Experimental film
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| ===The 1970s and time arts in the conceptual art landscape=== | ===The 1970s and time arts in the conceptual art landscape=== | ||
| - | [[Conceptual art]] in the 1970s pushed even further. [[Robert Smithson]], a California-based artist, made several films about his [[earthworks]] and attached projects. [[Yoko Ono]] made conceptual films, the most notorious of which is ''Rape,'' which finds a woman and invades her life with cameras following her back to her apartment as she flees from the invasion. Around this time a new generation was entering the field, many of whom were students of the early avant-gardists. Leslie Thornton, Peggy Ahwesh, and Su Friedrich expanded upon the work of the structuralists, incorporating a broader range of content while maintaining a self-reflexive form. | + | [[Conceptual art]] in the 1970s pushed even further. [[Robert Smithson]], a California-based artist, made several films about his [[earthworks]] and attached projects. [[Yoko Ono]] made conceptual films, the most notorious of which is ''Rape,'' which finds a woman and invades her life with cameras following her back to her apartment as she flees from the invasion. Around this time a new generation was entering the field, many of whom were students of the early avant-gardists. [[Leslie Thornton]], [[Peggy Ahwesh]], and [[Su Friedrich]] expanded upon the work of the structuralists, incorporating a broader range of content while maintaining a self-reflexive form. |
| ===Feminist ''avant-garde'' and other political offshoots=== | ===Feminist ''avant-garde'' and other political offshoots=== | ||
Revision as of 19:16, 29 September 2007
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Experimental film, or "experimental cinema," is a term that describes a range of filmmaking styles that are generally quite different from, and often opposed to, the practices of mainstream commercial and documentary filmmaking. "Avant-garde" is also used to describe this work, and "underground" has been used in the past, though it has also had other connotations. While "experimental" covers a wide range of practice, an "experimental film" is often characterized by the absence of linear narrative, the use of various abstracting techniques (out of focus, painting or scratching on film, rapid editing), the use of asynchronous (non-diegetic) sound or even the absence of any sound track. The goal is often to place the viewer in a more active and more thoughtful relationship to the film. At least through the 1960s, and to some extent after, many experimental films took an oppositional stance toward mainstream culture. Most such films are made on very low budgets, self-financed or financed through small grants, with a minimal crew or, quite often, a crew of only one person, the filmmaker. It has been argued that much experimental film is no longer in fact "experimental," but has in fact become a film genre and that many of its more typical features - such as a non-narrative, impressionistic or poetic approaches to the film's construction - define what is generally understood to be "experimental".
Contents |
History
The European avant-garde
The postwar American avant-garde
Avant-garde film in the United States
The New American Cinema and Structural-Materialism
Main article: Structural_film#Context
The 1970s and time arts in the conceptual art landscape
Conceptual art in the 1970s pushed even further. Robert Smithson, a California-based artist, made several films about his earthworks and attached projects. Yoko Ono made conceptual films, the most notorious of which is Rape, which finds a woman and invades her life with cameras following her back to her apartment as she flees from the invasion. Around this time a new generation was entering the field, many of whom were students of the early avant-gardists. Leslie Thornton, Peggy Ahwesh, and Su Friedrich expanded upon the work of the structuralists, incorporating a broader range of content while maintaining a self-reflexive form.
Feminist avant-garde and other political offshoots
Laura Mulvey's writing and filmmaking launched a flourishing of feminist filmmaking based on the idea that conventional Hollywood narrative reinforced gender norms and a patriarchal gaze. Their response was to resist narrative in a way to show its fissures and inconsistencies. Chantal Akerman and Sally Potter are just two of the leading feminist filmmakers working in this mode in the 1970s. Video art emerged as a medium in this period, and feminists like Martha Rosler and Cecelia Condit took full advantage of it. In the 1980s feminist, gay and other political experimental work continued, with filmmakers like Barbara Hammer, Su Friedrich, Tracy Moffatt, Sadie Benning, Moira Sullivanand Isaac Julien among others finding experimental format condusive to their questions about identity politics.
Distribution and exhibition
Influences on commercial media
Though experimental film is known to a relatively small number of practitioners, academics and connoisseurs, it has influenced and continues to influence cinematography, visual effects and editing.
The genre of music video can be seen as a commercialization of many techniques of experimental film. Title design and television advertising have also been influenced by experimental film.
Many experimental filmmakers have also made feature films, and vice versa. Notable examples include Kathryn Bigelow, Peter Greenaway, Derek Jarman, Jean Cocteau, Isaac Julien, Sally Potter, Gus Van Sant and Luis Buñuel, although the degree to which their feature filmmaking takes on mainstream commercial esthetics differs widely.
See also
Key critical texts
- A. L. Rees, A History of Experimental Film and Video (BFI, 1999).
- Malcolm Le Grice, Abstract Film and Beyond (MIT, 1977).
- Scott MacDonald, A Critical Cinema, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, 1992 and 1998).
- Scott MacDonald, Avant-Garde Film: Motion Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
- James Peterson, Dreams of Chaos, Visions of Order: Understanding the American Avant-Garde Cinema (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994).
- P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974).
- Michael O’Pray, Avant-Garde Film: Forms, Themes and Passions (London: Wallflower Press, 2003).
- David Curtis (ed.), A Directory of British Film and Video Artists (Arts Council, 1999).
- David Curtis, Experimental Cinema - A Fifty Year Evolution. (London. Studio Vista. 1971)
- Wheeler Winston Dixon, The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema. (Albany, NY. State University of New York Press, 1997)
- Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (eds.) Experimental Cinema - The Film Reader, (London: Routledge, 2002)
- Stan Brakhage. Film at Wit's End - Essays on American Independent Filmmakers. (Edinburgh, Polygon. 1989)
- Stan Brakhage. Essential Brakhage - Selected Writings on Filmmaking. (New York, McPherson. 2001)
- Parker Tyler, Underground Film: A Critical History. (New York: Grove Press, 1969)
