EXPERIMENTAL FILM

By: Elizabeth Tripp and Maxwell Palmer

What is Experimental Film?

Experimental films are nonconformist and set out to challenge the orthodox ideas about what films can show and how they show them

There are no set rules and thus various styles of experimental film exist: they can express more personal experiences or feature more eccentric topics(Damned if You Don't: about a nun discovering her sexuality). They can also test the limits of the medium itself by manipulating audiovisual elements in strange or novel ways(Dog Star Man or Warhol’s Eat)

Brahkage’s Dog Star Man(1961)

Consists of fast moving layers of colors, shapes, splotches that create a disorienting and unique experience. Also makes use of some recognizable forms

Warhol’s Eat (1963)

Eat: Consists of a nearly 40 minute, high contrast shot of a man slowly eating, transcends the expectations of what a movie should be

What is Experimental Film? Cont.

Experimental films can use any type of footage. Many artists create found-footage films that re-contextualize previously existing material, like in Bruce Conner’s A Movie(1958) in which historical footage is contrasted to give the sense of an apocalyptic world

Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963)

The extensive possibilities of experimental exemplified by Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising. Anger explores 60’s motorcycle culture using a combination of staged events with found content such as old photos, comic strips, and Nazi posters. Also syncs visual elements with rock and roll songs.

An observation of how the homoerotic side of motorcycle culture has ritualistic behaviors that can be compared to the rituals of fascism and Christianity. Also explores how people model themselves after images provided by the media.

Scorpio Rising link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trueLeCUnCA

Abstract Form

There are various forms of Experimental Film, the abstract form organizes entire films around colors, shapes, sizes, and movements in the images. This is in contrast to other types of film(such as a documentary) in which these abstract elements may exist, but are “subordinate to the rhetorical purposes”

Abstract films can seem completely random, but are often organized through theme and variation. An introductory section shows the base relationships the film will explore, and then other segments will show similar yet different kinds of relationships. Abstract films are usually dependent on building greater and greater distance from the introductory material, increasing the contrast of elements as time goes on. If the film uses this format correctly, all the content presented will be connected by a uniting them or principle.

J.J. Murphy’s Print Generation (1974)

Is a an example of the theme and variation principle in abstract films

Murphy selected 60 shots from home movies and re-photographed them until they became unrecognizable. The film shows these images starting with the most abstract forms that build up to the original identifiable image and then move back into abstraction. The opposite is done to the audio, which begins with the clearest audio which loses its quality as the images become more clear.

J.J. Murphy’s Print Generation (1974)

Abstract Form Cont.

Films like Print Generation show that when we call a film abstract, we do not necessarily mean that it has no recognizable objects. Although there are films that use no recognizable images, there is also a method of abstract filmmaking in which the abstract quality of common objects is highlighted. A creative juxtaposition of colors, images and sounds can remove objects from their practical, everyday context in order to accomplish this. Abstract films encourage us to turn off the part of our brain that uses the senses for practical purposes in order to notice new relationships and qualities among objects

Ballet mecanique (1924)

One of the earliest and also most influential abstract films, created by American Dudley Murphy and Frenchman Fernand Leger

The title represents its concept, creating a “mechanical ballet” by juxtaposing machines with humans and everyday objects. Machines and humans moving rhythmically in sync draws interesting similarities between the two

Ballet mecanique (1924)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_bboH9p1Ys

Ballet mecanique Cont.

The film follows a complex form of the theme and variation structure that is noticeable when looking at an overview of the movie.

1. introduction of the film’s rhythmic elements. 2. A treatment of objects viewed through prisms 3. Rhythmic movements 4. A comparison of people and machines 5. Rhythmic movements of intertitles and pictures 6 .More rhythmic movements, mostly of circular objects 7. Quick dances of objects 8. A return to Charlot and the opening sequence

Ballet mechanique Segment 2 In segment two, a shiny ball

is shown through a prism, followed by other similar objects also shown through the same prism. This is an example of mundane objects being taken out of context to be used for new, abstract aesthetic purposes

There are also elements of humor, such as the scene to the right where a pair of eyes is shown, and then inverted almost without the viewer realizing

Ballet mecanique Eye Inversion

Ballet mechanique Segment 4 One of the most famous

scenes involves repeated rhythmic shots of a woman walking up the stairs with laundry contrasted with shots of mechanical pistons. This repetition makes the viewer focus on her not for character or personality, but as an object with movement. This depersonalization is intended to further show the similarities between the film’s human and machine subjects.

Associational Form

Definition: “A type of organization in which the film’s parts are juxtaposed to suggest similarities, contrasts, concepts, emotions, and expressive qualities”

Continued: Associational Form

It’s impossible to define a conventional set of parts into which an associational film will fall

General principles Large sets Repeated motifs Invites interpretation

Example: A Movie

Bruce Conner worked in the found-footage genre

Principle: large sets– here, divided into 4 The film’s title, director’s name, projectionists’

markings Lively music with images of moving animals & vehicles

on land A more tense section stressing precariously balanced

objects in air and water Frightening images of disaster & war intermixed with

more mysterious scenes

Video

Clip from A Movie http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FMjBtvsx2o

Uses the three principles

Excerpt from text book

The end!