“These Jellied Orbs”: A Cleansing
Experimental Cinema
Cinema/Film is, could be, a technology and an art of infinite possibility. Narrative films and even documentary are only small parts of that possibility. The weirdest idea of all is that film is necessarily a story-telling medium. (“Cinema was born to tell stories.”) Why would anyone ever think that? What is film, after all but sequential photographic images that are then processed, manipulated, and arranged. Images of/in Time. Not necessarily stories (and all the genres). Thus, the films we will see possess no “narrative arcs,” no psychological character development, and no pandering sentimentalism.
We are always learning to see – and film is an especially keen route to Vision! (“I see through the eye, and not with it.” – Blake) But even before learning to see we need to make sure that our seeing apparatus – those “jellied orbs,” our eyes – are purged and cleansed, made fresh, like new, and ready for anything.
This brief survey will present a number of films that demonstrate some of the possibilities of a counter or different cinema: personal, abstract, symbolic, imaginative. Films that are made without a camera; found footage films, that is, films that the filmmaker did not shoot him/herself; films that are scratched, painted, exposed to the elements. These films can be, ecstatic, obscene, visionary, dream-like, meditative, polymorphously perverse, and quite often v-e-r-y, v–e–r–y s—l—–o—w. Of paramount importance are the Idea, the Material, the Image, and Time. We will begin with some films of the European Avant-Garde: Dadaist, Surrealist, Abstract; and then jump forward to the USA of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s: Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage, and then Andy Warhol, Hollis Frampton, and others. Finally, a return to Europe—Austria.
What to call it? Avant-garde cinema? Experimental film? Expanded cinema, Underground film? Let’s call it Infinite.
Special feature! Sleep, by Andy Warhol. Only five-and-a-half hours long!
The rules: Attendance at the first class is essential. No one admitted after the first class (don’t even ask). Class limited to 30 students
