Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

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polysicsarebest
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 2:10 pm

no-budget experimental filmmakers?

#126 Post by polysicsarebest » Fri Nov 20, 2009 2:26 pm

Anyone like stuff like the films of GIUSEPPE ANDREWS (http://www.giuseppeandrews.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), ADAM COOLEY (http://directoradamcooley.angelfire.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), and RYAN TRECARTIN (http://www.ubu.com/film/trecartin.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)? Truely cutting-edge, insane, ZERO-DOLLAR films breaking new grounds for cinema. Really cool stuff, truely underground, and deserves our support.

If there's any more stuff like this out there I'd like to know.

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gubbelsj
Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:44 pm
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Al Jarnow and Numero group

#127 Post by gubbelsj » Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:54 pm

Hadn't seen this item posted anywhere else, and thought this was probably the best place for it. The music label / crate digging operation Numero Group will be making their first foray into film/dvd later this month with a region-free (they say) 45-film collection of the short works of the great Al Jarnow (Sesame Street and way beyond). Called Celestial Navigations, it will also feature a documentary and a 60-page booklet. I'm quite curious to see what Numero will do with this release - their attention to detail and research skills on their musical collections have been impeccable.

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neuro
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#128 Post by neuro » Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:37 pm

Although it's not my primary reason for posting, I'd like to thank gubbelsj for directing me to the wonderful Jarnow DVD described in the post above. It manages to please the nostalgic child in me, as well as the adult with an eye for the avant-garde.

My post is to point out two DVDs that, after a quick search, I haven't seen posted elsewhere. Apparently Ken Jacobs is also on the burn-on-demand bandwagon. You can now purchase DVD-R copies of Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son and Let There Be Whistleblowers & Ontic Antics Starring Laurel and Hardy; Bye, Molly. They seem to be Amazon exclusives, although I managed to somehow obtain a cheaper used copy of Tom, Tom through an Amazon subsidiary.

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antnield
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#129 Post by antnield » Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:47 pm

neuro wrote:Although it's not my primary reason for posting, I'd like to thank gubbelsj for directing me to the wonderful Jarnow DVD described in the post above. It manages to please the nostalgic child in me, as well as the adult with an eye for the avant-garde.
Seconded. I've been meaning to post a thank you to gubbelsj, so thanks too to neuro for the reminder. It's a terrific set to either dip into or immerse yourself in, and the supplementary material (lengthy book and on-disc interview with Jarnow) make it all the more covetable. Plus I would have been completely unaware of its existence were it not for this forum. I intend to put together a review for DVD Times sometime in the near future.

Adam
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#130 Post by Adam » Wed Apr 28, 2010 2:23 am

Beneath the radar, Pat O'Neill creates 4 DVDs on his own of many of his films (but not Water and Power nor Decay of Fiction), for sale at his site:
http://www.lookoutmountainstudios.com/store.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Al Jarnow and Numero group

#131 Post by Adam » Wed Apr 28, 2010 2:25 am

gubbelsj wrote:Hadn't seen this item posted anywhere else, and thought this was probably the best place for it. The music label / crate digging operation Numero Group will be making their first foray into film/dvd later this month with a region-free (they say) 45-film collection of the short works of the great Al Jarnow (Sesame Street and way beyond). Called Celestial Navigations, it will also feature a documentary and a 60-page booklet.
This has been touring as a screening - at least some of teh films. It was at Cinefamily in LA a few nights ago, but I missed it, and it was in San Francisco a few nights before that.

yoshimori
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#132 Post by yoshimori » Wed Apr 28, 2010 3:09 am

Adam wrote:Beneath the radar, Pat O'Neill creates 4 DVDs on his own of many of his films
I saw Trouble in the Image in a print at the NuArt tenish years ago. Spectacular. Thanks for the info. Immediately ordered.

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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#133 Post by Adam » Wed Apr 28, 2010 11:36 am

I agree that Trouble in the Image is a masterpiece.

I still have an old laserdisc of Water and Power issues by The Stutz Company in 1992. Never looked to see if it's ever come out on DVD.

yoshimori
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#134 Post by yoshimori » Wed Apr 28, 2010 9:05 pm

^ It hasn't, as far as I know. W&P and Brewster McCloud are the only laserdiscs I have left. [And I got rid of my player long ago.] I wonder what we can get for them?! $1? 2?

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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#135 Post by Adam » Thu Apr 29, 2010 9:03 pm

I have a player that I haven't hooked up in years. I have a few laserdiscs of animation borrowed from Christine Panushka, material that hasn't come out. Need to watch it all.

yoshimori
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#136 Post by yoshimori » Wed May 05, 2010 7:07 pm

Got two O'Neill discs today and am happy to report that the quality of the dvdrs is better perhaps than might be expected. Here're a dozen randomly selected vlc shots from "Trouble in the Image":

toi 01
toi 02
toi 03
toi 04
toi 05
toi 06
toi 07
toi 08
toi 09
toi 10
toi 11
toi 12

The disc also contains the 2008 "Horizontal Boundaries" (quite good) and the 1970 "Runs Good" (looks good too). Buy now with impunity.

The other disc I got - out of curiosity since I hadn't seen the three 2009 vintage works, "Starting to Go Bad" - is of similar transfer quality, but on first inspection the movies seem less interesting. They look like travel videos, albeit travel videos made by a guy with a good eye and a command of the finer points of After Effects. Still ...

The insert (single-sided single page) mentions 4 other discs as available from lookoutmountainstudioes.com: 5 short 16mm films from the 70s; a disc of silent films; Water and Power; and 7 more short films from the late 60s and early 70s. Only the first two of these, however, is listed on the site's store. Perhaps the others are forthcoming.

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Gregory
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#137 Post by Gregory » Wed May 05, 2010 7:43 pm

Thanks for the review.
yoshimori wrote:toi 12
Seeing that still made for a startling moment. I know that very same trailer. Aside from its being far more decayed now, that image shows it to me in a eerily different way. I've photographed the thing myself a few times. It can be found at Bombay Beach, on the Salton Sea.
From what I recall of this film, it probably only lingers on that image for a few seconds unless I'm mistaken.

yoshimori
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#138 Post by yoshimori » Wed May 05, 2010 8:20 pm

I didn't know that was the Salton Sea. Interesting.

That still's actually from the very last shot of the film. The shot lasts one full minute as fast-motion birds flutter onto and into the structure, and the overexposed procession of people makes its way through the massive "temple" into which O'Neill has transformed the trailer. Organ music.

Adam
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#139 Post by Adam » Wed May 05, 2010 10:00 pm

yoshimori wrote:Got two O'Neill discs today and am happy to report that the quality of the dvdrs is better perhaps than might be expected.

The other disc I got - out of curiosity since I hadn't seen the three 2009 vintage works, "Starting to Go Bad" - is of similar transfer quality, but on first inspection the movies seem less interesting. They look like travel videos, albeit travel videos made by a guy with a good eye and a command of the finer points of After Effects. Still ...

The insert (single-sided single page) mentions 4 other discs as available from lookoutmountainstudioes.com: 5 short 16mm films from the 70s; a disc of silent films; Water and Power; and 7 more short films from the late 60s and early 70s. Only the first two of these, however, is listed on the site's store. Perhaps the others are forthcoming.
Great to hear.
I'm doing an oral history with Beverly O'Neill, Pat's wife, this Saturday. He might sit in for a bit, but we might save that for another day. There's a really good interview with Pat (done by John Hanhardt) in the catalogie Views from Lookout Mountain that came out when he had his show at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. I think the book (which is lovely) is also available on Pat's website, no?
The shorts from the late 1960s and 1970s are mostly pretty great, IMHO.

For those of you in LA, Pat is having a show at REDCAT next Monday (May 10) with the new works on "Starting to Go Bad" and "Horizontal Boundaries." I screened "Horizontal Boundaries" at the start of 2009 - it's pretty great. "Trouble in the Image" still remains my favorite though. The layering, manipulation of light and time, geographical and personal history, and more always overwhelm me.

yoshimori
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#140 Post by yoshimori » Thu Aug 12, 2010 8:08 pm

O'Neill's Water and Power and another disc of shorts is now available. Here's the scoop from Lookout Mountain:
WATER AND POWER DVD: the long anticipated DVD release of Pat O'Neill's "Water and Power," a 2008 Library of Congress National Film Registry inductee and 1989 Sundance winner. Restored digital remaster in stereo for the first time. Includes the additional track 'Easyout.'

"Water and Power," much of which was shot in California's Owens Valley, takes its title from the historical agency responsible for providing water to the City of Los Angeles at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. It is not, however, a film about local history, but rather concerns itself with the flow of political power as represented by water, and with water itself in all of its states, and with sunlight, as it reveals planetary rotation and seasonal change. From this core, the film wanders into storytelling, and plays with some remnants of motion pictures.

In the late 1980's the transition to digital media in the film industry was still in its early stages. While we were able to design and assemble the soundtrack with the intent of a stereo mix, the reality at that time was that mastering in stereo was beyond our means. That situation resulted in the track being mixed and presented in mono. Today, we've been able to retrieve and remix the original materials in order to present them as they had always been intended to be heard, in stereo. This has made a huge difference to things like the musical performances which often feature "dialoging" instrumentals. In the mono track, the dialog between musicians was crushed into a central soundfield. The remaster allows the depth of performance to fully be appreciated as each musician is given their own space in the aural environment.

"... reveals a modern city as layer over layer of experience, and makes no pretense of reducing Los Angeles to anything like a single, coherent understanding. In WATER AND POWER, LA is not merely an elaborate reality; it is a nearly overwhelming surreality." - Scott McDonald, Wide Angle

"The 'reality' animated by the film is LA; its topography and social ambiance, its myths of creation and embedding of a dream. It is surely the greatest of contemporary 'city symphonies.'" - Paul Arthur, Moving Picture

"The continuous shifts and surprises that lie at the heart of the film's form make a kind of grand metaphor for the never-ending change that underlies nature, civilization and the multiply symbiotic interchanges between them." - Fred Camper, Chicago Reader

SEVEN THREE SIX TWO DVD: featuring six early film works:

By the Sea (1963) B&W, Sound

A collaboration with Robert Abel, undertaken as a graduate project at UCLA, By the Sea gives us a hot summer afternoon at "Muscle Beach" and the Pier in Santa Monica. The Pier's antique Carousel revolves as a huge generator powering the exertions of body-builders and gymnasts. A radio voice warns of the danger of worshipping "the creature, rather than the Creator", and in the film's final minutes, the beach crowds corrode into dark, faceless shadows. Funny, otherwise.

Bump City (1964) color, sound,

A modest little film about a place made entirely of commercial graphics, rotating mannequins, Lawrence Welk, and a landfill. . Unseen in forty years: an L.A. time capsule, restored with help from the Motion Picture Academy Archives.

Seven Three Six Two (1968) Color, Sound

A moving abstraction compounding pendular and rotary motion, an oil derrick, a fire, a light, and a human body, generated entirely through photochemical processes. Bilaterally symmetrical, flat, bluntly colorful, and iconic. Sound track by Joseph Byrd and O'Neill. Restored with help from the Motion Picture Academy Archives.

The Last of the Persimmons (1973) color, sound

One of a hundred "Last Of" movies of the time, this one looks at the semi-tropical Persimmon, a fall fruit which becomes edible just as it is about to fall from the tree. The film shows a preferred method of approach to the sweet, sticky fruit. Accompanied by animated wallpaper, Pasadena Rose Parade, and "Is It Love?" by T. Rex.

Easyout (1973) Color, Sound

The bread: A meadow, two men making excuses, ants, and a postcard. The meat: historic animations photographically fragmented, redistributed, and restated as saturated fields of bright, bouncy movement. The title: borrowed from a mechanic's tool used for extracting broken bolts.

Sleeping Dogs (Never Lie) (1978) B&W, color, sound.

A loose collection of memories, paradoxical landscapes, and performances. Seemingly silent, the track eventually springs into broken Czech, describing a historic Los Angeles power station. A Siberian Husky bitch is induced to howl by the film crew.

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vertovfan
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#141 Post by vertovfan » Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:28 am

Werner Schroeter's Eika Katappa and Death of Maria Malibran are out now from Edition Filmmuseum. Never thought I'd see an official release of these - I'm so excited!

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zedz
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#142 Post by zedz » Thu Dec 30, 2010 3:18 pm

It's easy to miss (I certainly did, getting a delightful surprise when I received the disc), but Oscilloscope's DVD of Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy contains, as extras, an excellent programme of experimental films curated by Reichardt. There are five films, adding up to about an hour:
Boston Fire - Peter Hutton
New York Portrait, Chapter Two - Peter Hutton
The Scary Movie - Peggy Ahwesh
flight - Les LeVeque
How to Fix the World - Jacqueline Goss

Hutton has just had his Study of a River admitted to the National Film Registry, and his New York Portrait, Chapter Two is simply stunning, worth the price of this disc all on its lonesome.

Adam
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#143 Post by Adam » Fri Dec 31, 2010 1:59 am

Yeah, that was a great addition by Reichardt. May more people do it!

Mr. Ned
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#144 Post by Mr. Ned » Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:00 am

Not sure where to put this, as it's in reference to a number of different things, but does anyone have recommendations for DVDs on early cinema? The Kino Avant-Garde discs are highly lauded by people I respect, but I'm thinking earlier than that: Lumiere and the lot. I'm auditing a course this winter and unfortunately the professor is on leave and unable to give a list of films for the Early cinema week, only the reading assignments. I'd appreciate the help. Thanks!

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antnield
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#145 Post by antnield » Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:05 am


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swo17
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#146 Post by swo17 » Thu Jan 06, 2011 1:20 am

zedz wrote:Hutton's New York Portrait, Chapter Two is simply stunning, worth the price of this disc all on its lonesome.
I hadn't noticed the short films the first time I went through the W&L disc but boy, you weren't kidding about the Hutton. Wowza!

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vertovfan
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#147 Post by vertovfan » Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:18 pm

Looks like Belgian surrealist Marcel Mariën's Imitation du cinema was released on DVD with an accompanying book. I'd been trying to find this for ages.

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swo17
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#148 Post by swo17 » Wed May 04, 2011 11:14 am

Is anyone familiar with this DVD of films by Len Lye, published by Re:Voir? It's supposed to be a region-free PAL disc, with what looks to be the same program that was previously available on VHS. This link has it too but calls it a DVD-R. Can anyone confirm whether or not it's a pressed disc, or comment on picture quality?

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swo17
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#149 Post by swo17 » Sat May 14, 2011 1:18 am

swo17 wrote:Is anyone familiar with this DVD of films by Len Lye, published by Re:Voir? It's supposed to be a region-free PAL disc, with what looks to be the same program that was previously available on VHS. This link has it too but calls it a DVD-R. Can anyone confirm whether or not it's a pressed disc, or comment on picture quality?
To answer my own question, I ordered a copy from the BFI Filmstore link above. I've posted some screencaps here. There's some blocking apparent in some of the caps (especially in the one I've shown for A Colour Box, and to a lesser extent, in the one for Trade Tattoo) though frankly with the image upscaled and blown up on my 100" screen I thought it looked excellent. The images are constantly in motion and I wasn't distracted by compression artifacts at all while watching. The DVD also comes with a nice bilingual booklet with a bio on Lye and info on all of the films featured. It does appear to be a DVD-R from a glance at the disc's underside, but it otherwise performs just like a regular commercial disc, including a nice menu screen where you can access each film individually. I'd say I'm very satisfied with my purchase, as long as it still works five years from now.

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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Re: Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films on DVD

#150 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Fri Jun 17, 2011 1:50 am

DVD
BAUHAUS DESAU
COMPILATION, EDITION BAUHAUS - MEDIEN-KUNST / MEDIA ART
"Edition Bauhaus: Media Art. PAL DVD. The DVD features media art and animation films planned or produced in the 1920s at the Bauhaus school. Some of these experiments were never realized, others were not filmed at the time they were performed. In the 1960s and 1970s, some of the artists began to recreate their ideas. The DVD "Medien-Art" brings together the most important of these reconstructions. Werner Graeff, student at the Bauhaus in 1922, published the same year two scores for abstract films that he only realised in 1958/59 and 1977: KOMPOSITION I/1922 and KOMPOSITION II/1922. lso in 1922, Bauhaus student Kurt Schwerdtfeger developed his REFLEKTORISCHE LICHTSPIELE. fter the war, he reconstructed his scores and staged them together with students. [NOTE: only a partial version, 17 minutes, of the resconstruction film is included here]. Heinrich Brocksieper, a Bauhaus student from 1919 on, turned to photography in the late 1920s and shot some abstract animation home movies. Most of them were destroyed during the war, only three fascinating fragments ­ FLÄCHEN, PERPELLERISTISCH; ENTE and NÄHERIN ­ survived. Kurt Kranz studied at the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933. In 1972, he filmed some of his paintings and concepts for animation films: ZWANZIG BILDER AUS DEM LEBEN EINER KOMPOSITION, SCHWARZ:WEISS / WEISS:SCHWARZ, DER HEROISCHE PFEIL, LEPORELLO ­ ENTWURF FÜR EINEN FARBFILM and VARIATIONEN ÜBER EIN GEOMETRISCHES THEMA. As a bonus, the DVD brings early films by Hans Richter (RHYTHMUS 21, RHYTHMUS 23) as well as Eggeling's SYMPHONIE DIAGONALE ­ obviously by mistake, this film is presented here, without an explanation, in a cut-down version of 2 minutes only, made by Hans Richter in the early 1950s. The main advantage of the DVD is the discovery of the abstract animation films of Brocksieper and the bundling of reconstructions of media art and animation. --Film Historian Jean-Paul Goergen. Includes booklet, in German. PAL. Approx 76 mins. Image from Kranz's 'Project for an abstract color film,' 1930."
Bestnr450
DVD

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