Invisible Cinema

Yin and Yang

Remember, experimental cinema is your primal, opposing, but complementary cosmic force!

Happy New Year!

Word vs. image? Part 2

In the first post, Word vs. image?, I asked a series of questions that I feel I can answer myself now!  I guess this is a somewhat drastic measure for getting a dialogue on experimental cinema going!  :)

Why is contemporary experimental cinema mutually exclusive with commercialism (and consequently absent from the most visible film journalism)?

• In some ways, I think that experimental cinema is a separate language of images, i.e. visual music, and the commercial world does not know how to "read" this language, and consequently places no value on it.

• Also, experimental cinema is not made typically as a product for sale.  We usually just give the films away for next to nothing, which in itself is quite a radical phenomenon in 2007, as are other non-commercial enterprises such as the blogosphere and YouTube. 
  

Why is a a short, poetic, personal essay less acknowledged in comparison to a traditional film review?

• Short, poetic, personal essays communicate in terms of feeling and experimentation in language.  This form of communication is not valued in the way logical, analytical, linear forms of communication are for reasons that go back to the invention of the alphabet and written language.  :)

If Jonas Mekas decided to write the Movie Journal for the Village Voice now in 2007, would he be published?

• In all honesty, hell no!, Jonas would never get hired now!  The Village Voice seems to fire writers for being too erudite, and this newspaper is not really invested in NY cinema and counter-culture expression, i.e. non-commercial poetic cinema.  If they were, they would have hired me!  :)

Why is my own short experimental film to video, Kittypie, less acknowledged (on the blogosphere) compared with  a top ten list from a film critic?

• This is an interesting philosophical question.  Why do film critics celebrate lists that itemize art into a digestible context?   :)  When we create intuitive films of nature and feeling and music, based on all-at-once gestalt perception, we do not have patriarchal authority.  Sorry!

Why is a beautiful narrative film like Syndromes and a Century splashed with accolades, while a short experimental film (not necessarily mine, but perhaps something by Nathaniel Dorsky, Jeanne Liotta, or Ben Russell) which embodies the same core poetic expression, but better & more concentrated & without dialogue(!), omitted from the major visible forms of print media?

• This is a very complex question.  First of all, for reasons we have reviewed already an artistic narrative film is made for profit, it can be sold, and it can be more readily understood, given that a narrative is a really conventional format at this point in cinema.  This film is more readily accessible in every way than Nathaniel Dorsky's work.  Film critics predominantly write about the business of cinema, and experimental cinema does not participate in the biz, even though we may like to!   
  

Why is it easier for me to communicate in writing in the form of a blog as opposed to making an experimental film?

• Just about anything is easier than making a film!

If I express my perspective on cinema creatively and non-traditionally, does that mean people will not listen as frequently, compared with writing in a "respectable" form of film criticism?

• Yes, pretty much, this is what writing creatively & non-traditionally means.  Although, I feel fortunate just to have a voice on the blogosphere to share my perspective.

Why are two lines of poetry perceived as less important than a critical film review?

• Poetry is an example of an intuitive form of being and feeling.  Film reviews convey a logical, linear form of information.  I guess people have different ways and motivations for gathering info.  Poetry may not be as valued, because it isn't easily defined.  However, poetry can open the window to a greater consciousness, which any good form of writing or imagery has the potential to do!!!

P.S.  Check out Chained to the Cinémathèque's INCREDIBLE photo/video essay:  Crimen Falsi Redux, Part 1: The Theory of the Image.

"Oh you're so silent Jens"

Happy Holidays!

Luv, Jens & Jen

  :)

Word vs. Image?

I just discovered a very interesting book entitled, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain (author of Art & Physics).  I'm on page 7 of this work, and already I'm fascinated.  Some reviews have described the book as dogmatic, simplifying the masculine & the feminine, and actually confusing correlation with causation; but the historic examples this writer chooses, his background as a surgeon and professor of surgery, and his ability to create a compelling exploration, make this book worthy of consideration.  The subject of word vs. image certainly deserves to be questioned!  Here are a few of the questions I bring to the topic, & I guess I should probably remind you that experimental cinema is predominantly nonverbal, as well as non-narrative:

• Why is contemporary experimental cinema mutually exclusive with commercialism (and consequently absent from the most visible film journalism)?

• Why is a a short, poetic, personal essay less acknowledged in comparison to a traditional film review?

• If Jonas Mekas decided to write the Movie Journal for the Village Voice now in 2007, would he be published?

• Why is my own short experimental film to video, Kittypie, less acknowledged (on the blogosphere) compared with  a top ten list from a film critic?

• Why is a beautiful narrative film like Syndromes and a Century splashed with accolades, while a short experimental film (not necessarily mine, but perhaps something by Nathaniel Dorsky, Jeanne Liotta, or Ben Russell) which embodies the same core poetic expression, but better & more concentrated & without dialogue(!), omitted from the major visible forms of print media?

• Why is it easier for me to communicate in writing in the form of a blog as opposed to making an experimental film?

• If I express my perspective on cinema creatively and non-traditionally, does that mean people will not listen as frequently, compared with writing in a "respectable" form of film criticism?

• Why are two lines of poetry perceived as less important than a critical film review?

So yeah, some of the questions are more impartial than others, but I have to confess that I actually live all of them!  The most difficult aspect of learning how to make an experimental film for me was to create this work without including dialogue, to communicate only through images, sometimes without even music.  The language of images in experimental cinema is something I take for granted now and rarely question.  This form of communication has become as valid to me as a written poem.  Although, the process of absorption did not happen over night.  :)

I guess intuitively it would be plausible to say that America's contemporary images are very powerful, but they are at the service of at least some kind of hierarchy.  I really think that experimental cinema is kept out of the culture because we who participate in it are rather low in the hierarchy.  :)

Here is one excerpt from the book:

"There is one fact that can be established:  the only phenomenon which, always and in all parts of the world, seems to be linked with the appearance of writing . . . is the establishment of hierarchical societies, consisting of masters and slaves, and where one part of the population is made to work for the other part."  - Claude Levi-Strauss

(Oh, SNAP!)

*******

You know I love the written poetry of Leonard Cohen and Rumi, for example, more than even cinema sometimes.  (Although, I would have to observe that written poetry seems to factor pretty low in our American culture too.) I love to write with a passion that leaves me dizzy and faint sometimes.  But it's okay to question what we love, you know?  And the question about the influence of word vs. the influence of image may be more profound than what meets the eye . . . 

Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen

"You Are Right, Sahara"  by Leonard Cohen

You are right, Sahara.  There are no mists, or veils, or distances.  But the mist is surrounded by a mist; and the veil is hidden behind a veil; and the distance continually draws away from the distance.  That is why there are no mists, or veils, or distances.  That is why it is called The Great Distance of Mists and Veils.

It is here that The Traveller becomes The Wanderer, and The Wanderer becomes The One Who Is Lost, and The One Who Is Lost becomes The Seeker, and The Seeker becomes The Passionate Lover, and The Passionate Lover becomes The Beggar, and The Beggar becomes The Wretch, and the Wretch becomes The One Who Must Be Sacrificed, and The One Who Must Be Sacrificed becomes The Resurrected One, and The Resurrected One becomes The One Who Has Transcended The Great Distance of Mist and Veils.

Then for a thousand years (or the rest of the afternoon) such a One spins in the Blazing Fire of Changes, embodying all the transformations, one after the other, and then beginning again, and then ending again, 86,000 times a second. 

Then such a One, if he is a man, is ready to love the woman, Sahara; and such a One, if she is a woman, is ready to love the man who can put into song The Great Distance of Mists and Veils.  Is it you who is waiting, Sahara, or is it me?"

Of Dark and Luminous Matter - Dec. 15, Millennium Film Workshop

Just a note to check out Jeanne Liotta's program, Of Dark And Luminous Matter at Millennium Film Workshop, Sat. Dec. 15.  Included in this show will be the starry night sky field recording, OBSERVANDO EL CIELO, hailed as one of the 10 best films of 2007 by Chrissie Iles in Artforum!  (And adored by Invisible Cinema in tiny blog documents and comments fields!)  You can read more about this film from Michael Sicinski at GreenCine Daily.

Some things you just have to see!

***

From Jeanne Liotta:

"hello friends!

yes it is once again time to celebrate the darkest time of year
with sympathetic flickerings particles and waves
in the form of sounds +images
by myself and others
at Millenium Film Workshop
Saturday December  15
8pm

OF DARK AND LUMINOUS MATTER:
-Noctiluca (Magellan's Toys #1), 1974 , 16mm film, 4 min, silent,
HOLLIS FRAMPTON
-Milk and Honey 2004  16mm film 16 min , KATE MCCABE
-Blaecsolstis 2006, 16mm film, 6 min TOMAS CASAS
-Counterfeit Music Video #1 (Snow Job) 1996, VHS, 3 min, ROBERT
ATTANASIO

interspersed WITH various hymns to the void  by JEANNE LIOTTA
including
OBSERVANDO EL CIELO (2007) 16mm film, 19 minutes, sound by Peggy Ahwesh
Seven years of celestial field recordings gathered from the chaos of
the cosmos and inscribed onto 16mm film from various locations upon
this turning tripod Earth. This work is neither a metaphor nor a
symbol, but is feeling towards a fact in the midst of perception,
which time flows through. Natural VLF radio recordings of the
magnetosphere in action allow the universe to speak for itself. The
Sublime is Now. Amor Fati!"  - J.L.

. . . and the city . . .

"Are you a lucky little lady in
                     the City of Light?
Or just another lost angel
                       City of Night"

                        -- Jim Morrison

Guest Blogger - Joel Schlemowitz, Jewels & Gems

(I'm taking the day off, and Joel Schlemowitz has provided a beautiful cinema document on the "Jewels and Gems," program of 1 minute films that he curated for the Film-makers' Cooperative!  Let's celebrate ephemeral cinema!  :)

12/1/07 -- Joel Schlemowitz:

So I'm here guest blogging on Jennifer MacMillan's Invisible Cinema to write about the 1 minute films screening that was part of "Jewels and Gems from the Film-Makers' Coop" at the Collective:Unconscious on Monday, November 26, 2007.

We ought to start with the curatorial agenda, which was to use the Coop's 5,000 film and video collection as a place of discovery, to curate the unknown and undiscovered as well as the films that are known and screened more frequently.  But how does one go about discovering?  The Coop Catalogue is now a database that can be used to look up films by the title, or year, or words used in the filmmaker's description.  But looking at the Coop Catalogue as "data" that can be filtered in different ways also opens up the possibility of combining work in more "experimental" combinations.  In this case, a common running time: 1 minute.

(It's not the first time that the Coop's collection has been utilized for this sort of experimental curating.    Back in 1993 Films Charas did a summer season of "The Film-Makers' Coop from A to Z" which came as close as possible to showing one short film by every filmmaker in the Coop.)

The cold and rainy November night make me a little concerned about turnout for our of the 1 minute film program, but a good crowd started to appear there at the C:U.  Soon the house was full.  What was of interest to me was the potential for discoveries.  Films that we uncovered through the show did not disappoint in that respect.  Here are some haphazard highlights:

• Caroline Avery's "Mr. Speaker" (1986) came first.  A fragmented sampling -- clipping bits and piece, camera on, camera off, in little snatches and cut-up phrases -- of the congressional proceedings when Newt was speaker, shot off a TV.  The cut-up techniques sharply brought out the bumptious nuances of the proceedings.

• Bruce Baillie's "Show Leader" (1966), a salute to the audience, intended as prologue to a screening of films, was as it is described: the filmmaker standing in a stream in a revealing moment.

• Tom Bessoir's "Microfilm" (1979) a film-object, a film shaped as a roll of microfilm of a newspaper, zipping through the projector at 24 frames per second.  Interesting to see the illusion of movement created by these rapidly changing pages, the color "funnies" jumping actively from page to page like old-school Max Fleisher and the classified section -- all small print in narrow columns -- producing subtle vibrations and movements, the advisements popping by as single percussive interruptions in the flowing movements, twenty four times per second, of gray columns of text.

• Bessoir's "Linear I" (1982) also quite memorable. A single white line stalking back and forth on this field of gray, performing whip-like turns, sometimes evoking a dancer, sometimes an animal pacing in its cage, sometimes feeling like the old-school arcade game Pong.  The white-on-gray of negative film used in the projector had that ghostly quality that a projected negative often has, with the dark gray center bleeding to a lighter gray at the edges, looking much like it was made contemporaneously with Hans Richter's Rhythmus 21.

• Frank Biesendorfer's "Hot Dog Party" (2001.  A montage of seemingly vintage black and white footage, artfully assembled to maximize the non sequitur pile-up of golfing footage that feels like it's out of an old instructional film, home movies, and a little homemade stag footage.  A memorable film.

• Robert Breer's "A Miracle" (1954) got a giggle from the audience as an animated cutout photo of the pope juggled a red ball, in vibrant Kodachrome. 

• Don Duga's "Man" (1967), a short mind-expanding film of the late sixties held a circle in the center of the square frame of the screen in which a series of Buddhas morphed and dissolved together with other images.  Remarkable to think this sort of matte and dissolve work was done all through the manual printing and optical work in totally analogue fashion and yet seems so much like the purely digital effects of contemporary video mixing.  With its 60s sensibility, the film might easily have seemed dated, but the sheer beauty of the filmmaking caused the audience -- many of whom had not been born when the film was made -- to signal their appreciation with applause after this film.

• James Fotopoulos's "Two Cats" (1999), gave us a film-portrait of two cats, sitting by the window, in handheld single frame, its fragmented high-speed shooting style contrasting with the relaxed moments of leisure and contemplation of the cats, but in giving just little glimpses to catch, the film forced us to heighten our attention to the details of the hard crisp sunlight through the window, the close-ups of the texture of the fur of the two cats, the nuances of expression on their faces.  Someone needs to curate the next all-cat film festival! (I say "next" on account of Pola Chapelle's Intercat '69   ...hey Jennifer, I see your next curatorial venture calling you.)

• Victor Grauer's "Portrait 2" (1977), a bearded face and dark glasses in black and white, with moments of black imageless film, and moments of a clear white screen.  An interesting formal juxtaposition.

• George Griffin's "L'Age Door" (1975) brought a giggle from the audience as the title appeared with its pun on the Bunuel film.  The film itself took advantage of the flatness of the screen.  We see a rectangle and it could either be a doorway that leads in, or door that swings open.  A slightly indiscernible grayish person swings the rectangle open, and it folds out into two rectangles, like the opening of a book. But which is the door and which is the doorway?  The ambiguity comes into play, and the rectangle that was the door is now the doorway and the man walks through.  This trompe l'oeil repeats and repeats in a series of variations, reminiscent of Emile Cohl's "Fantasmagorie" in its intense one minute cycle of succeeding transformations.

• "Home" (1988) by Cyndi Haas repeats the word "Home" in sighing fashion on the soundtrack, while an accompanying black and white photograph of home flashes on screen.

• Lee Krugman's "3 Views" (1978) was on regular 8mm, and we set up an 8mm projector for it, and had to plunk it down precariously at the edge of the booth to project when its time came in the program.  A lovely work of poetic dailiness, in little details of New York, often intentionally obscure in their framing. 

• Dave Lee's Lumina's "Gaze" (1974), in black and white, a dark screen.  A circle of light flitters on it, moving to different spots, appearing and disappearing.  What is it?  A will-o'-the-wisp?  The moon?  A flashlight?  A beautiful and cosmic film.

• Saul Levine's "Later Later Dutch Master Later", had Saul in front of the camera, looking himself like a Dutch master, with an empty Dutch Master's cigar box, shot in single frames so that the box flickers and rotates in his hands. 

• Jeff Scher's "Ann Arbor Festival Trailer 97" (1997).  A lovely work of rotoscope animation. 

• As the reel turned on the projector and Dave Stone's "In Springtime" (1970) began, Seth, who built the reels for the show, whispered to me "this one is just clear leader".  As it should be!  How could we not show the 1 minute film that is just 1 minute of clear leader?  It's even better that when we look him up on Hugh McCarney's Film and Video Art site it appears that this 1 minute of clear leader is his only film.  All the better! 

• Greg Yaskot's "Cows" (1972) a work by a filmmaker who knew we would like black and white silent film with cows, and that we would especially like a film with cows that was shot in time lapse.  At first it was had to realize we were seeing time lapse.  The cows were just there eating the grass.  But then suddenly they would move quickly and we would know that we were seeing time lapse because a cow doesn't normally scuttle like a cockroach startled by the lights.  The audience giggled in appreciation. 

• Heiko Kalmbach's "Final Curtain" (1995) was on video and came last for logistical reasons, but also was a fitting end for the show, a minute of unreadable end crawl credits superimposed over a man reacting to applause.

So as the lights came up the question was what was the 1 minute film?  Sometime a fragment.  Sometimes a short poetic work of the scale of a haiku.  Sometimes the punch line of a joke.  Sometimes a tiny world into itself.  A cosmos in miniature.  Dr. Seuss's Whoville.  Sometimes all it needed to be.  Sometimes a bauble.  Sometimes a bon mot.  Sometimes filling that minute up to the brim with as much as possible, a minute long filmic roller coaster ride. Sometimes a restful minute's moment of contemplation, too short to become boring.

The minute long film gives us the chance to open up and try to see the merits of something not in keeping with our predisposed tastes.  It was gladdening to see films one wouldn't normally be disposed to, like, or appreciate; and to see these films having a chance to get a chance - actually opening up one's tastes to a broader range of films.  Of course, failing this, at the back of our minds we can always say, "Well, it's only going to be a minute of this!"