580 likes | 782 Views
Film History and Criticism. Week 8 March 2 nd The Post-War Avant-garde and Independent Cinema. Week 8 February 28 th The Post-War Avant-garde.
E N D
Film History and Criticism Week 8March 2ndThe Post-War Avant-garde and Independent Cinema.
Week 8 February 28thThe Post-War Avant-garde • The Post-War Avant-garde and Independent Cinema.Readings: Thompson & Bordwell Chapter 21 Documentary and Experimental Cinema in the Postwar Era 1945-Mid 1960’s pp 478-507. Maya Deren p 490 • Hayward, Key ConceptsFeminist film theory pp97-116; • Supplementary Reading: Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, (Braudy and
Counter culture Independent film makers c.w. more commercial interests of Hollywood producers. • Documentary film making • Avant-garde personal expression aided by the introduction of cheaper portable 8mm 16mm cameras and projection equipment.
NYC Avant-Garde 1947-68 • Important figure impresario of the NYC Avant-garde (or neo-avant-garde) Jonas Mekas (Film makers Cooperative founder and cofounder of anthology film archives) Film Culture magazine and writing for the Village Voice. • Bruce Connor (A Movie 1958) • Jack Smith (Flaming Creatures (1963)
Kenneth Anger Fireworks (1947) Scorpio Rising (1964)
Last Year at Marienbad (1961); Alain Renais Alain Robbe-Grillet Le nouveau roman
Stan Brakhage1933 - 2003 “Brahkage is one of the four or five most authentic film artists working in cinema anywhere, and perhaps the most original film maker in America today” (Mekas, J 1961 Village Voice column) qu. Wexman p341 Dog Star Man (1961-64) Mothlight (1963)
“OF NECESSITY I BECOME INSTRUMENT FOR THE PASSAGE OF INNER VISION, THRU ALL MY SENSIBILITIES, INTO ITS EXTERNAL FORM. My most active part in this process is to increase all my sensibilities (so that all films arise out of some total area of being or full life) AND, at the given moment of possible creation to act only out of necessity. In other words, I am principally concerned with revelation.” -letter to P Adams Sitney, (1963)
Agnes Varda Cleo from 5-7 (1961)
Andy Warhol 1928- 1987 Sleep (1963) 6h Empire (1964) 8h The Factory productions with Paul Morrissey Chelsea Girls (1966) Lonesome Cowboys (1968)
Chelsea Girls (1966) “I love to be bored”“In the future everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes”
Wavelength (1967) Michael Snow 45 minute slow zoom to a photograph of waves attached To the wall of his loft apartment/studio in NYC
Structuralist film (P. Adams Sitney “The film insists on its shape andwhat content it has is minimal and subsidiary to its outline”Other early Structuralist Films:Hollis Frampton (Zorns Lemma 1970)Ernie Gehr (Serene Velocity 1970)George Landow Remedial Reading Comprehension(1970)
Hollis Frampton’s 1970 Zorns lemma Zorns Lemma
Yvonne Rainer. Lives of Performers (1971) Film about a woman who… (1974) The man who envied women (1985) Privilege (1990) Ref. NSCAD Press Book 1974