Ray Privett & James Kreul, “A Cinema of Possibilities: Brian Frye Interview”

--How does Frye relate his work (including his film programming) to the following movements / concepts / genres:

Performance (and performance art)
Minimalism
Fluxus

Performance (performance art) like masturbation for the camera, go onstage and masturbate for the audience- a joke you do not have to do anything yet in front of the camera it is a performance

Minimalism - not trying to assert oneself over the film but tease out the paradox - theology for the atheist

Fluxus- concepts of exploring the medium of film itself and film as perception.

likes to view programming as a whole not just random assortment of films

--How does Frye respond to the question about what he “adds” to films such as Anatomy of Melancholy?

Frye helps films do what they are supposed to do, presents them in a way to express themselves


Scott MacDonald, “Maintenance”

--What are some of the reasons for rental income growth at Canyon Cinema between 1980 and 2003? How did Canyon distinguish itself from the Filmmakers Cooperative and the Museum of Modern Art?
Interest in American avant garde in acedemia
Up to date video reviews
Distinguished itself by having "surprises" like articles from Burroughs, and artistic covers

--What problems and controversies did video distribution cause for Canyon in the 1990s? To what degree were the sides of the debate related to the age of the filmmakers on each side? Based upon the interview with Dominic Angerame at the end of the chapter, what was his position on the video debate?

Controversies over whether video should be apart of their distribution, the older favored film, the younger more open to new technology such as video. Angerame position was that the video market was to broad and they already had a means of distribution.


--What were the advantages and disadvantages to funding from the National Endowment from the Arts? What controversies developed related to the publication of Canyon Cinema Catalog #5?

NEA advantage funding, disadvantage controlling content, eliminating anything it deemed as pornography
Ads in the back, lucasfilms

Christie Milliken, "The Pixel Visions of Sadie Benning"

1. How is Sadie Benning's work related to general trends and characteristics in Riot Grrl subculture? How is Riot Grrl subculture similar to and different from punk subculture?

Riot grrl movement was like the punks in that they were untrained musicians using outdated or low tech equipment, but the riot grrls focused on the female, grrl power. Bennings use of the pixle vision and untrained stlye reflects this movement.

2. Why does Milliken refer to Benning's work as visual essays? What are the advantages of viewing the work in relation to this genre? What is meant by "radical feminist essayistic" form?
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. What has changed in the gallery art world that allows Barney to describe his work as “sculpture”? In other words, how has the definition of sculpture changed since the 1960s, and why?
In the 1960's the definition of "sculpture" broadened to incompass many seemingly unrelated disciplines such as media-based works, performance, and architecture.

4. Tricky but important question: Why was minimalist sculpture seen as a reaction against the “modernist hymns to the purity and specificity of aesthetic experience”? In other words: Why do they say that minimalist sculpture is post-modernist?
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. It emphasized the concept of the experience a viewer has while interacting with a particular work of art.

5. Describe the role of the body in the works of Vito Acconci and Chris Burden. You may wish to consult the following links to supplement the descriptions in the readings:


5. In the opinion of the authors, what are the key differences between performance art of the 1960s/1970s and Barney’s Cremaster cycle? What do they mean by the term "blockbuster" in relation to the gallery art world?

Barney's work pushed the human body to extremes, the 60's 70's did not torture the artist. Blockbuster refers to big budget and is unusual

Walley, "Modes of Film Practice in the Avant-Garde"

6. What is meant by “mode of film practice”? Give two well known examples of non-experimental modes of film practice. Why does Walley argue that the concept of the mode of film practice can help distinguish between the experimental film and gallery art worlds?

A mode of film practice is a specific style within avant garde, post modernism, classic hollywood are examples of non experimental film

7. What are some of the key differences between the experimental and gallery art worlds in terms of production and distribution?

Experimental films are more accessible and have more support than gallery. Universities, festivals and the web are ways people can be exposed and discover avant garde films. Gallery art is more exclusive and has less financial support

tribulation 99 and punk cinema

First, respond to Tribulation 99 in relation to Zryd's description of student responses in his own classes.

Tribulation 99
Although the images are rapidly cut and the film extremely complex, the ironic and political overtones were evident. Similar to Zryds' student responses at times the film is overwhelming and it is easy to zone out and lose touch with what is fiction and what is reality. Overall I believe that is part of the success of the film, it parodies our multi-media consumer driven culture. Our lives have become an onslaught of sound bites, misinformation and excess media driven consumerism in which the lines are constantly blurred and misconstrued.


Michael Zryd, “Found Footage Film as Discursive Metahistory: Craig Baldwin’s Tribulation 99”

1. Explain Paul Arthur's distinction between the "realist" use of found footage and the "figurative" use of found footage. Which becomes important in Tribulation 99 and why?

The "realist" use of found footage is essentially using the footage to back up or provide evidence for what the narrator is saying. The images follow the sound track. "Figurative" use is more common and is essentially the re-contextualization of footage by montage to create a new meaning. In Tribulation 99, this figurative use of footage creates an ideological discourse on US history pertaining to our handling of SA.


Marc Masters, “The Offenders: No Wave Cinema”

2. Name at least three similarities between the punk music scene and the punk/no-wave filmmaking scene, in terms of technology, style, and community.
The punk scene in both music and film, was a rejection to the convention and confines of the structural artist or formal artist. They used people that were friends to form a band or make a film, not based on talent but desire. The instruments and film equip. all low budget. The style was raw, the music was angry and aggressive most of the time they couldn't sing or play but the energy and anarchy made up for lack of talent. The films also had an aversion to conventional, just make the damn film...f*$#@r!

William Wees, “Peggy’s Playhouse: Contesting the Modernist Paradigm”

3. According to Wees, what are the 5 characteristics of the modernist paradigm dominating North American avant-garde filmmaking before the 1980s?

Characteristics include the concept of autonomy of art, meduim specificity, “high art” over popular culture, and the imperative to simultaneously reflect universality and individual sensibility through innovative and unique works

4. Given the 5 characteristics above, how does Awhesh reject or question each of them (give examples from throughout the article).

She rejects the conventions of narrative structure by using non-professionals in everyday living conditions with Super 8.

5. What does Ahwesh mean by rejecting the “aesthetics of mastery” and how is this related to punk filmmaking


6. Why does Wees argue that The Color of Love subverts conventional wisdom about mainstream pornography?

mainstream pornography the penis rules, In the Color of Love, the male is not important, the penis is flacid, male satisfaction is irrelevant

7. In what ways does Awhesh transform images from Tomb Raider in She Puppet?

In She Puppet, the Lara Croft character is not on an action adventure. Instead variations and repetitions of the character’s movements, along with dream-like environments and ambiguous happenings where the avatar would normally be interacting familiarly with the surroundings.

Fuses

I definitely see the homage or reaction to Brakhage in this film. Even though Brakhage seems to be regarded very highly in this film movement, I just do not care for his work. Not that I do not respect it, just do not enjoy watching it. So for the same reasons I do not really care for this one either. I did enjoy Christmas on Earth, I almost want to find some old porn footage, use multiple projector and colored gels and .....now we have art!.. just kidding...sort of.

Nostalgia

As I think I mentioned in class I thought the play on memory by use of the description not aligning with the image interesting. Memory is a mental construction that is usually not entirely accurate, in contrast a photograph is unbiased and has no emotional quality into itself but can trigger memories of time past. Although I can watch embers burn at a campfire for hours, I do not feel the same way about watching it on the screen. Possible because it is leaving out the other sensory inputs that create the experience.

Sitney - Structural Film

Sitney, “Structural Film”

2. How is structural film different from the tradition of Deren/Brakhage/Anger, and what are its four typical characteristics?

Structural film differs in that it is “cinema of the mind, rather than the eye” Fixed camera, looped film, flicker and rephotography

3. If Brakhage’s cinema emphasized metaphors of perception, vision, and body movement, what is the central metaphor of structural film? Hint: It fits into Sitney’s central argument about the American avant-garde that we have discussed previously in class.

The metaphor of consciousness, the mind is the central metaphor

4. Why does Sitney argue that Andy Warhol is the major precursor to the structural film?

Warhols films attempted to outlast viewers attention, staring at the same thing for hours, enduring sameness emptiness, how long before your mind begins to wander. Essentially Warhols films also attempted to address the inner workings of the mind, like structural film

5. The trickiest part of Sitney’s chapter is to understand the similarities and differences between Warhol and the structural filmmakers. He argues that Warhol in a sense is anti-Romantic and stands in opposition to the visionary tradition represented by psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical films. But for Sitney’s central argument to make sense, he needs to place structural film within the tradition of psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical films. Trace the steps in this argument by following the following questions:

a. Why does Sitney call Warhol anti-Romantic? Sets up the camera and walks away, indifferent to direction lighting photography associated with the others.

b. Why does Sitney argue that spiritually the distance between Warhol and structural filmmakers such as Michael Snow or Ernie Gehr cannot be reconciled?

Warhols fixed camera gaze at sameness attempts to outlast perception and force viewer to make interesting, Snow and Gehr are more contemplative, like purposeful meditation on ontology

c. What is meant by the phrase “conscious ontology of the viewing experience”? How does this relate to Warhol’s films? How does this relate to structural films?

(I love how these film theory writers enjoy being pedantic ….sometimes I wonder if they aren’t trying to outdo each other)

Purposely examining the nature of reality, existence…metacognition… as it relates to how the eye perceives and the mind interprets that information. For Warhol, as earlier stated, it is about emptiness…how long can the mind remain fixed on sameness before it begins creating variations or simply wanders. Structural films are trying to induce an alternate state of consciousness to some means. Simply Warhol achieved this by duration no intention to guide the mind, now they are using this technique to manipulate your mind

d. Why does Sitney argue that structural film is related to the psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical tradition, and in fact responds to Warhol’s attack on that tradition by using Warhol’s own tactics? I think I have already answered this… Warhols reactions to the others film forms was to not control what happens in front of the camera, by not attempting to use metaphor to try and represent what we think our minds reality is, but simply allowing the mind to do this on it’s own. Using these techniques the structure filmmakers are trying to induce specific state of perceived reality not with representation but more like meditation.

6. What metaphor is crucial to Sitney’s and Annette Michelson’s interpretation of Michael Snow’s Wavelength? Consciousness.

Chelsea Girls, Vinyl....Warhol

I know I am supposed to talk about Chelsea Girls, and I will but I enjoyed Vinyl much more. Chelsea Girls, I think it would have been more impressive with the random switching of sound from screen to screen, than what I saw as a static version... meaning only the screen with the pope and sweat guy received my attention, I do not even know what happened in the other. Of course I was aware that Nico was crying, but it had little effect on the popes tyrant monologue, for me anyway. Vinyl on the other hand, I quite enjoyed, Edie sitting there while everyone else was performing Tavel version, A Clockwork Orange was brilliant. I loved the long take, showing the progression away from sobriety, I think it actually improved with the spiral into chaos, instead of the terrible acting. I like the strange camera angle, showing and not showing he different planes of action. I can not entirely explain why I just liked it more than most we have seen thus far.

underground

1. What were some of the venues associated with the early underground film movement in New York City? What were some of the unique characteristics of the Charles Theater and its programming?

Cinema 16, Fashion Industries Auditorium, Living Theater, the Charles Theater, Thalia, New Yorker, the Bleeker Street Cinema
The Charles Theater had a diverse venue, from musicals to jazz shows to Italian neorealist dramas, cheap B movies and even Orson Welles's. Local art adorned the theater and it catered itself to the local art scene. Discussions would about film would erupt during the intermissions.


2. Which filmmakers did Jonas Mekas associate with the “Baudelairean Cinema”? Why did Mekas use that term, and what were the distinguishing characteristics of the films?

Artist such as Jack Smith, Ron Rice and Ken Jacobs were associated with the bauderlairean cinema, coined from the writer Baudelaire these films contained images of violence and sex and anything else considered taboo.


3. Why did underground films run into legal trouble in New York City in 1964? What film encountered legal problems in Los Angeles almost on the same day as Mekas’s second arrest in New York City?

That damned Worlds Fair -didn’t China just do something similar? Scorpio’s Rising
4. What were some of the defining characteristics of Andy Warhol’s collaboration with Ronald Tavel? What were some of the unique characteristics of Vinyl? How does Edie Sedgewick end up "stealing" the scene in Vinyl?
Tavel rewrote Clockwork Orange, stripped it down to its basic elements, and helped document Warhols factory -Vinyl was shot with one stationary camera. Sedgewick just sat on a truck and flicked her cigarette, but her eyes were so intense that they stole scene

5. In what ways did the underground film begin to "crossover" into the mainstream in 1965-1966? What films and venues were associated with the crossover? How were the films received by the mainstream New York press?
After Warhol's series, "The Chelsea Girls" was released, it gained popularity, partly due to an impressive review in "Newsweek," gave legitamacy to the film . It was the first underground film to screen at a major theater. Then the film spread throughout other major theaters around the country.


6. Why was John Getz an important figure in the crossover of the underground?

Midnight screenings of underground films at a theater owned by his uncle. called the " The Underground Cinema 12". This gave underground film more exposure then ever before.


7. How do Hoberman and Rosenbaum characterize Warhol’s post-1967 films?

He never again created anything that caused much of a buzz, but he did remain as a great influence over the sexual content in experimental films of the following era.

Fluxus

Yoko Ono - One

Although not quite as much of an assault to my optics as some of others, this film and all of the Fluxus films, in my humble opinion, take minimalism a little far. Which to answer the next question, is why the are not listed in the index of visionary film and do not fit the model of American avant garde according to Sitney. The films do not attempt to portray the mind but only explore the medium of film itself.

Responses- Smith and Warhol

Mary Jordan, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

3. Chapter 4. What are some of the reasons suggested for Smith’s obsession with Maria Montez? What are some of your responses to the clips from the Montez films (especially Cobra Woman)?

Maria Montez, for Smith, was the epitome of a diva, she was the star of Technicolor and brought back pleasant memories of watching films as a child. She was exotic and melodramatic.

4. Chapter 5. What were some attributes of the New York art community in the 1960s, and what was the relationship between the economics of the time and the materials that Smith incorporated in to his work and films? [How could Smith survive and make art if he was so poor in the city so big they named it twice?]

In the 60’s the NY artist were a close group, so close in fact they were considered akin to an ethnic group all their own. Smith dumpster dove, so to speak, to make his props and costumes, left over fabric, mannequins and whatever else he could find. Although Smith was poor, NY was not so expensive back in the day.

5. Chapter 6. What problems emerged after the obscenity charges against Flaming Creatures in the relationship between Jack Smith and Jonas Mekas? What metaphor emerged from the conflict between Smith and Mekas?

Smith felt the Mekas used his work for profit, thus ruining the purity of art. By taking his film to various shows and profiting, Mekas was considered a Lobster, a metaphor for a scavenger, bottom feeder.

6. Chapter 7. What is John Zorn’s argument about Normal Love? How does his argument relate to some of the changes in the New York art world in the 1960s that we discussed in class? What are some arguments made about the influence of Jack Smith on other filmmakers (including Warhol)?

Zorn argues that the real art was the making of the film not the film itself. During this time in NY, there was a reaction to commercialism. Artist exploited commercial media in protest of conformity and materialism. Smith is said to have influenced many other artist that saw his films. Fellini used his imagery, Warhol copied style and he used many of the same actors that Smith did. The Factory was even reminiscent of Smiths earlier apartment film shooting.

7. Chapter 9 and 10: In what ways did Jack Smith become “uncommercial film personified”? What is meant by the slogan, “no more masterpieces” and how did Smith resist commodification (or the production of art products)?
Smith kept it real, did not sell out, his vision of the world was that art should be free and accessible. After Flaming Creatures, Smith never made another “masterpiece” in other words did not make another complete film. Later showings of his work would be edited during projection so that you would have to be there to experience it. In this way his work could never be bought and sold as a commodity.


Callie Angell, “Andy Warhol, Filmmaker”

[I have emailed part one of this article to the class, it is not on reserve.]

8. How does Angell characterize the first major period of Warhol’s filmmaking career? What are some of the films from this period, and what formal qualities did they share? What are some significant differences between Sleep and Empire?

The films were long, minimal and silent. Sleep, Kiss, Haircut, Blow Job, Eat, Empire, and Henry Geldzahler. Sleep was shot from multiple angles, different shot sizes and edits. Empire was a continuous shot without movement.

9. What role did the Screen Tests play in the routines at the Factory and in Warhol’s filmmaking?
Screen tests shot at the Factory, documented life there. Capturing and framing the people and visitors of the factory, like a series of still photographs, these tests informed Warhol’s production technique.

10. How does Angell characterize the first period of sound films in Warhol’s filmmaking career? Who was Warhol’s key collaborator for the early sound films? What are some of the films from this period and what formal properties did they share?

Ronald Travel was his main collaborator. His films had the quality of stage productions of life as it occurs. Vinyl, Poor Little Rich Girl, Restaurant, and Afternoon are some of the films.

Answers 3

Sitney, “Apocalypses and Picaresques”

2. Why does Sitney argue that synechdoche plays a major role in Christopher Maclaine’s The End, and how does the film anticipate later achievements by Brakhage and the mythopoeic form?
In the film The End, Maclaine uses the film’s apocalyptic message as a metaphor, alluding to the larger “end” of the cinematic movement. The use of mixed film stock, metaphor and doom/redemption as well as direct and indirect address leads to later forms expressed by Brakhage and the mythopoetic film.

3. What are some similarities and differences between the apocalyptic visions of Christopher Maclaine and Bruce Conner?
Both show montages of images of destruction, mushroom clouds…. but Conner juxtaposition take a more comedic tone contrasting images that are terrible and ridiculous.

4. Why are the films of Ron Rice (The Flower Thief) and Robert Nelson (The Great Blondino) examples of Beat sensibility and what Sitney calls the picaresque form?
Both of these films use irony of the image to convey the larger irony of life itself.


Bruce Jenkins, “Fluxfilms in Three False Starts.”

5. How and why were the “anti-art” Fluxfilms reactions against the avant-garde films of Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger. [Hint: Think about Fluxus in relation to earlier anti-art such as Dada, and Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain."]
These films sought to attack the pretentiousness of the avant garde by using the techniques of direct film manipulation, image montage or lack of image such as Zen to react and in a way reject the previous film paradigm

6. What does Jenkins mean by the democratization of production in the Fluxfilms?
He means the artist worked on each other’s films making them less personal but conveying.

7. The "zen" film is nothing but clear leader, showing nothing but a few scratches and particles the viewer has nothing to see, causing the mind to create its own story, it also reminds me of John Cage and 4:33

Dog Star Man: prelude

The images reminded me of some sort of primordial beginning. The solar shots, painted film stock and earth images combined and collided giving you the sense of the early stages of life. The hadean period moving towards the paleolithic and cambrian, the elements, earth, water, wind, fire all represented with color and images. Like synthesia, the colors have a sound of their own.

Questions 2

1. While Brakhage’s Reflections on Black is a trance film, why does Sitney argue that it anticipates the lyrical film?

In reflections on black, Brakhage begins to explore the idea of the camera being the eyes of the filmmaker. Not so much as in a dream like in trance film but how the filmmaker perceives the world. In Reflections on Black, the film imagines how a blind man “sees” the world. Brakhage uses the film itself to convey the blind mans “vision”, by altering exposure, intercutting and scratching on the film itself.

2. What are the key characteristics of the lyrical film (the first example of which was Anticipation of the Night).

The filmmaker is the protagonist of the film. Movement instead of a hero fills the screen, emulates a person looking. Superimposition, multiple perspectives and acknowledging the screen and the film media itself is characteristic of the lyrical film.

3. Which filmmaker was highly influential on Brakhage’s move to lyrical film in terms of film style, and why?

Joseph Cornell, wanted Brakhage to film the Third Ave. El before it was destroyed. Here he had to use rhythmic editing and camera movement to convey the experience of vision with no actor or dramatic structure.

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.]

Brakhage uses “hard” montage like the opening of Anticipation of the Night, colliding night and day shots, inversion and repetition to counterpoint the “soft” montage of images fusing shadows and blending scenes like the shadow of the rose in the bowl merging with the shadow of the protaganist.

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.]
Vision according to Brakhage, is limited by our perception and language of what we have been taught to see. Most of what we see is ignored because our brain filters out what we perceive as unimportant information. By altering the lens, speed and film stock Brakhage attempt to show what the eye really sees remove from what we have been taught to see.

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.”

By scratching and painting on the film itself along with flying cameras and fast cutting Brakhage brought attention to the media itself staying away from structure and myth and focusing on the film itself as a form of expression like the artist that explored the media of paint and canvas instead of representations.

7. What archetypes are significant motifs in Dog Star Man, and which writers in what movement are associated with these four states of existence?

Birth of consciousness, innocence – Ezra Pound, Noh drama

Experience, cycle of seasons, sexual disillusionment – William Blake, Northrope Frye

Ulro, hell of rationalization, self-absorption, domination of nature- Robert Kelly

Eden, redemption – Mallarme and Stevens


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 all camera times, slow, fast, normal, reverse, superimposition and stop motion, distorted lens. These radical techniques used as metaphors for the liberated eye, this paves the way for future refinements in cinematic perspective

9. For Sitney, what are the key similarities and differences between Entr'acte and The Cage?

Similarities include use of camera tricks and the chase sequence. The films differ since Entr'acte was more focused on comedy. The Cage had a more aesthetic focus

10. How does Peterson synthesize the seemingly incongruent suggestions of his Workshop 20 students into The Lead Shoes?

The intertwining of ballads, synthesis of ideas

11. Compare your response to The Lead Shoes with the descriptions by Sitney and Parker Tyler.

Unlike Parker and Sitney I did not about the combining of the ballads, but I had a sense of a story, mainly because of the soundtrack.

Lead Shoes-Sidney Peterson

There were several interesting approaches to film making in both of Peterson's films The Cage and Lead Shoes. In Lead Shoes, the use of a distorted lens, shallow space and time manipulation created a disorienting and ungrounded effect. There are relatively little spacial clues, so as we see the woman in the room and with the diver on the beach dissolving to a girl playing hopscotch and back again there is no sense of where you are. Sidney seems quite fond of reversing time and playing with that effect, both The Cage and Lead Shoes are cyclic films rather than linear. The editing created tension even if you are not sure why. In the scene where the man sees the bread, the bone, dog, bone then the man devouring the blood soaked bread, they are straight cut with no intercutting. Knowing that these films are workshop projects there strength comes from the synthesis and intertwining of ideas. The thing that stood out the most for me in Lead Shoes was the soundtrack. In this film more that any other we have seen, sound played a part in providing narrative information. I gathered that Edward was the man in the diving suit, the words spoken, although not always clear, gave me the impression that this was some sort of tragic love story, and the old blues music just seemed to fit. I believe this influenced my interpretation of the images shown.The combination of the different sounds at times was quite eerie. As a surrealist film the mise en scene, cinematography and sound played with and against each other, altering your expectations and pushing you outside of your comfort zone, forcing you to take an alternate view of reality.

1. What are some characteristics of the American psychodrama in the 1940s?

The films are dreamlike, introspective, and have fluid linear space. The filmmaker plays the protagonist, they acts in their own film, a form of self-realization and inward exploration. The quest for sexual identity is central in psychodramas.

2. What does Sitney mean by an “imagist” structure replacing narrative structure in Choreography for the Camera?

Imagist structure isolates a single gesture as a complete film form, reflective of imagist poetry. It moves away from narrative film structure (not simple story telling), ex. Meshes, Un Chien Andalou, abstract and trance films that have narrative structure.

3. According to Sitney, Ritual in Transfigured Time represents a transition between the psychodrama and what kind of film? Architectonic, mythopoetic

4. Respond briefly to Sitney’s reading of Ritual in Transfigured Time (27-28); Is his interpretation compatible with your experience of the film?

Sitney understands the roles of the women such as invoker, guide and widow and their metamorphosis where as I did not. I did however notice the geometric patterns of movement and repetition. I observed, like Sitney, the correlation of movement and time, and the patterns of three.


Sitney, “The Magus”

5. Paraphrase the paragraph on p. 90 that begins “The filmic dream constituted…” in your own words.

Using the dream metaphor, the camera becomes subjective in relation to the objects in front of it. The camera is the eye but it is being subverted by the film maker, manipulating the objective nature of the camera itself. In a dream you are both an observer and creator.

6. According to Sitney, what is the ultimate result at the end of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome?

The ritual of the characters becoming gods reflects the subjective nature of The Magus becoming self-aware. The multiplicity and conflicting nature of an individual’s perception of ideas are unified.


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?

The focus was variety, and exhibiting films that were educational and enjoyable. Abstract, documentary, avant-garde, educational and scientific. Films were arranged within programs to inspire artistic expressions or provoke thought.

8. What kinds of venues rented Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks?

Membership societies, universities, those free from censorship.

9. What impact did Cinema 16 have on New York City film culture?

It united artists, creating a since of community and inspired and encouraged artist to experiment and create. A model for independent cinema, now artist had a venue in which to show thier work


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, European art movement, cubism, abstract, expressionism.

11. If the goal of Impressionist art is “Nature Interpreted by Temperament,” what are the goals of abstract art?

Abstract art moves away from the norms and deconstructs objects to their form, taking it further than the cubist it represents only itself and the aesthetics of form.

Anger and Crowley

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome - Kenneth Anger

This colorful avant-garde film is a visual onslaught of various cultural gods, goddesses and pagan rituals. Being familiar with the work of Aleister Crowley, eastern religions,and Greek mythology I recognized the various deities and the mythology behind the ritual. I will not even attempt to interpret the meaning of this film, suffice it to say it alludes to a ceremony/ritual involving (and I am only guessing) Vishnu, Kali, Pan, Hecate, etc... and from Caligori's cabinet the Sonnambulist in some sort of dionysian ritual that Crowley has put together. The 60's counter culture fascination with occultism, sexuality and hallucinogenic drugs really shines through. On the topic of trance film moving towards mytheopoetic film, Angers film definitely makes a statement. In Maya Deren's, Ritual in Transfigured Time, mythical representations of the Greeks, ie. Fates, Muses, etc...are more toned down but I believe the idea is similar. Both have tendencies toward those more natural, pagan, witchcraft religions. Whether it be Voodoo or Crowley, the underlying idea is similar through ritual you can become like the gods, imbued with powers and understanding of change and nature. I believe these ideas like dreams, are difficult to make tangible and these films are attempting to express the artist perception of the nature of reality.