1963 was a pivotal year in the history of avant-garde film in the United States. In Visionary Film, P. Adams Sitney calls it “the high point of the mythopoeic development within the American avant-garde.” He explains:
[Stan] Brakhage had finished and was exhibiting the first two sections of Dog Star Man by then; Jack Smith was still exhibiting the year-old Flaming Creatures; [Kenneth Anger‘s] Scorpio Rising appeared almost simultaneously with [Gregory Markopoulos‘s] Twice a Man. The shift from an interest in dreams and the erotic quest for the self to mythopoeia, and a wider interest in the collective unconscious occurred in the films of a number of major and independent artists.
(An inclusive list of American avant-garde films made/released in 1963 can be found here.)
On Christmas Day of 1963 began the weeklong third edition of Exprmntl, a competition of worldwide avant-garde films held in Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium. The two previous Exprmntl competitions took place in 1949 and 1958. Exprmntl...
[Stan] Brakhage had finished and was exhibiting the first two sections of Dog Star Man by then; Jack Smith was still exhibiting the year-old Flaming Creatures; [Kenneth Anger‘s] Scorpio Rising appeared almost simultaneously with [Gregory Markopoulos‘s] Twice a Man. The shift from an interest in dreams and the erotic quest for the self to mythopoeia, and a wider interest in the collective unconscious occurred in the films of a number of major and independent artists.
(An inclusive list of American avant-garde films made/released in 1963 can be found here.)
On Christmas Day of 1963 began the weeklong third edition of Exprmntl, a competition of worldwide avant-garde films held in Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium. The two previous Exprmntl competitions took place in 1949 and 1958. Exprmntl...
- 10/1/2017
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Recommended VIEWINGWes Anderson's latest experimentation in stop-motion, Isle of Dogs, gets its disturbing yet droll first trailer.Valentine, above, is a selection of intimate videos directed by Paul Thomas Anderson of Haim's live sessions of cuts from their latest album, Something to Tell You.We adore Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's most recent film, The Assassin, and highly anticipate this new restoration for his difficult to see 1987 film drama, Daughter of the Nile. Grasshopper Film has bravely made Jean-Marie Straub's 2-minute masterpiece The Algerian War! available for free on their website.Recommended Reading"I began thinking that Mothlight must begin with the unraveling of a cocoon and end with some simulation of candle flame or electric heat (as all moths whose wings were being used in the film had been collected from enclosed...
- 9/27/2017
- MUBI
“Who could fail to sense the greatness of this art, in which the visible is the sign of the invisible?”—Jean GrémillonCinema is what you imagine, and what you imagine first, in the darkness where bundles of light thrown 24 times a second at a wall produce illusion, is movement, an electromagnetic record of the past conjured into motion by your mind’s eye. A vision. So cinema is alchemy, it’s mystery. Unlike television, which is ephemeral but endless, cinema is eternal yet ever ending. (Raúl Ruiz made an entire film from the short ends of another, and the studio system of Classic Hollywood was so dedicated to The End that it couldn’t go on.) Cinema is shadow, totality, the night.Not all film is cinema and not all cinema is poetry, but poetry in the movies is always cinema. And poetry is unknowable, like the films of Paul Clipson.
- 9/20/2017
- MUBI
My work is described as beautiful, horrible, hogwash, genius, maundering, precise, quaint, avant-garde, historical, hackneyed, masterful, trivial, intense, mystical, virtuosic, bewildering, absorbing, concise, absurd, amusing, innovative, nostalgic, contemporary, iconoclastic, sophisticated, trash, masterpieces, etc. It’s all true. —Bruce Conner
What does it all mean? This question, when applied to the ever-expanding mythology of “Twin Peaks,” typically leads to a series of murky pathways and dead ends, but they’re usually irrelevant. Sure, it’s fun to dig through the pileup of circumstances that led FBI Agent Dale Cooper from investigating a small-town murder to becoming trapped in the red-hued inter-dimensional prison known as the Black Lodge. Play that game if it makes you happy — IndieWire’s TV team has done it beautifully — but that doesn’t mean Lynch or co-creator Mark Frost will always make the journey worthwhile.
The show, which has recreated its appeal from the ground up in...
What does it all mean? This question, when applied to the ever-expanding mythology of “Twin Peaks,” typically leads to a series of murky pathways and dead ends, but they’re usually irrelevant. Sure, it’s fun to dig through the pileup of circumstances that led FBI Agent Dale Cooper from investigating a small-town murder to becoming trapped in the red-hued inter-dimensional prison known as the Black Lodge. Play that game if it makes you happy — IndieWire’s TV team has done it beautifully — but that doesn’t mean Lynch or co-creator Mark Frost will always make the journey worthwhile.
The show, which has recreated its appeal from the ground up in...
- 7/2/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Babette Mangolte. © Fleur van Muiswinkel If the name Babette Mangolte doesn’t ring with the same familiarity as such storied French cinematographers as Raoul Coutard and William Lubtchansky, it’s not for lack of innovation or accomplishment. Born in Montmorot in 1941, Mangolte moved to New York in 1970 following a number of years as an assistant cinematographer and apprentice to director Marcel Hanoun. There she quickly integrated herself into the city’s burgeoning experimental cinema scene, befriending luminaries such as Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, and soon after met a 20-year-old Chantal Akerman whom she proceeded to collaborate with on a series of groundbreaking works throughout the mid-70s. Influenced as much by structuralism as the films of the French New Wave, Mangolte and Akerman deftly utilized time and space as cinematic conduits to visually articulate themes of dislocation, alienation, and female autonomy. Their most celebrated work, the landmark feminist dispositif Jeanne Dielman,...
- 3/30/2017
- MUBI
Bruce Baillie. Courtesy of Lux. The first time he saw Bruce Baillie, a fiery Peter Kubelka recounted in front of an amused audience at the Austrian Film Museum, the American filmmaker was pulling off a headstand in a classroom before taking his students out on the campus to collect garbage. In the filmmaking of Baillie and his organization Canyon Cinema, which was showcased from January 30 to February 3 in five programs curated by Garbiñe Ortega, ideas of life and community are transformed into sounds, colors and film. Sometimes those ideas exceed the films. As Mr. Baillie has put it himself in an interview with Richard Corliss in 1971, “I always felt that I brought as much truth out of the environment as I could, but I’m tired of coming out of. . . . I want everybody really lost, and I want us all to be at home there. Something like that. Actually I am not interested in that,...
- 3/21/2017
- MUBI
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.NEWSThe great French essayist Chris Marker remains on our minds nearly four years after his death—the mystery of his life and his work remains haunting. Which is why we're very intrigued by the news that his adopted daughter has penned a new book about their relationship, Chris Marker (le livre impossible).Okay, Sofia Coppola's A Very Murray Christmas was pretty wretched (though we can't help but love that it was shot in New York's Bemelmans Bar), but we adore Don Siegel's Southern Gothic, Civil War-set, Clint Eastwood-starring kinky horror film (!), The Beguiled—and so are tremendously curious about the news that Coppola will remake that 1971 film with Nicole Kidman.Speaking of films in the works, Terry Gilliam may...finally...start...shooting Don Quixote, produced by Paulo Branco,...
- 4/6/2016
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Time Out New York is spotlighting ten highlights from Bam's ongoing Indie 80s series, including David Lynch's Blue Velvet. More goings on: Pedro Costa in New York, Bill Gunn's Ganja & Hess and films by William E. Jones and Thom Andersen in Los Angeles, a Paul Thomas Anderson series in Portland, a program of free screenings in Knoxville and work by Stan Brakhage in Nashville. As Michael Sicinski writes for the Scene, "while Brakhage's films may bear comparisons to a different set of artforms—painting, photography, poetry—they are based on irreducible elements of cinema: light, time and motion." » - David Hudson...
- 7/23/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Time Out New York is spotlighting ten highlights from Bam's ongoing Indie 80s series, including David Lynch's Blue Velvet. More goings on: Pedro Costa in New York, Bill Gunn's Ganja & Hess and films by William E. Jones and Thom Andersen in Los Angeles, a Paul Thomas Anderson series in Portland, a program of free screenings in Knoxville and work by Stan Brakhage in Nashville. As Michael Sicinski writes for the Scene, "while Brakhage's films may bear comparisons to a different set of artforms—painting, photography, poetry—they are based on irreducible elements of cinema: light, time and motion." » - David Hudson...
- 7/23/2015
- Keyframe
Ken Jacobs. Photo by María Meseguer.This past June in A Coruña, Spain (S8) 6th Mostra de Cinema Periferico hosted a retrospective of Ken Jacobs. A legend of experimental filmmaking, this New Yorker gave a master-class about the influence of abstract paintings on his work, presented a broad selection of films in his filmography to the audience, and premiered New Paintings by Ken Jacobs (2015), a new film performance using his famous Nervous Magic Lantern, consisting of a series of abstract slides that he projects with a special device of his own creation. The program focused on Jacobs’ first films, close to a kind of Brakhage-like documentary style, the long series he made along with Jack Smith as an actor/performer, and his experiments with 3D, both in film and digital formats. After all these screenings, we had a coffee or two with him and talked about the films in the program.
- 6/30/2015
- by Víctor Paz Morandeira
- MUBI
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.Above, the trailer for Denis Villeneuve's thriller Sicario, which premiered in competition in Cannes.Cinema Scope #63 is about to hit newstands, but a lot of it can be read online: Mark Peranson on Cannes and Miguel Gomes, Adam Cook talks with Corneliu Porumboiu, Jordan Cronk on The Assassin, Chuck Stephens on Gregory Markopoulous, Christoph Huber on Mad Max: Fury Road, and more.Author William Gibson recounts his encounters with Chris Marker's La Jetée.James Horner, the composer of scores for such Hollywood films as 48 Hrs, Aliens, and Titanic, has died at the age of 61.Federic Babina has made a series of "Archidirector" illustrations, imagining houses designed in the style of filmmakers like David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick.Sight & Sound has exclusive images from the production of Ben Rivers' new movie,...
- 6/24/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
If nothing else, I owe Stan Brakhage for my irrational fear of childbirth ever since I was forced to sit through a collegiate projection of Window Water Baby Moving. Often polarizing for those new to the medium, it’s impossible to deny Brakhage’s ingenuity in his tactile use of film. His oeuvre seems to erase the boundary between method and the means by which to achieve it, which becomes all the more peculiar once you seem him in action. Phil Solomon, a fellow experimental filmmaker and collaborator, has uploaded a handful of videos of Brakhage, in the classroom and out, which The Seventh Art says will serve as the basis […]...
- 8/21/2014
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
If nothing else, I owe Stan Brakhage for my irrational fear of childbirth ever since I was forced to sit through a collegiate projection of Window Water Baby Moving. Often polarizing for those new to the medium, it’s impossible to deny Brakhage’s ingenuity in his tactile use of film. His oeuvre seems to erase the boundary between method and the means by which to achieve it, which becomes all the more peculiar once you seem him in action. Phil Solomon, a fellow experimental filmmaker and collaborator, has uploaded a handful of videos of Brakhage, in the classroom and out, which The Seventh Art says will serve as the basis […]...
- 8/21/2014
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Above: Notes of an Early Fall Part 1
The Ann Arbor Film Festival makes for an ideal entry point for festival novices wanting to dive into the cinema referred to as avant-garde, experimental, or simply, artist’s. The Michigan Theater hosts all of the screenings for the fest (minus a straggler here and there), making it easy to catch as many films as your heart desires. After 52 years, the festival has created a community for itself in the city. On one end, you have the pros who’ve been there since the beginning and openly opine for the good old days when the smell of activism filled the theater. On the other, you have “the youth”; the University of Michigan providing an inexhaustible supply of the curious and the studious. And, of course, you have the typical film fans and socializers balancing out the mix. This sense of community is cemented...
The Ann Arbor Film Festival makes for an ideal entry point for festival novices wanting to dive into the cinema referred to as avant-garde, experimental, or simply, artist’s. The Michigan Theater hosts all of the screenings for the fest (minus a straggler here and there), making it easy to catch as many films as your heart desires. After 52 years, the festival has created a community for itself in the city. On one end, you have the pros who’ve been there since the beginning and openly opine for the good old days when the smell of activism filled the theater. On the other, you have “the youth”; the University of Michigan providing an inexhaustible supply of the curious and the studious. And, of course, you have the typical film fans and socializers balancing out the mix. This sense of community is cemented...
- 5/30/2014
- by Alex Hansen
- MUBI
The 52nd annual Ann Arbor Film Festival will be a jam-packed experimental feature and short film screening event running for six days and nights, this time on March 25-30.
Opening Night will feature a reception and an after-party, and stuffed between those will be a block of nine short films, including new ones by Bryan Boyce, Michael Robinson, Jennifer Reeder and Martha Colburn, as well as a never-before-released work by the legendary Bruce Baillie called Little Girl in which Baillie captured scenes of natural beauty.
Special Events scattered throughout the festival include a retrospective of indie filmmaker Penelope Spheeris that will feature her rock ‘n’ roll-based work, including the original The Decline of Western Civilization, plus The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, her influential punk film Suburbia (screening twice) and a collection of short films.
There will also be several films and presentations by filmmaking scholar Thom Andersen, such...
Opening Night will feature a reception and an after-party, and stuffed between those will be a block of nine short films, including new ones by Bryan Boyce, Michael Robinson, Jennifer Reeder and Martha Colburn, as well as a never-before-released work by the legendary Bruce Baillie called Little Girl in which Baillie captured scenes of natural beauty.
Special Events scattered throughout the festival include a retrospective of indie filmmaker Penelope Spheeris that will feature her rock ‘n’ roll-based work, including the original The Decline of Western Civilization, plus The Decline of Western Civilization Part III, her influential punk film Suburbia (screening twice) and a collection of short films.
There will also be several films and presentations by filmmaking scholar Thom Andersen, such...
- 3/18/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
November 9
8:00 p.m.
Echo Park Film Center
1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Hosted by: Echo Park Film Center
The Echo Park Film Center will be screening six short films by the legendary Stan Brakhage, all made in 1976 and on Super 8. Below is an official statement by Brakhage on the films, followed by the film lineup. (Statement taken from Epfc website.)
“The following films were all made in 1976. I do not wish to describe them.” —
“I want it understood that this ‘summary’ is written for identification purposes only and that it is not intended as a statement by the artist on his work. It is my belief that statements by the artist, particularly in print, aesthetically speaking, would better have been included in that work in the first place. If a film is a work of moving visual art, it is its own subject and subject only to itself.
8:00 p.m.
Echo Park Film Center
1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd)
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Hosted by: Echo Park Film Center
The Echo Park Film Center will be screening six short films by the legendary Stan Brakhage, all made in 1976 and on Super 8. Below is an official statement by Brakhage on the films, followed by the film lineup. (Statement taken from Epfc website.)
“The following films were all made in 1976. I do not wish to describe them.” —
“I want it understood that this ‘summary’ is written for identification purposes only and that it is not intended as a statement by the artist on his work. It is my belief that statements by the artist, particularly in print, aesthetically speaking, would better have been included in that work in the first place. If a film is a work of moving visual art, it is its own subject and subject only to itself.
- 11/6/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
From the Oakland Tribune, Monday, April 28, 1958. Article text:
Brussels, Belgium, April 28: A New York art film director yesterday was awarded second prize in the international experimental film competition and four other Americans won lesser awards.
The $5,000 prize went to Len Lye, New York, for his film “Free Radicals.”
The $10,000 first prize went to Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica for their Polish film “Dom” (House).
Hilary Harris, New York; Francis Thompson, New York; Stan Brakhage, Denver, Colo., and Kenneth Anger, a San Franciscan who lives in Paris won medals.
Nearly half of the 133 films entered were from the United States. There were some boos in the World’s Fair Auditorium when Belgian Interior Minister Pierre Vermeylen announced the results. An international jury studied the films for a week before deciding.
Underground Film Journal notes: This was the 2nd edition of the Brussels Experimental Film Festival.
The film for which Kenneth Anger...
Brussels, Belgium, April 28: A New York art film director yesterday was awarded second prize in the international experimental film competition and four other Americans won lesser awards.
The $5,000 prize went to Len Lye, New York, for his film “Free Radicals.”
The $10,000 first prize went to Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica for their Polish film “Dom” (House).
Hilary Harris, New York; Francis Thompson, New York; Stan Brakhage, Denver, Colo., and Kenneth Anger, a San Franciscan who lives in Paris won medals.
Nearly half of the 133 films entered were from the United States. There were some boos in the World’s Fair Auditorium when Belgian Interior Minister Pierre Vermeylen announced the results. An international jury studied the films for a week before deciding.
Underground Film Journal notes: This was the 2nd edition of the Brussels Experimental Film Festival.
The film for which Kenneth Anger...
- 10/7/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
“It is the job of the film critic to figure out the director’s point-of-view and then gauge how well the finished film matches that vision.”
Ok, that’s a severe paraphrasing, but at the time I heard the actual statement, it didn’t occur to me to record it for posterity. In fact, I didn’t even understand what Roger Ebert was saying when he uttered it during a segment on At the Movies in an admonishing tone to Richard Roeper.
Roeper didn’t “get” it either, throwing back at Ebert that it can’t the job of film reviewers to be mind readers. However, I have since come to realize that’s exactly what it is that a good reviewer is exactly supposed to do.
Film, particularly underground film that isn’t constrained by corporate, commercial or monied interests, is a visual, and sometimes aural, representation of a specific filmmaker’s vision.
Ok, that’s a severe paraphrasing, but at the time I heard the actual statement, it didn’t occur to me to record it for posterity. In fact, I didn’t even understand what Roger Ebert was saying when he uttered it during a segment on At the Movies in an admonishing tone to Richard Roeper.
Roeper didn’t “get” it either, throwing back at Ebert that it can’t the job of film reviewers to be mind readers. However, I have since come to realize that’s exactly what it is that a good reviewer is exactly supposed to do.
Film, particularly underground film that isn’t constrained by corporate, commercial or monied interests, is a visual, and sometimes aural, representation of a specific filmmaker’s vision.
- 4/5/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The 9th annual Brakhage Center Symposium will be taking place this weekend at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where the legendary underground filmmaker Stan Brakhage taught for so many years. The symposium brings together filmmakers, scholars, critics, and curators to discuss the state of modern experimental film — and to show many awesome examples of it.
The event kicks off on Friday, March 15 at 5:00 p.m. with the debut of the video installation Answer Now by Jennifer Reeder at the Atlas Black Box theater.
This will be followed by an all-day event based on “Media Arts and Cinema Poetics” on Saturday, March 16 starting at 9:45 a.m. at the Visual Arts Complex (Vac) 1B20. The programmers leading the discussions and screenings include two major figures from Los Angeles: Glenn Phillips, a curator at the Getty Research Institute, and Mark Toscano, a film preservationist at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
The event kicks off on Friday, March 15 at 5:00 p.m. with the debut of the video installation Answer Now by Jennifer Reeder at the Atlas Black Box theater.
This will be followed by an all-day event based on “Media Arts and Cinema Poetics” on Saturday, March 16 starting at 9:45 a.m. at the Visual Arts Complex (Vac) 1B20. The programmers leading the discussions and screenings include two major figures from Los Angeles: Glenn Phillips, a curator at the Getty Research Institute, and Mark Toscano, a film preservationist at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
- 3/15/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Looking back at 2012 on what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2012—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2012 to create a unique double feature.
All the contributors were asked to write a paragraph explaining their 2012 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch in that perfect world we know doesn't exist but can keep dreaming of every time we go to the movies.
How would you program some...
All the contributors were asked to write a paragraph explaining their 2012 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch in that perfect world we know doesn't exist but can keep dreaming of every time we go to the movies.
How would you program some...
- 1/9/2013
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
News.
The great Manoel de Oliveira turned 104 yesterday! (For more on his most recent feature, see Boris Nelepo's article.) Issue 65 of Senses of Cinema is now online, featuring a piece on Koji Wakamatsu, a conversation with Nicolas Rey, and a look at Marcel Hanoun's Une simple histoire. The resolute Susan Ray has turned to Kickstarter to help fund Action!, a documentary featuring Nicholas Ray's insights into filmmaking that "will be edited mostly from Nick’s film, video, and audio archive—tens of thousands of feet of picture, and hundreds of hours of audio recordings of interviews, classes, lectures, private conversations, journal entries, and an oral history—with supplementary footage licensed from the studios or acquired through research." Susan needs to raise $35 000 by January 2nd, so, if you're able, give generously (it's tax deductible!) so we can see this project realized. There are some impressive goodies available to backers: posters,...
The great Manoel de Oliveira turned 104 yesterday! (For more on his most recent feature, see Boris Nelepo's article.) Issue 65 of Senses of Cinema is now online, featuring a piece on Koji Wakamatsu, a conversation with Nicolas Rey, and a look at Marcel Hanoun's Une simple histoire. The resolute Susan Ray has turned to Kickstarter to help fund Action!, a documentary featuring Nicholas Ray's insights into filmmaking that "will be edited mostly from Nick’s film, video, and audio archive—tens of thousands of feet of picture, and hundreds of hours of audio recordings of interviews, classes, lectures, private conversations, journal entries, and an oral history—with supplementary footage licensed from the studios or acquired through research." Susan needs to raise $35 000 by January 2nd, so, if you're able, give generously (it's tax deductible!) so we can see this project realized. There are some impressive goodies available to backers: posters,...
- 12/12/2012
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Part of the Tony Scott: A Moving Target critical project. Go here for the project's description, index and links to project's other movement.
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
- 11/27/2012
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
This article is part of the critical project Tony Scott: A Moving Target in which an analysis of a scene from a Tony Scott film is passed anonymously to the next participant in the project to respond to with an analysis of his or her own.
<- the previous analysis | movement index
“Of all the directors I’ve worked with, Tony, he’s the one I enjoyed the most, because working with him, you know that he’ll see everything, so everything can be so much more free, there’s no need to worry about the camera.”
—Edgar Ramirez
I’d like for you to do something for me, it’s just a little exercise in something like organic cinema: close your eyes as tight as you can and look at the colors. That’s all. This might be easier if you find a light and stare at it for a few seconds first,...
<- the previous analysis | movement index
“Of all the directors I’ve worked with, Tony, he’s the one I enjoyed the most, because working with him, you know that he’ll see everything, so everything can be so much more free, there’s no need to worry about the camera.”
—Edgar Ramirez
I’d like for you to do something for me, it’s just a little exercise in something like organic cinema: close your eyes as tight as you can and look at the colors. That’s all. This might be easier if you find a light and stare at it for a few seconds first,...
- 11/26/2012
- by Phil Coldiron
- MUBI
Iran In Color Dreams And Visions Of Stan Brakhage
How can we approach Stan Brakhage’s world? Shall we return to his inspiration drawn from the poets of San Francisco and the New York experimental filmmakers of the 1950s? Should we consider his inadequate filmmaking facilities which shrank every year, eventually reducing him to scratching negatives with his fingernails on the hospital bed at the end of his life? Besides all his sources of inspiration, from Eisenstein and Dreyer to Gertrud Stein and Rilke, I intend to examine rather an obscure source material for 18 short films of Brakhage, which most probably hasn’t been taken into consideration yet: Iran and its classical arts.
These 18 short films, called Persians, and made between 1999 to 2001, are among his last films, and based on years of studying Iran’s art and culture. They have been made by the methods of painting and scratching on...
How can we approach Stan Brakhage’s world? Shall we return to his inspiration drawn from the poets of San Francisco and the New York experimental filmmakers of the 1950s? Should we consider his inadequate filmmaking facilities which shrank every year, eventually reducing him to scratching negatives with his fingernails on the hospital bed at the end of his life? Besides all his sources of inspiration, from Eisenstein and Dreyer to Gertrud Stein and Rilke, I intend to examine rather an obscure source material for 18 short films of Brakhage, which most probably hasn’t been taken into consideration yet: Iran and its classical arts.
These 18 short films, called Persians, and made between 1999 to 2001, are among his last films, and based on years of studying Iran’s art and culture. They have been made by the methods of painting and scratching on...
- 10/22/2012
- by Ehsan Khoshbakht
- MUBI
The 8th annual Brakhage Center Symposium has been programmed by curator Kathy Geritz and will examine the concept of experimental narrative over three days of screenings and lectures on March 16-18 at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Geritz has pulled together a program in which experimental films explore notions of narrative through diverse means, whether combining with documentary or animated elements, or through nonlinear structure, or through the direct experience of time. As Geritz hopes: “In these different ways, the films presented will challenge and expand our expectations as they push the boundaries of storytelling conventions.”
Some of the filmmakers who will be present at the symposium are animators Stacey Steers and Chris Sullivan, experimental documentary filmmaker Amie Siegel and Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who will be screening his 1987 acclaimed feature film Syndromes and a Century and the more recent short film Emerald (2007).
Also, film critic and historian J.
Geritz has pulled together a program in which experimental films explore notions of narrative through diverse means, whether combining with documentary or animated elements, or through nonlinear structure, or through the direct experience of time. As Geritz hopes: “In these different ways, the films presented will challenge and expand our expectations as they push the boundaries of storytelling conventions.”
Some of the filmmakers who will be present at the symposium are animators Stacey Steers and Chris Sullivan, experimental documentary filmmaker Amie Siegel and Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who will be screening his 1987 acclaimed feature film Syndromes and a Century and the more recent short film Emerald (2007).
Also, film critic and historian J.
- 3/12/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
With Georges Méliès as its subject, Martin Scorsese's Hugo – up for 11 Oscars – is a film that gives meaning to the cliché 'the magic of the movies'
Should you stay up for the Oscars, here's a surefire way to be hammered by the end: pour yourself a drink each time you hear the word "magic", and you'll be watching the winner's tearful acceptance speech in an alcoholic haze.
Is there a phrase more hackneyed than "the magic of the movies"? From the moment of their invention at the end of the 19th century, motion pictures have been perceived as simultaneously hyper natural and supernatural. The first films of the Lumiére brothers were simple recordings ("actualities") that established the photographic basis of the medium; those produced by the stage magician Georges Méliès, the subject of Martin Scorsese's impressive 3D spectacle Hugo, were fantastic and predicated on special effects – namely stop-motion,...
Should you stay up for the Oscars, here's a surefire way to be hammered by the end: pour yourself a drink each time you hear the word "magic", and you'll be watching the winner's tearful acceptance speech in an alcoholic haze.
Is there a phrase more hackneyed than "the magic of the movies"? From the moment of their invention at the end of the 19th century, motion pictures have been perceived as simultaneously hyper natural and supernatural. The first films of the Lumiére brothers were simple recordings ("actualities") that established the photographic basis of the medium; those produced by the stage magician Georges Méliès, the subject of Martin Scorsese's impressive 3D spectacle Hugo, were fantastic and predicated on special effects – namely stop-motion,...
- 2/25/2012
- by J Hoberman
- The Guardian - Film News
A special alert for New Yorkers and anyone else who'll be in New York any time from now through February 17, 2014. Word is getting around that, as part of MoMA's current exhibition Contemporary Galleries: 1980 - Now, films by Stan Brakhage are being screened daily at 3pm in the Time Warner Screening Room on the 2nd floor of the Museum's Lewis B and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building. The program changes once a week, on Wednesday. Meantime, in another black-box gallery on the same floor, Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988-1998) is being shown with English subtitles.
There hasn't been much noise about this, although, to be fair, @MoMAFilm did tweet about the Brakhage and Godard screenings back in November. To be even more fair, this is a gargantuan exhibition — the Art Tattler has a fairly thorough overview — and not every work's going to get its own press release.
There hasn't been much noise about this, although, to be fair, @MoMAFilm did tweet about the Brakhage and Godard screenings back in November. To be even more fair, this is a gargantuan exhibition — the Art Tattler has a fairly thorough overview — and not every work's going to get its own press release.
- 12/14/2011
- MUBI
Invigorated by the hope that "a new world is possible and latent already in the old one," the editors of the multi-lingual journal La Furia Umana launch Issue 10. Among the dozens of features, you'll find Fred Camper on Stan Brakhage, Joe McElhaney on Terrence Malick (and Lawrence French recalls meeting the director in 1978), Michael Guarneri's interview with Raya Martin, a roundtable discussion of the "post-cinematic" in the Paranormal Activity series and Cristina Álvarez López's photographic and textual essay on Bergman's Persona and Lynch's Inland Empire.
Bit by bit, the October issue of frieze is appearing online. Issue 142's "Life in Film" column comes from Deimantas Narkevičius, whose exhibition Restricted Sensation is on view in Paris through October 22. Also: Chris Wiley on Ryan Trecartin, Katie Kitamura on Cory Arcangel and Dan Kidner introduces a conversation: "In recent years, artists in the UK have increasingly turned to narrative cinema and mainstream TV,...
Bit by bit, the October issue of frieze is appearing online. Issue 142's "Life in Film" column comes from Deimantas Narkevičius, whose exhibition Restricted Sensation is on view in Paris through October 22. Also: Chris Wiley on Ryan Trecartin, Katie Kitamura on Cory Arcangel and Dan Kidner introduces a conversation: "In recent years, artists in the UK have increasingly turned to narrative cinema and mainstream TV,...
- 10/1/2011
- MUBI
As has been noted many times before, by me and others, the Wavelengths series of the Toronto International Film Festival is like a festival unto itself. So far removed from the red carpet nonsense, the deal-making, and the me-firstism of web journalists hoping to hit the Web with their initial impressions of some new Bryce Dallas Howard vehicle, Wavelengths affords breathing room to cinema and video at its most formally adventurous and, yes, uncommercial. We come here to look and listen, not to look “at” or listen “to,” and if that sounds hopelessly pretentious, come on down to the Jackman Hall and see for yourself. It’s actually quite cleansing, often funny, and a guaranteed good time, at least in part. (Short films are like the weather in my hometown of Houston, Texas. Don’t like it? Wait a moment. It’ll change.)
Sadly, Wavelengths 2011 will be the final year for series curator Andréa Picard.
Sadly, Wavelengths 2011 will be the final year for series curator Andréa Picard.
- 9/8/2011
- MUBI
New York filmmaker Scott Nyerges, known for his hand-crafted experimental films, seems to not be satisfied with the lack of credit he is given for allowing Terrence Mallick to use twelve seconds of footage from his short film Autumnal in The Tree Of Life. When Nyerges was first contacted by Malick’s production company, they requested his involvement in the film, but later decided instead to license the 12 seconds from his short. The image below is one of the frames from the footage used, and also used in the poster for Malick’s opus. Yet, Autumnal and Nyerges are not credited on IMDb.
Recently speaking to Fandor, Nerges was quoted as saying: “Experimental filmmakers have a tacit understanding, that if you’re going to do this you’re not going to see your name in lights.” Nyerges went on to say, “In the media coverage on this film no one...
Recently speaking to Fandor, Nerges was quoted as saying: “Experimental filmmakers have a tacit understanding, that if you’re going to do this you’re not going to see your name in lights.” Nyerges went on to say, “In the media coverage on this film no one...
- 6/3/2011
- by Kyle Reese
- SoundOnSight
"For a biographical abstract of Christopher Maclaine, try the famous first lines of Allen Ginsberg's Howl," suggests Max Goldberg in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "For greater precision, observe poet David Meltzer's letter to film historian P Adams Sitney (reproduced in Radical Light: Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000): 'Poet, filmmaker, stand-up comic, bagpiper, chaser of mysteries.' Meltzer's letter continues, 'In the mid-60s sacrificed his nervous system to methedrine.' Stan Brakhage wrote of Maclaine, 'He courted madness and he finally got it.' Before he did, he completed four films, the first of which — his preemptive magnum opus, The End (1953) — flattened a very young Brakhage at its infamous Art in Cinema premiere. 67 years after the museum crowd balked at Maclaine's celluloid testament, the film is back at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art."...
- 3/31/2011
- MUBI
What does it feel like to go from one under-seen Sundance competitor to a Harvey Weinstein-distributed indie smash starring two of the hottest actors in the business, the first disappearing in the middle of a booming independent climate and the second peaking during one of the biggest buying lulls in recent memory?
Tfs talked to Derek Cianfrance about this feeling, learning film from stuff like Creepshow and Airplane 2, stealing tape recorders and man-handling HBO via VHS tapes. There’s also his next Gosling project, The Place Beyond The Pines, his long-gestating Metalhead and the difference between film and video.
Tfs: How’d it all start for you? Where are you coming from? How did you break into the business? And how’d you find yourself making your dream project and getting an Oscar nomination [for Michelle Williams] out of it?
Derek Cianfrance: When I was a kid I always wanted to make movies.
Tfs talked to Derek Cianfrance about this feeling, learning film from stuff like Creepshow and Airplane 2, stealing tape recorders and man-handling HBO via VHS tapes. There’s also his next Gosling project, The Place Beyond The Pines, his long-gestating Metalhead and the difference between film and video.
Tfs: How’d it all start for you? Where are you coming from? How did you break into the business? And how’d you find yourself making your dream project and getting an Oscar nomination [for Michelle Williams] out of it?
Derek Cianfrance: When I was a kid I always wanted to make movies.
- 2/14/2011
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
With 2010 only a week over, it already feels like best-of and top-ten lists have been pouring in for months, and we’re already tired of them: the ranking, the exclusions (and inclusions), the rules and the qualifiers. Some people got to see films at festivals, others only catch movies on video; and the ability for us, or any publication, to come up with a system to fairly determine who saw what when and what they thought was the best seems an impossible feat. That doesn’t stop most people from doing it, but we liked the fantasy double features we did last year and for our 3rd Writers Poll we thought we'd do it again.
I asked our contributors to pick a single new film they saw in 2010—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they saw in 2010 to create a unique double feature.
I asked our contributors to pick a single new film they saw in 2010—in theaters or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they saw in 2010 to create a unique double feature.
- 1/10/2011
- MUBI
While there hasn’t been an explosion of documentaries made about the great underground filmmakers, the fact that any have been made about these groundbreaking, but still mostly obscure to the general public, directors seems like a great accomplishment.
Plus, these seven documentaries listed below are all available for easy viewing on DVD or VOD, which is more than can be said for many of the subjects’ actual movies.
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, dir. Mary Jordan. (Amazon | Netflix) Jack Smith is one of the most complicated figures in underground film history, but Jordan’s documentary provides an in-depth portrait of this reclusive artist who ended up alienating his closest friends and ardent supporters. Turning his back on the film world after directing one of the most notorious movies ever made, Flaming Creatures, Smith would go on to be an admired performance artist who would act sporadically in others’ art films.
Plus, these seven documentaries listed below are all available for easy viewing on DVD or VOD, which is more than can be said for many of the subjects’ actual movies.
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, dir. Mary Jordan. (Amazon | Netflix) Jack Smith is one of the most complicated figures in underground film history, but Jordan’s documentary provides an in-depth portrait of this reclusive artist who ended up alienating his closest friends and ardent supporters. Turning his back on the film world after directing one of the most notorious movies ever made, Flaming Creatures, Smith would go on to be an admired performance artist who would act sporadically in others’ art films.
- 1/10/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Best Blu-Rays of 2010
After acquiring my Playstation 3 last summer, I’ve gone mad with Blu-Ray fever, and I spent most of 2010 attempting to make my Blu-Ray collection resemble the massive and unnecessary scale of my DVD stash. Though I do not have a multi-region player and thus this list will include only Regions A and 0 discs, I stand by my year-end picks of the most essential discs for a cinephile’s collection. Not all will give your home theater a workout, but most will, and they all demonstrate the capacity of the medium to not only give the best possible image but to retain film-like quality like never before. So, without further ado, here are the Blu-Rays, and a handful of DVDs, you need to own.
Best Blu-Rays of 2010
1. By Brakhage, Vols. I & II (Criterion)
A collection of a master’s work that displays its greatness as much by the...
After acquiring my Playstation 3 last summer, I’ve gone mad with Blu-Ray fever, and I spent most of 2010 attempting to make my Blu-Ray collection resemble the massive and unnecessary scale of my DVD stash. Though I do not have a multi-region player and thus this list will include only Regions A and 0 discs, I stand by my year-end picks of the most essential discs for a cinephile’s collection. Not all will give your home theater a workout, but most will, and they all demonstrate the capacity of the medium to not only give the best possible image but to retain film-like quality like never before. So, without further ado, here are the Blu-Rays, and a handful of DVDs, you need to own.
Best Blu-Rays of 2010
1. By Brakhage, Vols. I & II (Criterion)
A collection of a master’s work that displays its greatness as much by the...
- 12/28/2010
- by Aaron
Embedded above is the earliest surviving work by Paul Sharits, Wintercourse, which was produced in 1962. While Sharits would go on to become one of the pioneers of the structuralist movement, Wintercourse is a more playful, seemingly less structured film than the ones he would become most well-known for, such as T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G, (1968) and N.O.T.H.I.N.G. (1968). Wintercourse was shot in B&W in 16mm and is silent. Warning: There are brief flashes of non-sexual nudity in the film, so while it’s not quite Nsfw, be considerate if you are indeed at work planning to watch this.
I also can’t find any writing about the film online, but I’m thinking the film is possibly heavily inspired by Stan Brakhage’s Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959). According to Sharits’ biography, he began a mentorship and friendship with Brakhage around this...
I also can’t find any writing about the film online, but I’m thinking the film is possibly heavily inspired by Stan Brakhage’s Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959). According to Sharits’ biography, he began a mentorship and friendship with Brakhage around this...
- 10/20/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Criterion's December release announcement is brief, but sweet. David Cronenberg's Videodrome is coming to Blu-Ray while Guillermo Del Toro's Cronos will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
The Videodrome Blu-Ray seems to be sourced from same master as the 2004 Criterion DVD. Extras are largely same. Cronos is newly restored and packed with extras, including a previously unreleased short film called Geometria. Check the links in the calendar for full specifications.
Finally, as mentioned in the last Criterion Column, the DVD release of the America Lost and Found: The Bbs Story comes out on December 14th. The Blu-Ray will be released on November 23rd.
The Criterion Collection 2010 Release Calendar (January through December 2010, up-to-date as of September 16, 2010)
December 2010
David Cronenberg, Videodrome, Bd, 12/7/2010, Us & Canada
Guillermo del Toro, Cronos, 2-disc DVD & Bd, 12/7/2010, Us & Canada
November 2010
Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times, 2-dsc DVD & Bd, 11/16/10, Us & Canada
Charles Laughton, Night Of The Hunter, 2-disc DVD & 2-disc Bd,...
The Videodrome Blu-Ray seems to be sourced from same master as the 2004 Criterion DVD. Extras are largely same. Cronos is newly restored and packed with extras, including a previously unreleased short film called Geometria. Check the links in the calendar for full specifications.
Finally, as mentioned in the last Criterion Column, the DVD release of the America Lost and Found: The Bbs Story comes out on December 14th. The Blu-Ray will be released on November 23rd.
The Criterion Collection 2010 Release Calendar (January through December 2010, up-to-date as of September 16, 2010)
December 2010
David Cronenberg, Videodrome, Bd, 12/7/2010, Us & Canada
Guillermo del Toro, Cronos, 2-disc DVD & Bd, 12/7/2010, Us & Canada
November 2010
Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times, 2-dsc DVD & Bd, 11/16/10, Us & Canada
Charles Laughton, Night Of The Hunter, 2-disc DVD & 2-disc Bd,...
- 9/16/2010
- Screen Anarchy
In November, The Criterion Collection is set to release an eclectic mix of American classics with a bit of European transgression thrown in. A newly restored version of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times is planned for DVD and Blu-Ray. Charles Laughton's stunning black-and-white noir/horror tale Night of the Hunter (1955) is also on the schedule for DVD and Blu-Ray. Lars Von Trier's Antichrist will invade home video players everywhere.
Those are great releases, but highlight of the November list is the America Lost and Found: The Bbs Story box set, which features 6 films from Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider's production company Bbs during the 60s-70s. Titles include: Head, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Drive He Said, The Last Picture Show, and The King Of Marvin Gardens. Think about the scope of this release for a second. This is six films by Dennis Hopper, Henry Jaglom, Jack Nicholson Bob Rafelson,...
Those are great releases, but highlight of the November list is the America Lost and Found: The Bbs Story box set, which features 6 films from Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider's production company Bbs during the 60s-70s. Titles include: Head, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Drive He Said, The Last Picture Show, and The King Of Marvin Gardens. Think about the scope of this release for a second. This is six films by Dennis Hopper, Henry Jaglom, Jack Nicholson Bob Rafelson,...
- 8/21/2010
- Screen Anarchy
The October 2010 batch of Criterion titles brings a few surprises. Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory is hitting DVD and Blu-Ray as is Ingmar Bergman's film The Magician. Criterion continues its relationship with Wes Anderson by releasing The Darjeeling Limited on Blu-Ray and DVD. Ok.
Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai is headed for Blu-Ray with a new restored high-def transfer. If the quality of Criterion's other Kurosawa Blu-Ray discs (e.g. Kagemusha, Sanjuro and Yojimbo) are any indication, it is time to ditch the DVDs. This one should look spectacular.
Finally, Nobuhiko Obayashi's House is making its way to Blu-Ray and DVD just in time for Halloween. There are a few things to note here. First, the fact that Criterion is releasing this on Blu-Ray with a restored transfer and uncompressed mono sound is kind of a surprise. This is a very good thing. The other curious thing is the extras.
Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai is headed for Blu-Ray with a new restored high-def transfer. If the quality of Criterion's other Kurosawa Blu-Ray discs (e.g. Kagemusha, Sanjuro and Yojimbo) are any indication, it is time to ditch the DVDs. This one should look spectacular.
Finally, Nobuhiko Obayashi's House is making its way to Blu-Ray and DVD just in time for Halloween. There are a few things to note here. First, the fact that Criterion is releasing this on Blu-Ray with a restored transfer and uncompressed mono sound is kind of a surprise. This is a very good thing. The other curious thing is the extras.
- 7/17/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Reviewer: Jonathan Poritsky
Rating (out of 5): *****
"What's the experiment?" is a simple question I find myself asking constantly when watching experimental cinema. The term "experimental" has as of late become tainted, misused, even destroyed. Most festivals around the world now feature a section for experimental films, usually shorts, but their definition is cloudy at best, and when it comes down to it, they are generally populated with films that simply won't fit anywhere else. Which is why we have a responsibility to constantly, vigorously demand an answer to the simple question: "What's the experiment?" With the films of Stan Brakhage, you never have to ask, but that doesn't mean the answer is any clearer.
After a modicum of success with the comprehensive, albeit disjointed, two disc set of Brakhage's works in 2003, Criterion is back with a second helping of the avant-garde pioneer's films with By Brakhage: An Anthology,...
Rating (out of 5): *****
"What's the experiment?" is a simple question I find myself asking constantly when watching experimental cinema. The term "experimental" has as of late become tainted, misused, even destroyed. Most festivals around the world now feature a section for experimental films, usually shorts, but their definition is cloudy at best, and when it comes down to it, they are generally populated with films that simply won't fit anywhere else. Which is why we have a responsibility to constantly, vigorously demand an answer to the simple question: "What's the experiment?" With the films of Stan Brakhage, you never have to ask, but that doesn't mean the answer is any clearer.
After a modicum of success with the comprehensive, albeit disjointed, two disc set of Brakhage's works in 2003, Criterion is back with a second helping of the avant-garde pioneer's films with By Brakhage: An Anthology,...
- 7/15/2010
- by GreenCineStaff
- GreenCine
The September releases of Breathless on Blu-Ray and The Thin Red Line on Blu-Ray and DVD aren't so much of a surprise. A high-def Breathless release was inevitable and the Malick title leaked out a while ago. Also, Charade is the sort of classic Hollywood auterist fare that Criterion often deals in. No, the big surprise here is Oshima's Happy Birthday Mr. Lawrence. Both this release and the recent Oshima DVD box indicate that Criterion is seriously intent to digging deeper into the director's filmography. Finally, it would be a mistake not to mention the Eclipse box set of Allan King films. The Canadian director's documentaries have never been readily available in the U.S. so this box should expose his work to an entirely new audience (including this writer).
The Criterion Collection 2010 Release Calendar (Covers January through September 2010, up-to-date as of July 7, 2010)
September 2010
Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless, DVD & Bd, 9/14/10, Us...
The Criterion Collection 2010 Release Calendar (Covers January through September 2010, up-to-date as of July 7, 2010)
September 2010
Jean-Luc Godard, Breathless, DVD & Bd, 9/14/10, Us...
- 7/8/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Stan Brakhage’s films will always play best projected in a theater, where the flickering light, the hushed room, and the communal gathering enhance Brakhage’s explosive, rhythmic displays of color and shock. But The Criterion Collection’s 2003 anthology By Brakhage did about as well by the avant-garde pioneer as any home-video release could, presenting a strong selection of material—from the historically significant to the personal—in clean transfers, supported by informative liner notes and interviews with Brakhage. Criterion has now released a second volume of By Brakhage on DVD, and combined both volumes into one three-disc, 12-hour ...
- 6/9/2010
- avclub.com
On one level, reviewing Criterion's By Brakhage: An Anthology Blu-Ray box set is a straightforward task. This three Blu-Ray set is the largest collection of Stan Brakhage's works available on home video. Whats more, the presentation is of the highest possible quality. The difficulty of reviewing this release is multi-fold. The box contains over 11 hours worth of materials. Additionally, the relentlessly abstract nature of these films renders the formal critical toolkit inapplicable. So, instead of the usual approach, this review will focus on two major tasks: providing an overview of Stan Brakhage's films and examining Criterion's presentation of the films.
Stan Brakhage was an avant-garde filmmaker who created over 350 films between 1952 and 2003. His works, most of which were silent, generally involved some form of collage using 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm stock. He often mixed original footage, news reels and stock footage that ranged from the mundane to the surprisingly frank.
Stan Brakhage was an avant-garde filmmaker who created over 350 films between 1952 and 2003. His works, most of which were silent, generally involved some form of collage using 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm stock. He often mixed original footage, news reels and stock footage that ranged from the mundane to the surprisingly frank.
- 6/9/2010
- Screen Anarchy
I think this is my longest collection of links yet. Enjoy!
Professor Chuck Tryon is working on a new book, which should be awesome since his first one was so great. In preparation, he’s interviewing indie filmmakers about their experiences working in our new digital culture and posting the results online. His first interview is up and it’s with fellow professor Chris Hansen, whose films are routinely reviewed on Bad Lit. Hansen provides some great, insightful answers about the challenges of still getting one’s films in front of viewer eyeballs amid the deluge of video online these days. The interview is up in two parts, and you should read them both: Part One and Part Two. In a vaguely related link, the Film Doctor linked to a superb article by Caitlin Kelly on True/Slant called appropriately enough “Why Crap Gets Read And Real News Doesn’t:...
Professor Chuck Tryon is working on a new book, which should be awesome since his first one was so great. In preparation, he’s interviewing indie filmmakers about their experiences working in our new digital culture and posting the results online. His first interview is up and it’s with fellow professor Chris Hansen, whose films are routinely reviewed on Bad Lit. Hansen provides some great, insightful answers about the challenges of still getting one’s films in front of viewer eyeballs amid the deluge of video online these days. The interview is up in two parts, and you should read them both: Part One and Part Two. In a vaguely related link, the Film Doctor linked to a superb article by Caitlin Kelly on True/Slant called appropriately enough “Why Crap Gets Read And Real News Doesn’t:...
- 6/6/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
June 6
7:30 p.m.
Egyptian Theater
6712 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
Hosted by: L.A. Filmforum
It’s fantastic that Criterion has put out a second volume of films by legendary underground filmmaker Stan Brakage and have released both of their Brakhage collections in a single Blu-ray package. These releases mean a much wider audience will be introduced to the work of one of the most unique, daring and provocative filmmakers in American history.
However, Brakhage’s films have always been meant to be seen in their original form: On film. So, in conjunction with the Criterion releases, curator Mark Toscano has chosen a small selection of films that appear on By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume Two and will be screening them in their original 16mm format. Film prints are from the Academy Film Archive and Canyon Cinema; and Toscano will appear in person to discuss Brakhage’s work.
7:30 p.m.
Egyptian Theater
6712 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
Hosted by: L.A. Filmforum
It’s fantastic that Criterion has put out a second volume of films by legendary underground filmmaker Stan Brakage and have released both of their Brakhage collections in a single Blu-ray package. These releases mean a much wider audience will be introduced to the work of one of the most unique, daring and provocative filmmakers in American history.
However, Brakhage’s films have always been meant to be seen in their original form: On film. So, in conjunction with the Criterion releases, curator Mark Toscano has chosen a small selection of films that appear on By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume Two and will be screening them in their original 16mm format. Film prints are from the Academy Film Archive and Canyon Cinema; and Toscano will appear in person to discuss Brakhage’s work.
- 6/1/2010
- by screenings
- Underground Film Journal
The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Fred Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…
(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)
While the first volume could be a bit rough going, as the strip was still finding its footing and voice, Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume 2 (Idw, $39.99 Srp) is Berke Breathed really hitting his stride and crafting the comic that a generation (including me) fell in love with. Combining gut-level comedy with brilliant satire, its absence from the landscape is still a loss, but I encourage...
(Please support Fred by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)
While the first volume could be a bit rough going, as the strip was still finding its footing and voice, Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume 2 (Idw, $39.99 Srp) is Berke Breathed really hitting his stride and crafting the comic that a generation (including me) fell in love with. Combining gut-level comedy with brilliant satire, its absence from the landscape is still a loss, but I encourage...
- 5/28/2010
- by UncaScroogeMcD
"The cinema of Stan Brakhage has been interpreted as abstract, mythopoeic, philological, and lyrical," writes Joseph Jon Lanthier in Slant, "but it's his hyper-auteurist approach that might be most instructive. It's surely an ironic stroke to associate the filmmaker with auteurism, a critical theory developed to celebratorily grant Hollywood directors ownership of the art they subtly baked into their cookie-cutter money-makers and crowd-pleasers; so draconian were Brakhage's ideals that he once denounced all studio-produced movies as futilely inartistic. But engaging with Brakhage's meditative, kaleidoscopic canon often requires doubting, scrutinizing, and — finally — redefining the tools with which one observes and processes art.... Appropriately, the Criterion Collection's By Brakhage Blu-ray box set is both an affectionate tribute and an invaluable archive, given its subject's incalculable influence."...
- 5/25/2010
- MUBI
DVD Links: DVD News | Release Dates | New Dvds | Reviews | RSS Feed
Stagecoach (Criterion Collection) Unfortunately, Cannes causes me to be unable to offer a timely review of another Criterion title. I was just getting into this before I left and have yet to finish the whole package. What I can tell you is the transfer is rather... unremarkable. The deal here being, however, I'm not sure it could look much better. I think we have become so used to seeing Criterion titles on Blu-ray look so immaculate that it comes as a shock when one doesn't. However, this is still one of the best westerns ever and I am sure some may argue it is the best. I haven't seen nearly enough to make a definitive answer, but I will say this is a film any film buff should own in my opinion. True Blood - The Complete Second Season Are you all caught up?...
Stagecoach (Criterion Collection) Unfortunately, Cannes causes me to be unable to offer a timely review of another Criterion title. I was just getting into this before I left and have yet to finish the whole package. What I can tell you is the transfer is rather... unremarkable. The deal here being, however, I'm not sure it could look much better. I think we have become so used to seeing Criterion titles on Blu-ray look so immaculate that it comes as a shock when one doesn't. However, this is still one of the best westerns ever and I am sure some may argue it is the best. I haven't seen nearly enough to make a definitive answer, but I will say this is a film any film buff should own in my opinion. True Blood - The Complete Second Season Are you all caught up?...
- 5/25/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Fall 2010 brings very interesting news and rumors about releases from The Criterion Collection. First, the label has issued the official list of films for August release. These include two essential documentaries by Terry Zwigoff, Black Orpheus, a box of Josef von Sternberg silent films, and 4 early Akira Kurosawa films that originally appeared in the Ak 100 25 disc box set.
Lots of unofficial information has also begun to surface about future releases. In late April, The New York Times confirmed rumors that Criterion will release Nobuhiko Obayashi's Hausu will in September. Additionally, pre-order pages for Criterion Blu-Rays of Antichrist, The Darjeeling Limited, The Seven Samurai, The Thin Red Line, and Videodrome have popped up on Amazon. Look for official updates in the next Criterion Column.
The Criterion Collection 2010 Release Calendar (Covers January through August 2010, up-to-date as of May 23, 2010)
August 2010
Akira Kurosawa, Eclipse Series 23: The First Films Of Akira Kurosawa
(Sanshiro Sugata...
Lots of unofficial information has also begun to surface about future releases. In late April, The New York Times confirmed rumors that Criterion will release Nobuhiko Obayashi's Hausu will in September. Additionally, pre-order pages for Criterion Blu-Rays of Antichrist, The Darjeeling Limited, The Seven Samurai, The Thin Red Line, and Videodrome have popped up on Amazon. Look for official updates in the next Criterion Column.
The Criterion Collection 2010 Release Calendar (Covers January through August 2010, up-to-date as of May 23, 2010)
August 2010
Akira Kurosawa, Eclipse Series 23: The First Films Of Akira Kurosawa
(Sanshiro Sugata...
- 5/22/2010
- Screen Anarchy
DVD Playhouse—May 2010
By
Allen Gardner
Avatar (20th Century Fox) James Cameron beat his own title as box office champ, set with Titanic over a decade ago, with this eye-popping sci-fi epic about a paraplegic Marine name Sully (Sam Worthington), who takes the form of an “avatar,” or virtual being, to go undercover on the planet Pandora, attempting to infiltrate the native Na’vi to gather intelligence that will aid a joint corporate and military operation to rape the planet of its natural resources, destroying its indigenous population in the process. When Sully suddenly “goes native,” he locks horns with the company CEO (Giovanni Ribisi) and his gung-ho commanding officer (Stephen Lang, in a wonderful, scenery-chewing turn from a long-underrated actor). Thought of by many scholars and film buffs as a “game-changer” as much as the first Star Wars film was—and they may be right. While Cameron’s politically-correct...
By
Allen Gardner
Avatar (20th Century Fox) James Cameron beat his own title as box office champ, set with Titanic over a decade ago, with this eye-popping sci-fi epic about a paraplegic Marine name Sully (Sam Worthington), who takes the form of an “avatar,” or virtual being, to go undercover on the planet Pandora, attempting to infiltrate the native Na’vi to gather intelligence that will aid a joint corporate and military operation to rape the planet of its natural resources, destroying its indigenous population in the process. When Sully suddenly “goes native,” he locks horns with the company CEO (Giovanni Ribisi) and his gung-ho commanding officer (Stephen Lang, in a wonderful, scenery-chewing turn from a long-underrated actor). Thought of by many scholars and film buffs as a “game-changer” as much as the first Star Wars film was—and they may be right. While Cameron’s politically-correct...
- 5/18/2010
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
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