginning to my research. 

Brief descriptions of what it means to be 'experimental'.

Types of Experimental Film

Found-Footage Films

Found-footage films. Example: 'A Movie' (d. Bruce Conner 1958)

A found-footage film is one for which the visual matter already exists. In the case of 'A Movie', the footage was taken from old newsreels and soft-pornography. Additionally, the score that underlies and dictates the form of the whole film also already existed; 'The Pines of Rome'. Part of the reason that the film is so powerful is that the images were not set up for the purpose of the piece, therefore there is a harsh but beautiful realism to them. The juxtaposition of images forces us to look at what we are seeing in a different way and create associations amongst them, whether they exist or not. This derives from Eisenstein's theories of montage. 

Link to 'A Movie' - Bruce Conner 1958

'A Movie' supposedly charts the decline of civilisation, which is apparent towards the end of the film. Images of huge well-known disasters such as bridges buckling and ships sinking are compared to risky sports and stunts, for example. Similar shots compare a wagon pulled by horses to a tank, and images of heights are linked to images of danger. The final series of shots show a diver exploring a sunken ship, and as he disappears into the wreck, the film finishes. There is no 'the end', which represents the fact that is nowhere near at the bottom of its decline as a race.

Conner's film can also be described within another type of experimental form:

Associational Form

Associational form - Example: 'Koyaanisqatsi' (d. Godfrey Reggio 1982)

Associational form also draws on Eisenstein's theories of montage. It is the method through which visual juxtaposition creates associations through which we may conclude a metaphor or meaning. For example, as shown above, the likening of a woman to a rose through lyric poetry is not taken to mean that she is thorny and susceptible to aphids. Instead we associate a rose with its non-literal characteristics, its beauty, and therefore assume that the poet is saying that a woman is beautiful.

'Koyaanisqatsi' is a hopi Indian word that means 'life out of balance', as the film is subtitled. 

The film itself was made between 1975 and 1982 and was one of the first examples of filmmaking around the environmental theme. It is an apocalyptic vision of two very different world, revising the human-nature relationship. The images are portrayed through associational form in order to show the contrast between humans and nature; it suggests that humans are 'out of balance' with the natural world. 

Technically, the film was outstanding for its time. There is much use of time-lapse and slow motion, as well as moving vehicle shots. However, some of the footage (for example a rocket launch) is unlikely to have been filmed by members of the crew, which suggests that parts of the film are made from found-footage. 

Reggio associates hills and airplanes, subways and clouds, rockets and pedestrians. In places, the associations are more deliberate: at one point the image of sausages being churned out of a factory machine is followed by time-lapse footage of people on escalators, thus comparing modernity to machine. 

Extra info on 'Koyaanisqatsi'

Abstract Form

Abstract Form - Example: Ballet Mécanique (d. Fernand Léger 1924)

Alternatively, abstract form does not work to associate images with ideas that we ourselves conclude. Instead, a film may be based entirely around the contrasts and comparisons of shape, colour, size or movement in images or an image. An abstract film will be shot and edited entirely according to its pictorial qualities.

The first example, 'Railroad Turnbridge' is a classic example of this type of film. Richard Serra places a camera in the middle of a railroad turnbridge and watches the contrast of the geometrical shapes of the bridge in comparison to the sweeping landscapes surrounding it. 

Link to 'Railroad Turnbridge' - Richard Serra 1976

This example, 'Ballet Mécanique' is an early example of French experimental film. The film systematically compares the functions of the human body to machines and repetitive mechanical movements. A woman on a swing is contrasted with the backwards and forwards movement of a pendulum. The shapes of a hat and a shoe are compared in a single shot. Close-ups of mechanical pieces are shown as similar to the movements of a mouth, eyes and legs. Though we understand the theme being made, the film is not entirely forcing it. The difference with abstract form is that the film pays very close attention to the shots, images and placement of objects within that image. 

Now that I have researched some types of experimental filmmaking, I can now develop on these ideas and begin to seek examples of experimental texts and writings and theories about them.