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