Catching Up from Last Week

Catching up from last week: Christie Milliken, "The Pixel Visions of Sadie Benning"


1. Sadie Benning's work reflects the angry, confrontational, disaffected-youth sensibility which all help to shape the Riot Grrl subculture. Her work also mixes in-your-face "dyketactics," familiar to Riot Grrl culture, as well as vulnerable child-like self-imaging, which is not typical of this culture. The low-tech, go out and shoot, style of Benning's work is similar to the Punk scene. Yet, the fact that her work has been somewhat accepted by academic institutions means that her work is going against the punk subcultures and what they stand for.

2.Sadie Benning's work is considered "essay" because of the highly personal nature of her films, which take confessional, autobiographical tones much like a diary. However, she does not limit herself to only making autobiographical films and her incorporation of fictional aspects to her stories make them more universal.

Keller and Ward, "Matthew Barney and the Paradox of the Neo-Avant-Garde Blockbuster"

3. In the 1960's the definition of "sculpture" broadened to incompass many seemingly unrelated disciplines such as media-based works, performance, and architecture. In Barney's case the fact that his work takes up a 3D space in a gallery and can be experienced from all angles is why he can define his work as sculpture.

4. Minimalist sculpture is post-modernist because it tries to eliminate the hand of the artist. The pieces seem like that could be recreated without that artist present. Minimalist sculpture does not have a coherent theme or meaning behind it and therefore does not leave emotional clues to imprint on the viewer. The viewer can not study the sculpture and infer anything about the artist or how the piece was made, they can only draw on how viewing this art makes them feel personally.

5. They would use their own bodies as sculpture, testing the functionality of the human body as an object or as a sculpture.

5 (again). Cremaster was different from other performance work of the time because it did not seem to have any purpose or message. It was considered a blockbuster because it followed a typical Hollywood blockbuster's model of a high budget, with aggressive press and marketing campaigns to ensure a large monetary gain and high success of the performance.

6. "Mode of film practice" refer to historical institutions which group styles of film from distribution, production, to exhibition. Defining modes as these institutions, practices, and concepts create a context for stylistic norms of certain types of films. Examples of this would be Hollywood narrative, and French New Wave.

7. Gallery films are sold, traded, and exhibited as unique, individual works by the artist and success is determined by fame and the rarity of the film. Gallery films are treated as rare commodities to be preserved, much like paintings. Experimental films on the other hand are more like other types of film made to be viewed in a theater, except that experimental films use very different methods of distribution and often have significantly smaller budgets.

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.

Reading Response Feb. 22- 11:45 is still before noon...

Answers only, questions can be found on Prof. Kreul's blog...

1. The Charles Theater, Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theater, The Thalia, The New Yorker, The Bleecker Street Cinema. The Charles Theater would exhibit work from local artists in the lobby, throw jazz concerts, special Ukrainian-language double features, and programming silent films during the day.

2. Ron Rice, Jack Smith, and Ken Jacobs. The films were characterized by spontaneous antics and manic despair while shocking audiences.

3. New York was cleaning up for the 1964 World’s Fair by shutting down beat hangouts. Scorpio Rising by Kenneth Anger.

4. Warhol and Tavel made a bare-essentials remake of “A Clockwork Orange.” Edie Sedgewick stole the film with her trance-like performance.

5. Underground films began being shown in mainstream theaters in New York and LA. Andy Warhol’s film “Chelsea Girl’s” was the first underground to cross over to mainstream. The films were not well received by mainstream NY critics.

6. Getz would create compilations of underground films and send them out to cities all across America so that they received more exposure. Most of the films were shown in midnight screenings in what would later be known as ‘The Underground Cinema 12’.

7. Warhol’s post-67 films had much more taboo subject matter than his earlier works. He would show subjects like drug and sex in a very detailed manner. Stylistically, however, Warhol did not change too drastically after 1967.

Reading Response Two: Due February 1 at Noon

Sitney, “The Lyrical Film”

1. While Brakhage’s Reflections on Black is a trance film, why does Sitney argue that it anticipates the lyrical film?
Because the camera is from the characters POV. The sequences are the visions of a blind man, but they are not in a dreamstate.
2. What are the key characteristics of the lyrical film (the first example of which was Anticipation of the Night).
Puts the camera in the first person as the protagonist, showing little more than the cameramans hands and shadow.
3. Which filmmaker was highly influential on Brakhage’s move to lyrical film in terms of film style, and why?
Joseph Cornell. He asked Brakhage to make two films for him which had no skeletal drama and no characters.
4. What does Sitney mean by "hard" and "soft" montage? What examples of each does he give from Anticipation of the Night? {Tricky question; read the entire passage very carefully.]
"Hard" montage is clashing images that are very noticeable, "soft" montage is being given a preview of the future images beforehand.
5. What are the characteristics of vision according to Brakhage’s revival of the Romantic dialectics of sight and imagination? [I’m not asking here about film style, I’m asking about Brakhage’s views about vision.]
People are so accustomed to their sight that they don't appreciate it. He wanted to see with "untutored" eyes like those of an infant, which are required to experience everything the eye sees before coming to a conclusion about it.

Sitney, “Major Mythopoeia”

6. Why does Sitney argue, “It was Brakhage, of all the major American avant-garde filmmakers, who first embraced the formal directives and verbal aesthetics of Abstract Expressionism.”
Use of paint and scratching on celluloid to reflect upon the process of filmmaking.
7. What archetypes are significant motifs in Dog Star Man, and which writers in what movement are associated with these four states of existence?
Innocence, Experience, Rationalism, and Imagination. Associated with Blake.

Sitney, "The Potted Psalm"
[This is an addition to the syllabus. After reading the introductory paragraphs, focus on the discussions of The Cage and Entr'acte (p. 47-54 and The Lead Shoes (p. 68-70).]

8. According to Sitney, what stylistic techniques are used to mark perspective and subjectivity in The Cage, and why is this an important development in the American avant-garde film?
He "used every trick in the book and a few that weren't", such as anamorphic lenses, reverse motion, and always played with perspective which gave rise to highly subjectivist filming.
9. For Sitney, what are the key similarities and differences between Entr'acte and The Cage?
Similarities: camera tricks, comical violence, direct intercutting. Difference: Entr'acte was suppose to be satire and much more comical than The Cage.
10. How does Peterson synthesize the seemingly incongruent suggestions of his Workshop 20 students into The Lead Shoes?
He incorporated everyone's incongruent suggestions in the premise of the film.
11. Compare your response to The Lead Shoes with the descriptions by Sitney and Parker Tyler.

We definitely don't see eye to eye on The Lead Shoes.

Reaction to The Lead Shoes

Personally, I did not enjoy either of the Sidney Peterson films we watched in class. During The Lead Shoes I found myself thinking back on the character in The Cage, jealously wishing I would lose my eyes. I felt that the film was too long and that it was not a deliberate choice to create deeper meaning. Perhaps the "lead shoes" was merely referring to the films pacing. I did notice a technical effect used in other avant-garde films shown in class. Examples of reversing the film (though I'm not sure what this would technically be called) like when the woman uncovers the diver in the sand or when she leaps back onto the window ledge, goes inside and puts her shoes on. I felt that there were several incongruous components to this film, the woman and the diver, the girl playing hopscotch, and the strange nondiegetic sound/music. I hesitate to call the instrumentals and voiceover "music" because it was simply grating to the ears. I kept thinking of the sequence of the woman playing hopscotch because it was used for the main titles and shown several times throughout the film, yet I never determined any kind of meaning for it being included. By the end of the film I had decided that the Diver was the basis for the title The Lead Shoes even though the woman seemed to be the primary character of the film. This film showed an avant-garde style that manages to have a narrative to the film, yet still prevent the viewer from making any sense out of it.

Answers to Reading one Jan. 25, 2010

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.