Sitney, “Ritual and Nature”
1. What are some characteristics of the American psychodrama in the 1940s?
Dream, ritual, dance, and sexual metaphor. As well as, a visionary experience, a potent landscape, and no interaction with other characters.
2. What does Sitney mean by an “imagist” structure replacing narrative structure in Choreography for the Camera?
The isolating of a single gesture as a complete film form. The “imagist” structure represents a progressive stage of inflation.
3. According to Sitney, Ritual in Transfigured Time represents a transition between the psychodrama and what kind of film?
Architectonic film of the early sixties.
4. Respond briefly to Sitney’s reading of Ritual in Transfigured Time (27-28); Is his interpretation compatible with your experience of the film?
I feel that this interpretation is compatible with my experience. I had little prior knowledge of which Greek gods and mythic figures were being represented in the film and I feel that Sitney’s interpretation is very close to my own experience of viewing the film, yet he was able to better vocalize what was occurring and who the specific characters of the film were, which I would not have been able to do personally.
Sitney, “The Magus”
5. Paraphrase the paragraph on p. 90 that begins “The filmic dream constituted…” in your own words.
For most of the avant-garde films of the 40’s, including Anger’s and Deren’s, treated the screen as a dream state. This made it possible for the camera to stand in as the subject of the film, making the camera and the subject interchangeable. The perception of the camera could be just as fluid and subject to abrupt change as the objects in a dream would be. Having the camera film this dream state made the film self-reflexive of the filmmaking process. These films could be entirely focused on the inner feelings and conflicts of the subject because the filmmaker does not put them in a concrete world but rather a world in which the camera can follow leads or go off on tangents in order to understand the overall theme of the film.
6. According to Sitney, what is the ultimate result at the end of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome?
The resolution of the Magus’ several aspects into a unified, redeemed man, or man made god.
Scott MacDonald, “Cinema 16: Introduction”
7. What were some general tendencies in the programming at Cinema 16, and how were films arranged within individual programs?
Individual personal expression and variety. Films were written down on index cards and the line up would be selected by shuffling around the cards.
8. What kinds of venues rented Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks?
Small theaters or membership clubs like Cinema 16, venues that would not bother to submit films to the Censorship Boards.
9. What impact did Cinema 16 have on New York City film culture?
Cinema 16 was wildly popular and spread throughout the city, with local theaters showing premieres and showcases all over the town. NYC began following the European trend of cinema clubs and film societies.
Hans Richter, “A History of the Avantgarde”
10. What conditions in Europe made the avant-garde film movement possible after World War I?
Political and economic unrest, opposition against conventional film routine, film clubs, and modern art’s popularity in Europe.
11. If the goal of Impressionist art is “Nature Interpreted by Temperament,” what are the goals of abstract art?
Expression of universal feelings.
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