Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films

[JimmyTango]

What is the current best quality DVD release of Maya Deren's "Meshes of the Afternoon"? I have the Mystic Fire edition and I thought it looked like it was lifted from a previous VHS and rather poor. I'm aware of the re-voir & Cinema16: American Short Films releases and I'm curious to know if anyone has made comparisons in regards to what is the definitive edition?

[doh286]

Saul Levine will be present for a discussion at the Feb. 22 screenings of Note to Pati and Note to Colleen at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.

[Noiretirc]

I have a few dvds that I would like to recommend to anyone who is interested in this area of film making and these types of releases need supporting.

PAOLO GIOLI released by Raro Video

This one really blew my mind - Paolo Gioli is a genius and it amazes me that his work is so little known. The nearest comparison I could make would be Peter Tscherkassky but Gioli was making films much earlier. I couldn't even begin to describe the stunning visuals contained on this 2 dvd set. It is a constant stream of pure creativity.

Raro has now updated this (2015) to a 3 DVD with an excellent booklet, and a supreme value at only $28ish Canadian Dollars for nearly 10 hours of awesomeness. It is a crime that this guy is so obscure.

[furbicide]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but in case anyone's interested I just did a piece for Metro magazine on underground Australian films (focusing on a few recent titles and discussing some of the broader issues related to distribution and support for non-mainstream filmmakers in the country):

https://issuu.com/atompublications/docs ... aus_cinema

[bearcuborg]

New Matthew Barney. I'd like to say that this is among my most anticipated films this year but that would suggest that I'll ever actually be able to see it.

I finally made my way to Yale this past weekend and enjoyed most of this, despite a really uncomfortable theater. Thanks for posting this many months ago John Cope.

It was a lot less cryptic than most of his other work, and by comparison almost conventional. Perhaps in part because it’s the only Barney work I’ve seen without being stoned. There’s some really beautiful choreography by a stunning Eleanor Bauer, and the bulk of the nature photography is breathtaking. Unfortunately one of the drone shots of Barney driving his Ford pick up truck felt like a car commercial, and there’s some clumsy hand held shots that felt out of place. Gone are the outrageous costumes, otherworldly sets, and Aimee Mullins. But as I said, Bauer made a fine fill in, as did her partner, Laura Stokes. I would definitely see anything dance related they do in the future.

The artwork on display that inspired by movie had some incredibly large beautiful art pieces that felt like everything Damien Hirst tries to do.

And as always, a trip to New Haven CT isn’t complete with reaffirming that Pepe’s makes the best pizza in the world.

[L.A.]

Rare Film of Monet, Renoir, Rodin and Degas. Sacha Guitry behind the camera.

[WmS]

Just ran across this archive of the SCHMELZDAHIN group's work in small-gauge short films from the 1980s.

Their "lengthy studies relating to the effects that bacterialogical decomposition, disintegration, and chemical processes have upon film emulsion," along with found footage and weird edits, created wild, grotty films like "Stadt in Flamme" and "In Diep Hust" that remind me of Luther Price or Bill Morrison.

The site has embedded videos of all their 20-odd short films in 8mm, along with an archive of performances and posters. German only, but the archive is mostly images with a few newspaper clips.

The members were Jochen Lempert (b 1958), Jochen Müller (b 1959), Jürgen Reble (b 1956), the last of whom recently had two DVDs of longer works released by Re:Voir. Mike Hoolboom has an archival 1990 interview with Lempert on his site, too.

[WmS]

Fracto Film Fest in Germany has been putting on limited-time screenings of avant-garde, experimental, and non-narrative films in lieu of in-person screenings during the virus. Right now it's two remarkable ones in fantastic transfers:

Sandra DAVIS, A Preponderance of Evidence (in 2K!)
Chick STRAND, Soft Fiction from the 2015 restoration

https://fractofilm.com/Davis-Strand

until May 21, then hopefully more follow

[senseabove]

Soft Fiction is also on the Criterion Channel right now.

[WmS]

Kate MacGarry gallery has put four short films by the marvelous John Smith on Vimeo for this week:

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7136030

The only one from his 3-DVD set is the classic Gargantuan. Two are recent work, one brand new.

[swo17]

Awesome, thanks for sharing! I've got a copy of Home Suite I've been meaning to watch, and these will make nice appetizers for it

[WmS]

The new's one for the covid pile, and despite its unnecessary coda with a blonde manchild potentate, the first half made me laugh.

But "A State of Grace" is just splendid, and a really fine example of his work. Takes a banal image set and takes it somewhere quite unexpected, just brilliant writing and imagery with limited means.

I need to sit down for Home Suite. The longest of his works I've seen is The Black Tower, which is great, but more ominous than the rest.

And these are not available on his vimeo in full, so act now &c &c.

[swo17]

Steve Hates Fish is so great, a vision of the world if ruled by autocorrect--do yourself a favor and give it 5 minutes of your time

[jsteffe]

Steve Hates Fish is so great, a vision of the world if ruled by autocorrect--do yourself a favor and give it 5 minutes of your time

I loved that! A film that uses digital production techniques in a fun and truly eye-opening way.

[WmS]

So great!

"castrate fried"

"for korea lovers"

[WmS]

Media City Film Festival has unveiled a fairly astonishing project to put short (and some feature-length) experimental films online on a rolling basis:

https://mediacityfilmfestival.com/thousandsuns-cinema/

They have 25 filmmakers' work up until Dec. 23, at which point they'll start cycling through the others in the list of 168(!) different artists. There are old masters and new faces, with lots of hard-to-find treasures, such as:

Ephraim Asili, Fluid Frontiers
Ana Vaz, A Idade da Pedra and two other shorts
Christopher Harris, Halimufack and Reckless Eyeballing and 28.IV.81 (Bedouin Spark) and two others
Joyce Wieland, Solidarity and Rat Life and Diet in North America
Michael Snow, WVLNT and Puccini Conservato
Ben Rivers, Things (and two very short shorts)
Sylvia Schedelbauer, Sea of Vapours
Daichi Saito, Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis

There are quite a few young Canadian filmmakers, with Alexandre LaRose's Brouillard-Passage #14 a gorgeous standout. The most fascinating film is mathematician Keewatin Dewdney's remarkable The Maltese Cross Movement, much loved in its day, now quite obscure. (hat tip to Michael Sicinski's patreon, where he just reviewed it.)

Many of the works are in full HD, most all with fine transfers. Some of these I've seen elsewhere-- Sky Hopinka is particularly generous with his Vimeo channel-- but I think most are not available in full elsewhere. I had given up trying to see work by Christopher Harris, for instance.

I love this project. Outside NY/LA/Chicago/SF, if you don't live near a university film center or an experimental-friendly film fest, the nonprofit model of distributors like Canyon/VDB/etc makes these extremely hard to see. They have 168 filmmakers total on the page, so look for Dani Restack, Peter Hutton, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Bruce McClure, Mary Helena Clark, Abigail Child, Warren Sonbert, and Alvin Lucier(!) in the future.

[senseabove]

That is a great lineup lineup—thanks so much for sharing it! Brouillard is indeed one to highlight.

While we're on the topic, SFCinematheque has been doing pretty interesting rotations of online programs, so they're a "venue" to keep an eye on these days.

It's been fascinating to see the proliferation of online venues for experimental film during quarantine, but yes, it's also furthered my frustration with the fetishization of film-on-film in the avant-garde/experimental world, even as much as I'm lucky enough to be able to participate in that fetishization in my normal film-going. I can appreciate the impulse that born-on-film media should preferentially be seen on film in a large, dark, quiet room with no pause button and no phones, and would agree that when possible, it should be strongly preferred, but if even Dorsky has come around to digitization for the sake of museum loops, I think it's time for the purists' wishes to be reconsidered.

FWIW, Canyon is doing a Digitization Campaign fundraiser at the moment and if you donate $500 you can nominate a film for consideration, but even if I did have $500 money to spare and limited myself to only those films I know have recently-created 16mm elements in good condition, it'd still be a choice-paralysis situation.

[Red Screamer]

Yeah, that Media City lineup is a real treat, thanks for the heads up.

I had given up trying to see work by Christopher Harris, for instance.

The shorts included that I've seen are all worth checking out, but I particularly recommend Reckless Eyeballing which is a hypnotic masterpiece. Seeing it in a full theatre at True/False earlier this year was an amazing experience.

[dekadetia]

Michael Snow's Wavelength unexpectedly emerged in 1080p on backchannels this weekend, if anyone is curious.

[therewillbeblus]

Michael.Snow's Wavelength unexpectedly emerged in 1080p on backchannels this weekend, if anyone is curious.

Can't wait to see Hollis Frampton die in HD!

I came here to rave about Tony Conrad's The Flicker, which I've just watched and can immediately hyperbolically declare to be one of the greatest films I've ever seen following a spiritual experience that's practically indescribable. All I know are these things:

-There was a precise moment when I fell into its spell. I wonder if it'll be the same instant the next time I watch it - but I don't want to track it with time. I find myself increasingly curious if my processing is occurring from specific triggers in the way Conrad is manipulating the image, or if it'll be different each viewing dependent on my personal development (I'll be a different person then), or the act of watching content inherently drawing attention to new details, or any countless number of enigmatic variables spliced together to create a whole new experience.

-The film is not merely hypnotic. I felt the same feelings as narrative films: there were moments of increasing anxiety and transfixed investment, with rollercoaster highs of catharsis such as in narratively manipulative films, yet also de-escalations that allowed me to examine my relationship to the content from a cognitive rather than physiological or entranced space, like a late Godard film or philosophical drama. And these soothing moments didn't only come at the obvious times (like toward the end), they came suddenly without any obvious shift in the image- Again, was I imagining this and having the same experience as the person sitting next to me (well, the person sitting next to me ran into the other room two minutes in because it was too overwhelming for her)? Was this intentional on Conrad's part? To what extent is this my and my experience alone and what is universal? I could subscribe all the feelings I had during this <30 minute period to nearly every genre of cinema and some outside of them. Some cannot be described.

-If 2001: A Space Odyssey had this film as Dave's visualization of cosmic phantasmagoria in the last act, it would deserve to be called the greatest film of all time. Come to think of it, why wasn't Conrad sought for those visuals?

[teddyleevin]

Michael.Snow's Wavelength unexpectedly emerged in 1080p on backchannels this weekend, if anyone is curious.

Which backchannels? I'm struggling to find it and have been waiting for an opportunity to see this in HD.

[therewillbeblus]

Does anybody knows of any articles or books on Tony Conrad's The Flicker, specifically how he went about creating the film? I see some links on wikipedia but wanted to gauge the forum's experience before diving into the depths of the internet

[Fierias]

There's a chapter devoted to The Flicker in Scott Richmond's very good book Cinema's Bodily Illusions: Flying, Floating, and Hallucinating.

[zedz]

Does anybody knows of any articles or books on Tony Conrad's The Flicker, specifically how he went about creating the film? I see some links on wikipedia but wanted to gauge the forum's experience before diving into the depths of the internet

I presume the booklet that comes with the Re:Voir DVD has information, so I'll check that, but I assume it's the same method as Peter Kubelka used for Arnulf Rainer: laboriously splicing together stretches / frames of black and clear leader.

Speaking of Arnulf Rainer, i see somebody has created a digital version of the film based on Kubelka's original "score" (here). It's a bit like hearing somebody play the Raindrop Prelude on a Yamaha organ: no substitute for the original, but better than not hearing it at all. Most of the terror and awe is missing from the digital version.

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks zedz, I'll be curious to what the booklet says (I've been waiting for another Re:Voir sale since I didn't bite on the last one roughly a year ago now, though my wishlist is bank-breaking at this point)

I just watched Arnulf Rainer, and while I became a bit frustrated at how the abrupt cuts (intentionally) disrupted me from involving myself in a rhythm like The Flicker did, the soundtrack + those edits elicited a source of multistimulatory anxiety like few experimental films have. What I love about The Flicker is that I think it too accomplishes this feat along with serenity and everything in between, but it's nice to know how long six minutes of coping with relentlessly unpredictable stressors feels. I mean that as a compliment.