Last Blog

1 .I'm not sure if this is the right film but I think it was the one wear all of the men were very flamboyant. I really liked the way the made the film. It was not only innovative but funny too. I think that they took what they knew about Warhol and just picked up a camera and went with it. I also think that their wasn't really a script which is also Warhol's style. I just thought it was great and their wasn't but a tiny narrative thread to it but I really enjoyed having it in the film so I could follow and enjoy the madness of the film.

2. I don't know if this is right but here we go. In the article it mentions performance art being presented in museums. it says "performance art has developed out of and in relation to sculptural practices, principally minimalism, leading to the destabilization of sculpture as an object" So I think that its like film and other things like music and even video games. People get bored with one thing and some says hey why not try this. So I think that is what happened. I think Barner is allowed to say his films are sculptures because each piece is like a moving sculpture. Cresmaster, which ever one we watched, has a sculpture feel to it. At the beginning each of the people he has to get passed are presented as "sculptures" and he has to figure out how to defeat or find the piece he needs in order to beat this game. That might be totally wrong. It might even be okay to say that some of the objects or people used in the film can be shown in museums as sculptures with the film playing somewhere in the museum.

3. It first talks about minimalist sculptures that weren't enough for the artist like Burden who made a series of sculptures which were not enough for him, I think. He then went on to "shoot" were he is shot in the arm. So the littlest things make the biggest impact. His films are not minimalist like Warhol's early films or Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (which I love), but his films are like these except that are usually physically grueling. So I guess the answer would be that minimalist is post modern because artist take the basic idea to extremes like having an audience member put needles into your arm or standing on a ladder with water lit with electricity. I makes minimalism for people who don't care for it more interesting as "sculpture art".

4. Burden's effect on the art world was showing it as it was happening. His art from the films he makes are in galleries but most of the art he created was seen or is capable of being seen. Like the Cresmaster series. It is filmed so the audience knows it happened but some of the pieces from the film are in galleries. I think that Vito is the same way. They take photos of them doing the sculptures and try to do all they can to make sure that people know they were doing this art and that it didn't just appear.

5. They are saying that Burdents work has that of a cinematic feel to it and that Burdens characters are the superstars of the films like Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson. Burdens films do not leave the protagonist untouched, they go through difficult task get hurt in the process but always end up triumphant much like the blockbuster Willis and Gibson were in.

6. It refers to a cluster of historic institutions and concepts that form a context within which cinematic media is used. I think it means the way films are put together in all sorts of manners. So two different types of films would be experimental and Hollywood films. One is low budget usually without a story thread and the other has big names, big budgets and a narrative story which usually ends happily if it is American made. So thats what I think it means. I think Walley believes that all aspects of making a film are put into this new type of sculpture/performance art. It shows the actual art taking place and allows the person to see actual objects from the work. Thats probably all wrong.

7.

The production in the Avant Garde is controlled, developed, and modeled all by the director of the piece.If I were to make a piece than all aspects of the film would come to me first and I would make all the choices no matter what. It is my film and no one will change that. THe gallery world happens to be different. The art is a working progress between the curator and the artist. It should also be noted that experimental filmmakers usually have no money to work with. Usually they use all the money that can as well as their friends money and hope that it does well to get the money back. While others don't really care about the money as long as it is seen by others. But if an artist were to work in a gallery they would be able to use all of the resources of the gallery and perhaps make a better project and get their art seen by more people.

Week 6

1. What changes in the American avant-garde are associated with the rise of structural film and the creation of Anthology Film Archives in 1970? How does these changes affect:
First there was the institutionalization of the Avant-Garde, these films were being shown in theaters and known for their midnight runs. The media was also beginning to acknowledge these films by writing or talking about them in their magazines. Not just Mekas but others such as: Popular Photography, Newsweek, New York Times and even a saturation of Pull my Daisies in Mad Magazine.
a. The participants (filmmakers, critics) in the avant-garde community?

Movies were being shown in Universities thanks mainly to the new academic practice of Film Studies as well as the creation of the Anthology Film Archives. Films were They created a program of certain filmmakers and famous avant-garde films (mainly by structuralist). Many filmmakers were brought into classes to speak, even the ones who had been left out of the mainstream underground began to appear again for lectures and screenings.
b. Canon formation (which films are considered “important,” and taught in classes).

The important films were the structuralist films which were just beginning as well as the films which were famous from the Avant-Garde beginnings. I don't think it comes right out and says which were important but I believe they were talking about mainly the films we have been watching all semester such as Meshes, Anger, Brakhage, mainly films from each different form of the Underground film and the new structuralist filmmakers.
c. Distribution and exhibition practices.

They would be distributed through the filmmakers corporative which distributed to film societies, exhibitors, individuals and universities.

2. Briefly explain the debate between autonomy and engagement within the avant-garde. How does this debate play out in the 1980s?

I think it was that many filmmakers were scared of being shown in universities to show learning students. It was also a debate about the filmmakers who were "idolized" by professors and those filmmakers who were left out of the curriculum. Teaching Avant-Garde was also raising the expectations of these films. Young minds were learning about this stuff making filmmakers scared about making new material that they may not approve of. I don't know if this is what you were looking for but just let me know.

3. What are the negative aesthetic connotations of the “academic avant-garde film”? What is the major critique from new filmmakers who emerged in the 1980s?

Only certain films were shown in Universities, I understand why as a student because their is not enough time to cover all of the most important people in the Avant-Garde movement. Filmmakers of the eighties were getting upset because the underground was losing what it was based on. People were accepting the Underground films and their wasn't a fight or a passion to make these films and get them seen. I guess the filmmakers of the eighties thought that the passion of the emergence of Avant-Garde in America was lost once people began to teach it in schools and show certain films regularly.

4. What are the five legacies of the academicization of the avant-garde?

1. THe maintencace of distribution of co-ops as the classroom became the dominatnt site of exhibition.

2. Recongnalization as centers of Avant-Garde film activity expanded beyond New York

3. Publication mechanisms for the writing of the history, criticism and theory of the Avant-Garde

4. Employment for Filmmakers as faculty or technical personal

5. Development of the 2nd generation students became filmmakers, critics, teachers, programmers and archivist.

5. Name at least three similarities between the punk music scene and the punk/no-wave filmmaking scene, in terms of technology, style, and community.

1. The bands would switch instruments that they played, and the No Wavers would switch roles. One day you may direct, and the next you may be acting. They just switched it all around.

2. They both used their friends to make their artistic product.

3. They both played and screened their films at the same kind of venues.

6. What were the exhibition venues for punk/no-wave films such as those by Beth B. and Scott B., and how did the venues affect film content and style?

They screened their work in rock clubs such as CBGB's and Mark's Kansas City and would show their films in between the different bands who were playing. The atmosphere of these clubs included people who were smoking drinking and talking. And if their films grabbed their attention the filmmakers believed that they had allowed the viewers to participate in the film. The people watching the film were not afraid to let the filmmakers know if they liked the film or not. It was sort of an active viewing experience.

7. What are some similarities and differences between the American avant-garde we have studied so far and the Punk or No Wave filmmaking in the late 1970s? Address the following areas:

a. Aesthetic similarities and differences (which filmmakers do the cite as influences, which filmmakers do they reject?) Poe especially liked the new directors such as Godard and Truffaut. Others enjoyed Warhol especially his film Vinyl. I don't remember reading about any the rejected. I do remember that Poe wanted to make films with elements of other films in it. This is what Godard did with many of his films. He would take a little from all the films he liked and combine it into his film.

b. Technological similarities and differences

Both groups used cheap equipment. Warhol would just turn on the camera and shoot. Punks used a super 8 camera and were able to record sound as they were filming.

c. Economic similarities and differences
worked on low budgets. However, they gradually had bigger budgets for their films. Subway riders was made for 50,000, and Vortex was made for 70,000. So eventually they went from making films with little budgets to making films with bigger budgets than they ever thought could happen.

d. Social similarities and differences

Some of the Punks wanted to make a New New Wave. Getting people to react the way they did to the French New Wave. The Punks would show their films anywhere .

8. In what ways does Friedrich “break the rules” in terms of mixing filmmaking practices? How have different critics approached her different films? What kinds of avant-garde sub-genres has she explored?

Friedrich did not want to be tied down and decided to stay away from the normal mode of filmmaking. Instead of sticking with one genre or idea she would mix genres without any regrets. Many of her critics would try to tie her down to one label, but that would be impossible. She has made a film in every type of film we have studied in class so far. The trance film, structuralist, just to name a few.

9. What are some of the distinguishing characteristics of “Sink or Swim”?

The film has 26 scenes one for each letter of the alphabet, but instead of going from A to Z she goes Z to A. Each scene is suppose to elaborate on a childhood memory of Friedrich. Some of the scenes are silent while others are narrated. This is the most written about film of Friedrich's and is for certain about the filmmakers memories as a child.

The Structural Film

1. The structural film is not about what a persons inner problems such as Derren in Meshes or about what the filmmaker sees or feels or thinks as in Brakhage. These films are about "cinema of the mind rather than the eye". I am guessing that these films are not about what we see but how it makes us think or perhaps it just makes us think. The four characteristics of the structural film include a fixed camera position, the flicker effect, loop printing, and rephotography. (I'm not sure what rephotography is)

2. I think it means that the structural film is the absolute genre of Avant Garde that represents the human mind. While all of the other genres, trance, lyrical, mythopeoic, were all aiming for Sitney's main argument, structural films are the only ones, in Sitney's opinion who do just that completely.

3. I do not think Sitney comes out and says this question but these are the reasons from the reading why I think Warhol was to Sitney the precursor to the Structural film. Warhol used three of the structuralist techniques in his first few films. He used the fixed frame as well as a loop of film and a freeze frame, which Sitney compares to rephotography, in Sleep. Sitney then goes to say that Warhol was the first filmmaker to make films in which the film would outlast the viewers initial state of perspective. By just waiting on the film to be over the viewer would alter their state of perception. Warhol challenged the viewers ability to endure sameness. So Sitney goes on to say that the challenge of Structural films was how to permit the wandering attention that triggered ontological awareness while watching Warhol films. So I believe Structural films are basically a different kind of Warhol film, it has the same basic meaning behind it, wanting the viewer to create their own individual experience by watching the same thing for a long period of time.

4. A. I'm not sure but I think it is because Warhol was trying to show how Romantic and similar other avant garde films were. So by doing this he was trying to make people aware of every process that went into making a film I suppose.

4B. I guess because Warhol stopped making films the way he did in his early career and started to do in the camera editing, which I guess is not part of the structural film. Sitney says that Snow and Gehr used the fixed camera in a mystical contemplation of a portion of space. So I believe because Warhol began to try new things he separated himself from other structural filmmakers.

4C. I think that it means ever sense Warhol began making his type of films there has been a new way of looking or viewing films. It is not about the story anymore it is about being a in a theater and viewing a film, and what the film makes us do in our minds to get through watching the same thing over and over for a long period of time.

4D. I think Sitney says that Structural films came out of Lyrical, trance and so one because they were in fact the films preceding the Structural film. Perhaps the Structural film would not exist if these other films were not made first. I also think that because of Warhol films, structural films were born. I believe Structural films are the response to Warhol's attack because they take elements of his film and mix it up to make something similar but different.

5. I have no clue but I think it is that Wavelength is a film made in a way to make people aware of their consciousness after they have seen the film. Our minds take over and we create our own vision of the film. The film represents our conscious.

6. I think it is when the critic interprets the film as presenting itself to the direct perception of the viewer, so the film is interpreted as the embodiment of some fundamental feature of conscious. So I guess that means that the film is trying to to get into the conscious of the viewer on some level and whoever is writing about the film is aware of this. Its all very confusing. One critic analyzed Snows work and before she did this she or he said that some films explore the nature of consciousness. The critic believed that Snows work was a link between cinema and consciousness. I guess another way to read this schemata is to see that cinema is a form of consciousness which I don't really get. I guess it means we have a different type of view of a cinematic adventure than we do in the real world. The critic goes on to say that the process of watching a film is acknowledging the production and reproduction of the film. I don't know if that is what you wanted but I'm confused.

7. The Art-process schemata is when the filmmaker blurs the line between the "art" and "life". The person who came up with this also said that any material organized in any way could have aesthetic value, and traditional aesthetic forms needlessly restrict the range of options open to the artist, the production of an innovative film is seen as a demonstration of the conventional process of filmmaking. While all this is well and good I was still very confused the following examples helped me out. Paul Arthur explained that the experience e of film viewing had been radically changed after Warhol. He also wrote about Mothlight and said having a meaning in commercial narrative mode, or in a metaphorical associative mode of the earlier avant-garde which draws the viewer away from the screen and to the attention of the projector as a physical object. So I think this is trying to say that you don't really pay attention to the film as much as how you are seeing the film.

8. Okay the person who came up with this said, usually the "point" of the film, its relevance to the viewing community, is established through another interpretative schema, while direct perception is brought in to the account for the "pleasure" of the film by speaking in terms of its "sensuous qualities", or it's being "perceptually engaging". In Gehr's Wait, the filmmakers method emphasized that the film is actually composed of individual frames with only the illusion of movement". Cornwell said it demonstrates the true nature of the cinema, which is concealed by "normal" film. So I believe this one is where you look at the aesthetics of the film actually being screened, we don't watch the film for narrative but for how it was brought to the viewer. I might have screwed that all up but I hope I got some of it right.

Paper Due Week

I think that Ann's screen test is very similar to the Fluxus films. I mean nothing is really going on and as you stare at her face you see little movements just like Smile by Music or whatnot. When I was watching the film I felt like she was looking at me and that since she was staring at me that I should look back. I found myself in a contest with her to see who would blink first. When I noticed that I was doing it I would stop and then it would happen again. I thought it was pretty interesting the way she kept her eyes open to the point where tears were flowing down her face. She has skills but I think she took it a bit to literally, but it makes an interesting film

1. One popular film venue in NYC was Cinema 16's first screening in a Fashion Industries Auditorium. Another would be American Underground Cinema which also floated around from venue to venue. Ones that are mentioned as purely underground theaters are The Thalia, the New Yorker and The bleaker Street Cinema. And of course (I suppose I think I read it wrong) The Charles. The Charles Lobby had work from local artists and on Sundays there were Jazz concerts. And once a week the theater would run a double bill of some Ukrainian film to try and cater to the neighborhoods senior citizens. At night the theater would play films with panel discussions and in the day it was silent films all day with title cards and the whole bit. Mekas had the idea of showing paying $.95 to see a film or bring in your own.

2. I suppose Jack Smith because it cites Flaming Creatures as one of the films. It also says "The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man, Blond Cobra and Little Stabs at happiness". The film makers include Smith, Rice, the Kuchar twins. The rest I'm not sure about about but perhaps Robert Frank and Barbra Rubin. I think he called it“Baudelairean Cinema” because it was this guy named Rimbaud gave some new qualities to American literature and Mekas group of filmmakers was bring a new experience and life to the cinema. These filmmakers were showing things that might scare the average viewer and that was trending toward the edge of perversity. I think the films shown from Baudelairean Cinema are films that the public would not want to see. I mean the average film goer. There is nudity but it is really art. Its not porn but their are graphic images of private parts shown as art. I hope thats right.

3. A Flaming Creatures showcase was broken up by police because "it was hot enough to burn up the screen" says police. Another film that came under fire was Normal Love. Mekas was arrested a second time for showing Un Chant d'Amour . Around the same time Scorpio Rising came under fire and Mike Getz was found guilty of showing and "obscene film".

4. When reading it seems like Tavel just wrote about Warhol, but I think he started to work with him during the screen tests. Another film I know he worked with him on was Vinyl. Some unique characteristics of this film include that the acting is pretty terrible, also that the camera stays stationary until the reel of film runs out. It feels very improvised in fact. Especially during the dancing scene. I haven't seen a clockwork orange ( I don't know what to expect and don't want to freak out but I think it's something I should watch as a film student, but I digress) so I don't know if there is a dancing scene in it all I know is there is a dude with a top hat and some guy with his eye wired open. I think Edie steals the scene because you are drawn to her. She is doing nothing but the audience keeps looking at her. I know that I kept looking at what she was doing throughout the film. Tavel says of Edie "She sat there, sort of stretched out, and the camera just went berserk looking at those eyes it was like she was discovered"

5. One of the first films to crossover was Warhol's "My Hustler" (Which I hated the at first but now I love). The cinematheque was very important but I believe it moved around. The Regency showed the Chelsea Girls. It showed "My Hustler" in the basement of the Wurlitzer Building. Bosley Crowther of the NY times said that Andy Warhol and his friends need to be careful because they are pushing it too far. But I think this was also good for the films so people interested in what Warhol was doing could go to the screenings and join the fun. Stephen Koch wrote "Word of Mouth made (my Hustler) popular" I think allowing festivals and exhibitions to happen with Warhol were because the press wasn't saying this stuff was horrible. I have no clue if that's what you wanted but hopefully it is okay.

6. Getz decided to create package programs of the underground films. He would send them out for midnight screenings at commercial venues. They became very successful and soon these package films were traveling all over the country making them available for many different people to see.

7. I'm not sure on this one but I think after he got shot he had films with less nudity such as Bike Boy, I, a Man, and Nude Restaurant.

8. Some advantages include gaining back money the filmmaker had to spend out of pocket to make the film, prestige the filmmaker could be a nobody one day and a huge star the next. Disadvantages include wear and tear on the film stock and a lack of respect by the exhibitors and projectionist which equals sloppy handling (Which I find appalling).

9. This is the part I didn't completely understand in Cinema since 1961 but I will try again. Non-exclusive bookings were best according the author because they had loyal customers who expected them to get these films. they also gave the best coverage in different cities for the filmmakers. But with exclusive booking the filmmaker can ask for high rates and the exhibitors have no where else to go.

10. I think what happened was the Creative Film Society were renting programs for weekly runs at Rivoli Theaters. They would advertise that they were playing one film and show others instead.

Week 3

1. I wasn't there for the screening but I do think I read about it last week and I watched a bootleg version on the internet. While I found it boring I found myself seeing different things in the images. For example I know it was a mouth but just staring at it I saw a face in the mount I know that might be hard to understand but that is what I saw just staring at the picture trying to make it more entertaining for myself.

A. I feel that this guy thought film should be simple and basic. This is what Disaperaing Music face was. I mean it was just a stationary camera and an extreme close up of a face. I know most artist were more into making a film about their emotions or expressing something about their personal life. But his film is saying that if you get a camera you can make a film.

B. I think art as on object is referring to paintings or sculptures or even statues. But Art as a performance is anything that isn't stationary. So a film or a dance could be art as performance. While both can be entertaining I think Art as performance is what I would chose over art as object.

2. I don't think Fluxus is in there because it doesn't register with Sitney's argument. He was saying that avant garde was more of a personal, thoughtful film. Where Fluxus was kind of fun and "hey anyone can do this". I think Sitney left them out because it would not help his argument.

3. Jack found a gorgeous Puertorican man and gave him the name Mario Montez. He was a transvestite. But Jack loved him so much because Mario had a presence so Jack gave him the name Maria and when he was Maria it was Jack's creation. Maria was an actress who Jack adored and he would cry during her films. She was the glamor girl of Universal during the technicolor days, when she acted she was not messing around she was sincere about her performance. He might also have loved her so much because she was a Dominican woman who came to American by herself and was able to become an actor. Sort of like the way Jack came to New York trying to be a filmmaker after a rough or unhappy childhood. The people being interview explain that Maria brought the film world to life, that she made the fantasy real, she breathed life into the movie and made you feel it.

I think her movies are pretty cool. I am all for the classics but I am surprised that I have never heard of her. I think that her movies would be entertaining to me. I think she would be a person or actress who I would have liked as well if I was born in a different decade. I couldn't tell which film was Cobra Woman, but I think it was the first clip and she just looks like this beautiful woman, a secretive person who is hiding something and I'm dying to find out.

4. There was a lot of restrictions in the 1950's that broke free during the 60's that made helped to reinvent art. It was a "spiritual awakening". There was a small community and everyone knew everyone and they were all artists. They seemed like the should go together, or to be grouped together. They were trying to achieve the movie glam look, but with such low budgets and limitations it gave their films a different kind of look. Jack and others would go to department store dumpsters and find all the materials they needed to create their films. Whatever they threw away was exactly what they needed for their movie.

5. Zorn's argument is that the real film is the filming of the film. He says that there should have been an audience there watching him film his movie. Jack was true to himself his films were suppose to be extremely close to his own vision, fantasy and view of the world. Jack was a myth while Warhol was known. A lot of important ideas from Warhol came from Jack they had an understand they were friends. Jack believed that Warhol was copying him. Other more mainstream artists including Felelinni would take elements of Jacks films and put it into their own. John Waters says that people began making films like Jack later, but they were doing it and it was becoming more popular.

6. I think he was trying to say that the commercial movie industry was trying to take elements of his personal films and make it mainstream, and he resisted this very much. He did not want his type of film to be commercial film he wanted to keep doing it the way he wanted. They talk about in the film how he set up his apartment like one of his films. Perhaps this was one way of coping with not being able to make the films he wanted without it being eventually tainted with the commercial cinema.

Week 2

1. I thought this film was really cool and it will probably be the film I do my Brakhage paper on. I found it interesting the way he manipulated the way I saw things. I figured out they were trees but the way it was red and dark at first and then the camera would zoom in and the flash of the true colors would come out was awesome. However, towards the end I got confused on what I was seeing, it looked like the trees were bleeding and through listening to other classmates I figured he had painted the trees. No matter my confusion it was still awesome to see and I really liked it. I think I like more abstract avant garde films because I don't look for a narrative structure I just look for patterns and color repetitions which is fun. Like you said the fun of these films is that its like a puzzle and you have to figure it out so I liked it.

2. I don't think I will be anywhere close to the answer you want for this but I will try anyway. Synecdoche is like saying one thing to describe another. So if I were to say there are 20 students in a film class I could also say their are 20 young adults. Maybe that wasn't good enough to describe it let me try again. You could say she works for a pharmacy or say she works at CVS. I think that is what it means. But relating it to the film I think it is trying to say that the film shows us different ways actions took place and displaces them throughout making it like a puzzle film where we have to take each scene and map out the story. I guess it is mythopoeic because it is showing or trying to convey what it would be like at the end of the world and has all these characters doing different things so they could be seen as gods. (I have no clue if that is right). So Brakhage comes into the picture because he was trying to get beyond trance films. His film Dog Star Man must represent the mythopoeic film because each part has to do with a different motif which could also be seen as a gods path or journey. That was a hard question for me I'm sorry if it is all wrong.

3. Some similarities between the two film could be that they are both about the apocalypse. While MacLaine's film was planned out and shot scene for scene, Connor took pieces from different film to create each scene. I think this is right. Differences would be that Connor took found footage to create his film while Conner went out and shot most of his scenes. (I think). Conner also uses the element of comedy in his film which is absent from MacLaine's.

4. I think the Flux Filmmakers were trying to make fun of Brakhage and the like. Instead of taking a subject and trying to be serious with it they took it more lightly. Anger made his films with a message or meaning behind them. These Flux Films would take "mundane" subjects and make a light film out of it, but with some of the same aspects as Anger or Brakhage. One example given is No. 24 which is a color test film. So the Flux Film took an element of the Anger type films and made their own. Another one directly aimed at Brakhage is called Invocation of Canyons and Boulders for Stan Brakhage and the film is a close up of a man chewing. The article said it was attacking Brakhage's highly personal and autobiographical films, so they shot some one chewing. That is personal and autobiographical because its someone chewing and it did happen. I don't know if that's right, but its what I got.

5. I think he is trying to say that through the Tree film people became aware that anyone can make a movie. This guy simply got a camera, film and found a tree and made a film. So what is stopping other people who want to make movies. I think it was saying that Avant Garde filmmakers would start to make it a practice to have low budgets. I think it was also trying to say that if you have a set idea about something you can turn anything into art.

6. Slow: Andy Warhol, Nam Jun Paik, George Brecht, Peter Moore, Yoko Ono, Pieter Vanderbeek, Joe Jones.

Slow Film: Zen for Film, Disappearing Music for Face.

Fast: George Maciunas, Wolf Vostell, Eric Andersen, Paul Sharits.

Fast Film: Dots 1 and 2, Opus 74 Version 2

7. Godard was trying to open up new ideas to the cinema such as political analysis the idea of a cinephillia and the idea of being self reflexive through films. Brakhage was trying to show a more personal form of the cinema such as birth and death. Fluxfilms are suppose to be childlike and innovative. So I guess the difference between all of these are the people and ideas behind each movement or person. Godard had one idea, Brakhage another and Fluxfilm another. Godard and Brakhage planned out and had serious ideas about the films they were making while Flux Films I guess are suppose to be fun or interesting. Nothing like The 400 Blows or Window Water Moving Baby.

8. I think he is saying that it was made cheaply and quickly. The film used a camera, lights, film stock, editing and sound. So I guess thats what you mean or what he means. The experience makes people get out of their shell and see film in a new way. The film is suppose to be the celluloids journey through the projector so I guess it is trying to show people what they are really watching when the watch a film. It is also capturing the truth, nothing was done to it and it was not manipulated in anyway like other Avant Garde filmmakers.

Hope that is right.

First Week

1. I'm not sure if this is right but it has elements of a dream, ritual, dancing, and sex. The chapter before Ritual and Nature explains Maya Derren's Meshes of the Afternoon as a psycho-drama saying the central theme of it is a quest for sexual identity. Going back to chapter two, Sitney explains that these are trance films. So I guess I am wondering if trance films are the same thing as psycho-dramas because Sitney goes on to explain trance film deals with visionary experience. The protagonist are usually priest, initiates of rituals and possessed. He goes on to say the camera movements are stylized with slow and fast motions.

2. I think he is trying to say that these films no longer have a narrative structure and if you look for a story in the film you will not find it. He is trying to say that one single gesture or idea can be the main source of an entire film. He explains that images make up the film and brings up Le Ballet Mecanique, in which different objects move around to look like a dance from what I remember. There is no story in that film it is just a dance using objects and I think Sitney is trying to convey that a single movement or gesture can create a film. I have no clue if that is what you are looking for.

3. With Ritual in Transfigured Time I thought that Maya Derren was the same person as the widow. But the Widow had come back to visit her past. So I thought Maya Derren's character was the same as the Widow who had been killed or died and she was coming back to retrace her steps which led to her death. My hypothesis continued as she went into the ballroom because no one was paying her any attention so she could be a ghost. Then the one man notices her so i figured he must be the one who killed her or led to her demise. Then we got to the garden scene and I was totally confused. I know we are suppose to watch the films in a vertical way but it is hard for me and that is something I will have to work on during the semester. So my reading of the film was totally different than that of Sitney. His description of the film makes more sense than mine but he is a avant garde scholar and I am just a student.

4. The filmic dream is a sensory experience where the subject of the film is represent through his or her own mind or dream. The film shows or tries to establish what is going on inside of the subjects mind. The camera is just there to record the elaboration of the dream. It also asks the viewers to interact and try and figure out what is going on inside the mind of the subject. I have no clue if that is right or even close.

5. Sitney has a better handle on Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome than I do. He explains that all of these people are represent or becoming different gods or goddesses in a cult. I thought that they were a cult and that the drug made them all feel like they were in hell. Sitney says " It is not an apocalypse of liberated gods or chaotic demons, nor is it a perversion of the myth of Pentheus and Dionysus, in which the god is devoured" So I guess I interpreted the film a whole lot different than Sitney did. But his reasons make more sense than mine. I would like to go back and watch it again to see if I can get a better grasp of the film.

6. The Lyrical film is when the main character of the film is behind the camera. There is not protagonist for the viewer to see, we are seeing the film through the camera eyes which are also the protagonist eyes. So whatever the protagonist sees or does is what the audience sees.

7. I think that he means a soft montage shows us what is going to happen. He describes showing the audience trees with color, but by the end of the film the trees have lost their leaves and are dying. So the hard montage would be the tree dying. I don't know if that is right but thats what I got out of it. It doesn't seem like montage is the right word to use for it though.

8. Brakhage believed that we all see things as they happen but we remember them according to how we feel about them. He goes on to explain that the camera is also a sort of eye but it does not have a mind to change the perception of the image we have seen. So instead of using our mind to alter an image we have seen he uses editing, or aesthetic techniques to alter the way we see things. I hope thats sort of right.

9. I think Sitney says this because Brakhage was the first person to take the 35mm film or whatever film he had and physically create art on it, either by scratching directly on the film or doing some other type of abuse to the film. It is also a new type of film where there aren't really characters but instead just abstract images.

10. I don't know if any of this is right but here we go. The four motifs are the birth of consciousness, the cycle of the seasons, man's struggle with nature, and sexual balance. I can't figure out which artist go with which motif but the artist involved are from the European Romanticism of Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Pound, Stevens, Crane, Williams, and Sukofsky.