9/29

Now, on to the questions:

1. Post a brief response to one of the following Brakhage films: The Wold Shadow, Window Water Baby Moving, Dog Star Man Part 2, Dog Star Man Part 3.

Window Water Baby Moving. I still remember the first time I saw this one in Berliner's class last semester. Walking into the classroom at 9am I was completely oblivious to what I was about to see. I have never felt so many emotions at once. The horror, the beauty, the agony, and the happiness had my head spinning. On the second viewing I could remain more calm and focus more on the repetitive symbols and emotions being portrayed by Brakhage. I also couldn't help but be curious about him and his wife Jane, because I know they eventually divorced. I may have been thinking too much into it...but this film has been an intense emotional experience for me upon both viewings.

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?  (Implicit in this question: what is synechdoche?  It is a figure of speech, but what kind?)

Synechdoche plays a part in Maclaine's The End because the look and feel of it is a representation or example other works yet to come. In the case of the mythopoeic form, the archetype's struggles continue and variations of the particular themes are continued in later achievements by Brakhage.
3. What are some similarities and differences between the apocalyptic visions of Christopher Maclaine and Bruce Conner?
Maclaine mixes nostalgia with a more urgent but vague sense of doom. The characters are supposed to be the same as the audience members, as stated by the narration. Everything that Connor shows is a newsreel or "secondary" reality images like movie entertainment. It seems as if his style is a little more complex and planned, though both of these filmmakers represent violence and mix in nostalgic elements.

Bruce Jenkins, “Fluxfilms in Three False Starts.”
NOTE: This is in the "Kreul Articles" folder on the Flash Drive that you gave me.

4. 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."]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671180/Duchamps-Fountain-The-practical-joke-that-launched-an-artistic-revolution.html
 The Fluxfilms reacted against the avant garde movement by making parodies of the stylistic elements and techniques used by Brakhage and Anger.  These films were used to amuse audiences and create an opposition of the seriousness portrayed in art films.

5. What does Jenkins mean by the democratization of production in the Fluxfilms?
Democratization of production means that it is more easily accessible to more individual people. There doesn't have to be a lot of money spent on crew, cast, props, etc.

6.  Critic Jonas Mekas divided avant-garde filmmaking into the "slow" and the "quick"; which filmmakers were associated with "slow" and which filmmakers were associated with "quick"?  Which Fluxus films were "slow" and "quick" (name one of each)?
Slow ones were those with extremely long takes, and quick films were those with lots of editing.  Andy Warhol's style was an example of slow, and Stan Brakhage's style is an example of quick.
Yoko Ono's film Eyeblink is slow, and Wolf Vostell's Sun in your Head. 

7.  How is the Fluxus approach to the cinema different from both Godard and Brakhage?

Godard and Brakhage were going against the mainstream. They made serious art with themes and messages of their own personal visions, Fluxus films were just used to contrast against filmmakers such as these.

8. Why does Jenkins argue that Nam June Paik’s Zen for Film “fixed the material and aesthetic terms for the production of subsequent Fluxfilms”? How does it use the materials of the cinema? What kind of aesthetic experience does it offer? 
 It was described as an "imageless and illusionist work." It was a part of a six week concert series of performances that was put together quickly and was not expensive. The use of camera, lights, sets and post production tools were bypassed. He did present the physical support of cinema, a blank celluloid. It was a more extreme and fascinating version of the medium.

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (and other questions) 9/22

Response to Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome:
 This film provoked an anxiety in me that was hard do describe. The anxiety was brought on by an intense array of bright colors, that was very pleasing at first but soon became almost overwhelming. I'm assuming that this was the intended effect...to portray an intense and ferocious desire for pleasure that ends up with people engorging themselves. Soon enough the images were overlapping and blurred to a point that almost brought on a feeling of dizziness. The themes of materialism and overindulgence were incredibly obvious. It helped simulate a very realistic experience through the use of outrageous costumes and symbolic characters. I suppose that although the film seemed "too long" it was necessary to bring on this intense feeling of anxiety and disorientation.



Sitney, “Ritual and Nature”

1. What are some characteristics of the American psychodrama in the 1940s?
Psychodramas or trance films have to do with a passive protagonist struggling in an externalization of an inner conflict. This was based on Freudian concepts and a confrontation with the self and the past.

2. What does Sitney mean by an “imagist” structure replacing narrative structure in Choreography for the Camera? For reference, you can see the film here:
http://www.ubu.com/film/deren_study-in-choreography.html
Basically, the isolation of movement and gestures (such as dance) are focused as a complete film form. Maya Deren introduced this idea of poetry in Imagism, showing emotion in the choreography.

3. Respond briefly to Sitney’s reading of Ritual in Transfigured Time (27-28); Is his interpretation compatible with your experience of the film?
I would have to say that the "waves of intensity" is the best phrase that described it. It was a flowing piece that seemed to have no climax but was shown in graceful patterns. His interpretation was a bit general and I think that her work seems very significant and personal to her own psyche. I didn't really understand what was going on until we started discussing it, but the dancers and the rhythm of the film captivated me.


Sitney, “The Magus"
4. Paraphrase the paragraph on p. 90 that begins “The filmic dream constituted…” in your own words.
To me it seems that the camera has the power to manipulate how the audience sees an object or person. The way the object is shown can be hinted as symbolic, provoking meditation. We can see something in a different way depending on the way it is presented. There is a psychological trick to this, because it deals with the subconscious of the filmmaker as well as those watching. Nostalgia was the word that hinted at the concept of the subconscious and reminded me of the "trance" genre definition.

5. According to Sitney, what is the ultimate result at the end of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome? How does his reading of the film compare / contrast with your own experience of the film?
The final shot was supposed to be the completion of a hand gesture made throughout the climax when the Magnus comes together as the "Great Beast, Nero, Cagliostro, and the winged Geffe..." and their "spangled moment" is sacrificed to the energy of the "Magnus." I don't understand this in detail but I had a feeling it related to mythology and divinity. Mostly I was just fascinated with the intensity of the colors and costumes.


Sitney, “The Lyrical Film”

6. What are the key characteristics of the lyrical film (the first example of which was Anticipation of the Night).
The lyrical film is a direct representation of the filmmaker's personal vision.

7. 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.]
It seems that hard and soft montage is a contrast, as in the "collision of night and day shots." This relates to a pattern in the camera movement, a flow of colors and a preview of an upcoming image. In Anticipation of the Night he challenges the "shot" as a primary unit of cinema. This must be referring to collision of night and day.

8. 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.]
He claims that language constricts vision and speaks of the idea of sight in relation to the filmmaker's tools...the "camera eye." The eye is capable of imagining reality, and the camera eye is the limitation of the "original liar."


Sitney, “Major Mythopoeia”

9. 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.”
He used fast cutting and he started scratching and painting on the surface of the film, manipulating it in various innovative ways. He also used filters, distorted images, and created 2D space for his images.

10. What archetypes are significant motifs in Dog Star Man, and which writers in what movement are associated with these four states of existence?
 The birth of consciousness, cycle of the seasons, man vs. nature, and "sexual balance in the visual evocation of a fallen titan" were motifs. The Romantic poets and writers such as Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Pound, Stevens, Crane, Williams and Zukofsky are associated with them.