Response to (nostalgia)

I found (nostalgia) to be very engaging. It actively seeks to prevent the viewer from tuning out and in throughout it the way that Wavelength did. I did not realize that he was describing the next photograph until he reached the photo of the smoke rings. Before I figured it out I just watched the film like I would a video installation in an art museum. In the film Hollis Frampton places his old photographs on a hot plate and burns them, Frampton is using his new technology to record the destruction of the works from his older technology. It wasn't until I started to get bored watching the burn pattern form on the photos that I realized he was not describing the image I was watching. Once I clued in that Frampton was discussing the next photo the film became more interesting. The twist was simple and still managed to make the film much more engaging.

Response to "Fuses"

Honestly, after viewing Barbara Rubin's Christmas on Earth earlier in class, I found Fuses to be relatively tame. That may just be a matter of personal taste, however, or the fact that I would have been much more comfortable with a big head's up before viewing gay sex in class... I certainly felt that there was a stylistic similarity between Schneeman and Brakhage. I am starting to notice how big a role color plays in these avant-garde films. Putting color filters over the projections or tinting the film stock seems to be a common style principle following many of the films we've watched in class. I think that because I grew up in a post-feminism society that I did not see a lot of underlying feminism in Schneeman's film. I read a little of the article about her and how she felt about the masculinity of history, but I feel that Fuses could have been directed by a man and would not be terribly different. I think it is an interesting point that nudity in art has been customary for the majority of art's history and yet when these avant-garde films like Fuses brought the male and female nudes together in the act of sex it was demonized and considered vulgar, even though it is an entirely natural act and could be viewed as an obvious progression of art.



ANSWERS TO SITNEY'S "STRUCTURAL FILM"

2. Structural films did not attempt to create a first-person protagonist to hinge an abstract narrative on the film, the technical funtion of the camera being on set off the opening of the film. Four Characteristics are Fixed Camera, loop-printing, re-photography, Flicker effect
3. Structural film sought to be cinema of the mind not the eye.
4. Warhol was the precursor because of his tendency to turn the camera on and then leave it alone.
5.