The OpinIons expressed in this book are those the author and are not necessarily those the British Film Institute. Neither do they represent official BF! policy.
The OpinIons expressed in this book are those the author and are not necessarily those the British Film Institute. Neither do they represent official BF! policy.
STRUCTURAL FILM ANTHOLOGY Edited and
with
an
Introduction
Peter Gidal
1978
General E d i t o r / D a v i d Wilson
by
The Editor Peter Gidal has 20 films in the London Filmmakers' Co-operative. He was on the LMFC's Executive Committee for six years, and ran the LMFC cinema from 1971 to 1974. He is Tutor and Lecturer in Advanced Film Studies at the Royal College Art, London, and has written frequently for Studio International and other journals. His book on Warhol's films and paintings was published in 1971. His films have been shown since 1968 throughout Europe and the United States; Room Film 1973 received the Prix de la Recherche at Toulon in 1974. Critiques his films and theoretical writings have appeared in Screen, Film Form, Afterimage an Wide Angle. His most recent films are Kopenhagen/1930, Wall (Double-Take), an Silent Partner.
Acknowledgments The editor wishes to thank the authors, publishers and film-makers for permission to reprint material.
First published 1976 Reprinted 1978
Copyright British Film Institute 1976 and 1978 Individual articles the authors ISBN 0 8517
0535
Contents Introduction
IV
Theory and Definition Peter Gidal
Structural/Materialist Film
Abstract Film and Beyond Malcolm LeGrice
22
FILM-MAKERS:
Malcolm LeGrice
Peter Gidal, Gordon Gow, Jonas Mekas
28
Michael Snow
Simon Hartog, Annette Michelson, Peter Gidal, Michael Snow
36
Kurt Kren
Malcolm LeG rice
56
Hollis Frampt on
Peter Gidal, Hollis Frampton
64
Lois Mendelson, Bill Simon
78
Mike Dunford
Mike Dunford
87
Paul Sharits
Paul Sharits, Peter Gidal
90
David Crosswaite
Peter Gidal
95
Peter Kubelka
Jonas Mekas
98
Peter Gida
Deke Dusinberre
\09
Birgit and Wilhelm Hein
Birgit Hein
114
Gill Eatherley
Gill Eatherley
120
George Landow
George Landow, Fred Camper
121
William Raban
Peter Gidal, John
126
Roger Hammond
Peter Gidal
13
Fred Drummond
Verina Glaessner, Fred Drummond
133
Mike Leggett
Roger Hammond, David Curtis
134
Tony Conrad
Malcolm Le rice
135
John Du Cane
John
137
Joyce Wieland
Regina Cornwell
en Jacobs
Afterword
COl'er: Frame
Cane, William Raban
Cane
Review by Ben Brewster
from Malcolm LeGrice's
Yes No Maybe Maybe No
141
Introduction This anthology texts about what have been termed Structural Films attempts to bring together some the more important essays and articles on those films which have formed the core film work in this field since its inception. I is a first attempt to bring together texts from Europe, Britain and the United States, on fi ms from Europe, Britain nd the United States. In the past have been inundated with the parochial, American view avantgarde fi m work, as expounded o n both side the Atlantic. This anthology was published to coincide with the series eighteen programmes, Structural Film Retrospective, the National Film Theatre, London, in May 1976. As it happened, no film-maker was included in the programmes who had not produced relevant work before 1971, though many works were from after that year. No new films were introduced; this was a retrospective programme intended to enable a viewing that saw each film in the context each other film, that could recognise alliances and misalliances between films, that could attempt to deal with the individual filmworks the critical practice which preceded or followed In some cases, the critical practice here is a virtually complete repression through ideolog the text the film; in the gaps presented work can now take place. The length the sections are dictated by the materials interest available, and unfortunately in a few cases only very slight material existed. hope that the selection will ot offend; the younger Americans have been left out, as have many the younger British, because the wish for a solid retrospective programme as elucidated above. doubt there are quite a few film-makers completely unknown to me, to nearly everyone else, who have done and may be doing very important work, whose work remains view' for a variety sociological reasons, none which are praiseworthy. I wish to thank all the film-makers an writers, obviously. this reprint nothing has been changed, though a few minor errors hav been corrected and Ben Brewster's review the Antholog y i has been included as an afterword. I call attention to the 'Theory Definition Structural/Materialist Film ' article in its original form in Studio International (November 1975), and to Deke Dusinberre's article relating to it in Screen (Summer 1977). P.G. January 1978
Theory and Definition f Structural/Materialist Film Peter Gidal be non-illusionist. The process Structural/Materialist fi m attempts th film's making deals with devices that result in demystification attempted demystification the film process. But by 'deals with' I not mean 'represents'. In other words, such films do not document various film procedures, which would place them in the same category as films which transparently document a narrative, a set actions, etc. Documentation, through usag the film medium as tran spa rent, invisible, is exactly the same when the object being docume nted is some 'real event', some 'film procedure' some 'story', etc. An avant-garde film defined by its development towards increased materialism materialist function does not represent. document. anything. The film produces certain relations between segments. between what the camera is aimed the way that 'image' is presented. The dialectic the film is established in that space tension between materialist flatness, grain, light, movement, an the supposed reality that is represented. Consequently a continual attempt to destroy the illusion is necessary. In Structural/Materialist film, the in/film (not in/frame) an film/viewer material relations, the relations the film's structure, are primary to any representational content. The structuring aspects and the attempt to decipher the structure anticipate/recorrect it, to clarify an analyse the production-process the specific image any specific moment. Th specific construct are the root concern Structu ral/Mat erialist each specific film is ot the relevant point; one must beware not to let the construct, the shape, take the place th 'story' in narrative film. Then one would merely be substituting one hierarchy for another within the same system, a formalism for what is traditionally called content. This is an absolutely crucial point.
Devices Through usage specific filmic devices such as repetition within duration on the film's is forced to attempt to decipher both the film's material an construct, decipher the precise transf ormations that each co/incidejnce of cinematic techniques produces. The attempt is primary to an specific shape, otherwise the discovery shape (fetishising shape or system) may become the theme, in fact, the narrativ the film. Thi is a crucial distinction
for a (dialectically) materialist definition structural film. That is why Structural/Materialist film in fact demands orientation definition completely in opposition to the generally used vague notions concerning 'Structural Film'. Production Each film is a record (not a representation, not a reproduction) its own making. Production relations (shot to shot, shot to image, grain to image, image dissolution to grain, etc.) is a basic function which is in direct opposition to reproduction relations. Elsewhere in this essay I shall try to elucidate further this problematic production versus reproduction. Suffice it to say here that it is the core meaning which differentiates illusionist from anti-illusionist film. When one states that each film is a record its own making, this refers to shooting, editing, printing stages, separations these, dealt with specifically. Such film mitigates against dominant (narrative) cinema. Thus viewing such a film is at once viewing a film an viewing the 'coming into presence' the film, i.e. the system consciousness that produces the work, that is produced by in it. Represented 'Content' There is this representational 'reality' one is aiming the camera at. This remains true even if for example the representational content is pared down to the filmstrip itself being pulled through the printer. In fact this isn't necessarily a paring down at all. The Structural/Materialist film must minimise the content in its overpowering, imagistically seductive sense, in an attempt to get through this miasmic area 'experience' proceed with film as film. Devices such as loops seeming loops, as well as a whole series technical possibilities, can, carefully constructed to o perate in the correct ma nner, serv to veer the point conta ct with the f m past internal content. The content thus serves as a function upon which, time nd time again, a film-maker works to bring forth the filmic event. The usage the word content so far has been within the common usage, i.e. representational content. In fact, the real content is the form, form become content. Form is meant as formal operation, no as composition. Also, form must be distinguished from style, otherwise it serves merely in its reactionary sense to mean formalism. such as: this formal usage (e.g. Welles) versus that (e.g. Sternberg). Film as material The assertion film as material is, in fact, predicated upon representation, in as much as 'pure' empty acetate running through the projector gate without image (for example) merely sets off another level abstract (or non-abstract) associations. Those associations, when instigated by such a device, are no more materialist nonillusionist than any other associations. Thus the film event is by no means, through such a usage, necessarily demystified. 'Empty
screen' is no less significatory than 'carefree happy smile'. There are myriad possibilities for c % p t a t i o n an integration filmic procedures into the repertoire meaning. The Viewer
The mental activation the viewer is necessary for the procedure the film's existence. Each film is no only structural bu also structuring. This is extremely important as each moment film reality is not an atomistic, separate entity rather a moment in a relativistic generative system in which one can't simpl)' break down the experience into elements. Th viewer is forming an equal and possibly more less opposite 'film' in her/his head, constantly anticipating, correcting, re-correcting - constantly intervening in confrontation with the given reality, i.e. the isolated chosen area the arena each film's work, each film's pr oducti on. Dominant cinema
In dominant cinema, a film sets up char acte rs (however superficially deep their melodramas) an through identification various reversals, climaxes, complications (usually in the same order) one aligns oneself unconsciously with one more characters. These internal connections between viewer and viewed are based systems identification which demand primarily a passive audience, a passive viewer, ne wh is involved in the meaning that word has taken on within film-journalese, i. be involved, get swept along thr ough persuasive emotive devices employed by the fi m director. This system cinematic functioning categorically rules any dialectic. is cinematic functioning, it should be added, analogous on th part the film director to that the viewer, no to mention the producer, who is no producer, who has no little investment in the staking the economics such repression. What some th more self-defined 'left-wing' directors would rationalise in terms dialectic are merely cover-ups for identification, selling the same old wares, viz Antonioni the much less talented Bertolucci, Pasolini, Losey, not to mention committed right-wing directors. Thus, if a chara cter is somewhat more complex, if the acting is a higher order, if the lighting cameraman does most the work, then the director rationalises the work which would seem to imply that he is as taken in by the phantasy as the viewer. Whether he is not (there are few she's in such a position) is in fact irrelevant. Th ideological position is the same. Dialectic
There is a distinct difference between wh at can be termed the amhiguousness dialectic functioning. Ambiguousness posits an identffication process each individual viewer (o reader, listener, etc.) as subject: the subject, that is, who forms the interpretation. becomes posited, formed, constituted, in fact, as the subject the self-expression self-representation through the mediation a repressive ideological structure. That ideological structure is in
this case narrative cinema, part which is the process identification. Ambiguousnes s aligns itself as a concept (and therefore as a reality) with the concept freedom individualism. two latter concept re extremely rigidified in late capitalism individual also thus becomes posited as static, as essence, as ideal or referring the possibility such). individual becomes posited as unitar y, 'free' view, centre d in deep perspective space away from the screen, nd invisibly solidified, ever-presen t. whole formation towards, an in, filmic enterprises, is dominated by such ideological strangleholds. Identification not do without he mechanism identification. It is the cinema consumption, in which the viewer is necessity no a producer,6 ideas, knowledge. Capitalist consumption reifies ot only the structures the economic base ut also the constructs abstraction. Concepts, then, produce concepts; they become, instead, ensconced as static 'ideas' which function maintain the ideological class war an its invisibility, the state apparatus in all its fields. mechanism identification demands a passive audience, a passive mental posture in the face a life unlived, a series representations, a 90 minutes' illusion. And that phantasy identified with for the sake even the (insipid) utopian romance 'phantasy' is often 'what should be' the so-called 'intervention' (Marcuse's justification for Goethe's poems) in bourgeois morality that moments ma be approached in de Sade, Lautn!amont, Sacher-Masoch (never without intensely counterproductive repressions and paranoiac violence stimulatin appeasing the bourgeois' tastes nd tolerances). Identification is inseparable from th procedures narrative, though not commercial cinema could
totally covered by it. problematic centres the question as whether narrative is inherently authoritarian, manipulatory mystificatory, not. fact that it requires identificatory procedure a lack distanciation to function, the fact that its only possible functionin is illusionistic level, indicates that the proble matic has a clear resolution. In that sense, it is more ramifications the crucial problem than a problematic. very limited. Narrative is question illusionistic procedure, repression is that space, the manipulatory, mystificatory, repressive. distan ce between the viewer the object, a repression real space in favour the illusionist space. repression is, equally importantly, the in-film spaces, those perfectly constructed continuities. repression is also that time. implied lengths time suffer compressions formed by certain technical devices which operate in a codified manner, under specific laws, to repress (material) film time. Narrative and deconstruction A further point
narrative: while
deconstruction
narrative as
academic exercise is no vital import, it would be in case a useful function towards expropriating the ownership the codes narrativity. Which means that the meanings formed by certain filmic opera tions could be analysed no more be the privileged possession the owners the means production; n this case, the means production meaning in film. Thus deconstruction exercises, in their limited way, ar irrelevant as sociological insight into certain filmiC operations. Deconstruction exercises, maintained filmically (i.e. on film, in film) re direct translations from the written into film, are thus filmically reactionary, though illustrative certain idea about film. Th re-translation back into language (words) would seem to negate the necessity narrative-deconstruction being undertaken on, in, film, rather than in writing. This has now dawned, perhaps, on the overzealous graduates who wish to make statemen ts about certain usages narrative. Apart from work in deconstruction, there is also that filmwork which is interpreted as deconstruction, works which have as their basic project an overhauling (not a criticising and not a smashing) narrative, such as the Straub's os (and pseudo-narratives Robbe-Grillet's appalling films, sometimes pre-) Brecl'rttl'rheXercises in dlstanclatlOn an reflection. (Even here the Brecht the theatre is mistaken for the Brechtian theoriser.)? Other examples are Dreyer's purist set pieces dramatics, straightforward identificatory narratives, the identification merely shifted from the psychological/emotional to the psychological/rationalistic. The identification into the narrative is through the thoughts, the ideas about the actions, the decisions, the ratio, instead the melodramatic unthought motivations characters propelled by unthought 'fear' , 'desire', etc. as in most o the r fil s. A study is urgently needed the theme narrative versus non-narr ative form on the inadequacy the mechanistic deconstruction approach which ends up illustrating rather than being, which ends up static, time denying, posited as exemplary rat her than relative, contr adictor y, m otor ed into filmic durational transformation through dialectic procedure!i Art movements
Two art movements had their special effects on the current avant garde, Structural/Mat erialist il and on those stru ctural films which are workin in that direction. The movements were: the aesthetics AbstractExpressionism (though ot necessarily the imagist results) an Minimalism (to include such work as Stella's).8 A major problem erupts here: that making visible the procedure, presenting such as opposed to using it. Throughout this essay, virtually every problem centres the opposition between usage presentation, incorporating versus foregrounding, etc. There exists also the problem the 'sensitive' artist, ever-present in the final object, which can be one end the means to which is an ar which may record its own making. But the other end, an the division must be carefully analysed and researched with each case in question, is that which is no
imagist creation, a decorative object (narr ative otherwise) separated from its means production without a trace left. the final work magically represses the procedures which in fact are there in the making , then that work a materialist work. This is a crucial point as to usage versus is no presentation. An in each work many factors are operating which produce either an over-determinati on the usage (i.e. repression ofthe procedures, or over-determination the presentedness the procedures. Jacques Oerrida has clarified what in fact is stake in a work, in the 'a') is procedure constituting a work. His definition differance (with useful precisely because it clarifies aspect work which previously was latent but not brought to speech, adequately theorised, and which therefore alway fell back into the ideology illusionism an unseen subject (the artist). We shall designate by the term differance the movement by which language any code, any system reference in general, becomes historically constituted as a fabric differences DiJferance is what makes the movemen signification possible only if each element t hat is said to be 'present', appearing on the stage presence, is related to something other than itself ut retains the mark a past element already lets itself be hollowed by the mark its relation to a future element. This trace relates no less to what is called the future than to what is called the past, an it constitutes wh at is called the present by thi very relation to what it is not, to what it absolutely is not; that is. not even to a past a future considered as a modified present We ordinarily say that a sign is ut in place the thing itself, the present thing - 'thing' holding here for the sense as well as the referent. Signs represent the present in its absence; they take the place the present. When we cannot take hold of or show the thing, let us say the present, the being present, when the present does ot present itself, then we signify, we go through the detour signs. (1 Oerrida, in Speech and Phenomena. 'Oifferance ) The aesthetics Abstract-Expressionism in fact could produce an imagist object which never separated itself from individualist psychological origins, whereas the 'same' aesthetic base could function in certain works as production itself presented. distanced. Such presentation production functions in certain drawings targets by Jasper Johns (for example), distancing the object as object, as created text, towards which the various marks added to each other, negating, erasing, produce further elaborations towards an as yet unfulfilled total surface. (Total is used in the sense at some point coming to a stop.) The essential locus again the question of psychological orientation, that is identification. whether into the 'fantastic' the 'real' the 'surreal', in opposition to stated notions distancing. But it must be clarified that the distancing is no from some wholly elaborated fantastic, real surreal, from which a distance created. Rather, the text
itself is elaborated an constituted in such a way that the whole work process reading the mark s necessitates a reading differences a dialecticisation the material procedures which produc e the mark ing on e is confronted with The subject the work is the invisible artist symbolically inferred through the work' s presence, but rather the whole foregrounded fabric the complex system markings itself. ot What Frank Stella may have verbalised correctly (see footnote 8) di prevent his work from becoming exactly the Abstract-Expressionist problem, the whole conglomeration feelings, associations, seductions, representations whic an imagist work deman ds no matter how 'process'-oriented the production process itself was. Similarly the process making a Welles Fassbinder film is no in an adequate way the product. This is th root th whole problem trying to get at. Some Stella's early works could escape this Abstract-Expressionist route, just as many Giacometti's Johns' works fail to avoid solve that problem. Process as general definition is in fact vacuous. This vacuous definition is nevertheless filled, ideologically rigidified, in such a way that few works escap through the ga p left an those works are a conjunctu re (happenst ance not) a whole range incidents and factors, co/incide/nces which enable this escape from the c % p t i n g 'process' definition (and concreteness). This 'escape' is no a displacement (which would therefore create a misunderstanding, a theoretical gap, elsewhere) a suppression, bu an adequate solutio questions correctly posed in terms materialist practice theoretical embodiment. That does not mean the artis t consciously verbalised the degrees factors which had significance in the creation the object that finds its way out, escaping the recuperative pseudo-freedom the epithet 'process'. Stella's good intentions count for little, vice versa for Klee's often naturalistic, representational, evolutionist notions, radically countermanded by those works which form a conjuncture structural dissociation, pared down 'simplicity' in terms imagery an internal relations, formalised colour schemes an oth er factors, to realise (produce) works which function in a nonnaturalised, textual presentedness. Non-naturalisation means specificall that the works don't fit into the category naturalness, whether this naturalness refers to the image-content (i.e. naturalness the representation) to what is necessitate a reading ut natural/or painting. what is allowable, what does rather falls blindly into parameters meaning consciously unconsciously predefined.
Reading duration A materialist reading at one with the inscription the work (which is th work) is enabled forced; Klee's usage, in these cases, the virtually unloaded nearly empty signifier (Foucault cites them as 'completely empty signifiers') is possibly the dominant factor in the adequate presentation materialist ar practice in works such as Alter Klang. Doppelzelt. etc. that the image taken does Signifiers approaching emptiness means merely
not have a ready associative analogue, is no a given symbol metaphor allegory; that which is signified by the signifier, that which is conjured up the image given, is something formed by past connections but at a very low key, a determining over-determining presence, merely a ot highly charged moment meaning. Thus, although this example is oversimplified, the edge a leaf seen for a moment only, only seen (in a film, for instance) slightly related to other equally insignificant signifiers (within a context which allows them to operate as insignificant), does no necessarily lead to associations stronger than 'leaf a non'another leaf quite similar' 'room, leaf without existential angst, doubt, a sense emotional grasp lonely fragility, etc. And that low-level signifier in momentary interplay with differences other low-level signifiers foregrounds a possibly materialist play which don't have overriding hierarchy meaning, whic don't determine the ideological reading, which don't lead into heavy associative symbolic realms. Th actual relations between images, the handling, the appearance, th 'how it is', etc., takes precedence over the 'associative' 'internal' meanings. Thus is presented the arbitrariness meaning imbibed in, for example, such an image-moment a leaf. The unnaturalness, ungivenness, possible meanin is posited. Such practice thereby cou nters precisely th ideological usages which are dominant; the usages which give meaning to images, things, signs, etc., meanings which are then posited as nl!tural, as inherent. T he whole idealist system is oppose d by a materialist practice the production meaning, the arbitrariness the signifier. (Meaning is made.) signifier/signified nd for this concept, this thought, the semiotic notions ar tremendous import. In film, duration as material piece
time
is
the basic unit.
Does a painting come i nto existence all once? it's built up piece by piece, not different from a house. When a point becomes movement line, it takes up time. Similarly, when a line pulls itself into a plane. And the same when a flat plane becomes a three dimensional enclosure. And the viewer, does he (she) respond to the work as a whole? Often yes, unfortunately. Paul Klee, Schiipferische Konfession am not positing direct cause an effect, even direct analogue, between painting an film. Similarly, the effect, more specifically, AbstractExpressionism an Minimalism Structural /Materia list is not direct. he problematic reading duration when viewing a painting was others. Actual duration can only exis in film, in terms important to Klee the approximation towards a relation between work an viewer
(production time 'reading' time). Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera. Eisenstein's Strike. Lumiere's films, form a core basic work in this field research, the anti-illusionist project. As to Structural music, Bach's preludes fugues relate strongly to some the work Terry Riley. Steve Reich's Stick Piece. etc. More specific to film: more often than not, 'real' time is utilised in the Structural/Materialist film, in clearly defined segments in th
film as a whole, thus bre aking from illusionistic t ime (substructured in codes narrativity). he closing in space between viewe viewed, th another, is a basic repressive between the representation in one shot illusionist device. he implication unseen splice integrate tw shots producing, from material also elides the function editing, the function segments, a new complex relation. Instead, there is a seeming natural flow established, which suppresses all procedures the edit ing stages he concept integration rather than disruption is predicated a repression th material relations specific to the film process, this course is no unconnected with the violence done to (eradicate) th adequate presentation material relat ions in the spheres ideology, the image, plastic represent ation nonnarrative mimesis, etc. Attempted in Structural/Materialist film is perceptual activity. That perceptual hierarchical, cool, separate unfolding activity is 110t to be understood as relegating th primary function th individual perceiver, wh course is embedded in ideological problema tics structures/strictures. perception as a concept have yet to be satisfactorily delineated. Still, film is a perceptual activity (amongst other things) and without perception the relations attendant upon that process there is no film practice or in case on that is non-idealistic, on that no mechanistically materialist). Distance Through th
attempted non-hierarchical, cool, separate unfoldi ng a distance (ing) is sought. This distance reinforces (rather than denies) th dialectic interaction viewer with each film moment, which is necessary if it is not to pass into passiveness needlessness. This interaction the physical level and on the level critical praxis is obvious. real time element demands such a consciousness will. I an here only hint th deeper problematic
within which the 'real tim e' Aspects
I rel ation between viewer
viewed
is
located.
time
'Real time', that is, time present as it is for the film-maker, denoted no shooting, editing, printing, projecting, connoted, at the stage interrelations these. Commonly, 'real time' is presented in single takes film segments utilised for their actual duration (often after many viewings they separat e themselves as such). (2) There is illusionistic time, time made to seem what it is not, such as in conventional (it must be said) in much Eisensteinian editing. E.g., ut from 10.15 p.m. London interior - th lovers kiss to midnight near the lake, husband wife murder each other (long shot), either implying a linear thread events with time compressed, simultaneity with time compressed. (3) he third 'example' is that postNewtonian, Einsteinian time. There is here no absolute value other than that the interaction film moment viewer. This relativistic time may bu does not necessarily connect with 'real time'. 'real time' its notion own fails to take account precisely this relativistic nature time, the
absence some universal clock, though for lack a more precise definition 'real time' did serve its purpose apropos for example much Warhol's filmwork (interrupted by splices leader-fogging). Reflexiveness
Another matter which the investigation Structural/Materialist film brings forth is the bearing it has on reflexiveness, which is inculcated by a film through certain procedures. Reflexiveness, self-reflexiveness auto-
reflexiveness, is a condition self-consciousness which invigorates the procedure filmic analysis during the film viewing event. T hus it is ot merely matter reflection, thinking, broadly taken. Reflexiveness, as a concept, can serve a meaning counterprod uctive to the direction Structural/Materi alist film would give it. 11 can, for example, serve as a decoy, an alibi, the opening up individual interpretation. Such simulacra turn the ideological thrust an issue towards radically reacti onary paths, bring one's work to a poin where each conceptual entity must be clearly defined in order not to move down a blind alley. Without such rigour, one finds the illusionist, narrative, identificatory individualist mode cinema is re-presented, re-instated without a battle, the wearying struggle to define clearly precisely is taken up again the moment least vigilance. A weak link one's analysis idealist, anti-materialist practices can turn a whole body work (in film, for example) to uselessness in countering a forthcoming film's radically practice. A film practice in which one watches oneself watching is reflexive; the act self-perception, consciousness per se becomes one the basic context one's confronta tion with work. The process the production ofjilm-making, the filmic practice film-viewing as production, become interlinked. 'Reflection' does ideological combat with self-consciousness, reflexiveness. operate thus is to break the dicho tomy between feeling thinking; rather to break the illusion their necessary separation an the illusion their automatic oneness. The filmic enterprise, if such, presents consciousness film to the self. Th radical rejection th representation consciousness is main concept. Film cannot adequately represent consciousness any more than it adequately represents meaning; all film is invisibly encumbered by mystificatory systems interventions which are distortions, repressions, selections, etc. That a film is a window to life, to a set meanings, to a pure state image/meaning, o ught to be self-evident. Thus the documenting an ac film-making is as illusionist a practice as the documenting nd consciousness is as encumbered by the narrative action (fiction). illusionist devices cinema, if one is attempting to do cument 'it', as anything else. Filmic reflexiveness is the presentation consciousness to the self, consciousness the way one deals with the material operations; filmic reflexiveness is forced through cinema's materialist operations filmic practice.
Self-consciousness, consciousness per se, must in way imply consciousness as deflecting to a mythical subject; it must in no way imply transcendence transcendent subjectivity; it does not set itself in opposition to real relations, i.e. consciousness as knowledge in opposition to material relations as knowledge. One can see it in schematic form, the horizontal being the work upon which functions operate (the film plane), the vertical being 'consciousness', the line to the recipient as his/her necessary mode inculcated dialectic operation.
Technique Access to involvement with technique is the formidable basis all art which poses questions seriously, and which moves forward to new stages development, the working through contradiction in its practice. Thus technical innovation is itself ideologically conditioned; many cases innovations and conceptual entities were ot thought thr ough inside a culture, though the apparatus and the actual scientific discoveries were already present. 'one crucial element' would wait 200 years to be discovered. The lag between the possibilities for innovatory technical practices (such as camera and photographic printing) an the realisation such practice (two centuries later) 13 is an ideological one. At the same time, when a new technical practice becomes operative, it bears directly on aesthetic practice (whether it produces that aesthetic practice or is produced by it is a complex matter). Technique, which is often categorised as separate from aesthetic issues, is in fact inseparable; mass reproduction photography had considerable influence on the aesthetic possibilities the mass reproduction photography, and vice versa. seems virtually a circular argument, which makes it all the more uncanny that it is so often belied. The aesthetics silkscreening as it is practised by a Warhol has a not insubstantial relation to the technical fact silkscreening to the techniques made possible by certain inventions and their utilisation a certain period. In film, the flattening ou space is possible through various device camera this is an involvement with technique that is unavoidably present as the aesthetic basis the work. In film, also, slow motion is a technical invention, inseparable from analytic work on representation. Thus involvement with technique refers to two phenomena (I inventions which make possible, fulfill, technical needs (and those technical needs are inseparable from the aesthetic which produces them which they produce); (2) aesthetic usage, inseparable from technical possibilities. Theory and practice An important problem is the question continuing broadening advanced practice without elaborating distinct theory. Th filmwork itself is an ideological practice, in some cases a theoretical practice. Film theory, if such exists, takes the form written retrospective history which can function as a basis for its own practice (theoretical practice) and/or for the
th theoretical embodied in it. (How practice film-making as it correlates it is ow it is what it is.) Much formulation taking place at th moment deals with retrograde work but this be step towards being equipped to deal adequately with Structural/Materialist film. Adequate work is indeed necessary in film-making writing 'on' film. A semiotics that is right-wing th only on envisage, though little else is th moment is forthcoming. One can cite, in support th above assertion, the lamentably a series reactionary symbolic interpretation by Roland Barthes Eisenstein stills. Such a position needs be combatted, but so to does Foucault's superb Marxist/Althusserian interpretation of, for example. Magritte's retrograde picture-puzzle-gimmicks. What we ar stuck with is often advanced theoretical formulation, critically adapted to which does not warrant it. This results in a reading into th work. such a critical operation, th most reactionary work will suffice because, after all, one can project one's 'personal' wishful thinking into virtually film. Partaking 'work on th signifier' seem the primal scene be the dominant current malpractices.
Left
itself, a spontaneous (technical) practice produces only the means produce th ends assigned to it; this 'theory' it needs 'theory' is never more than th reflection this end, uncriticized, realization; that is, it is a by-product th unknown, in its means th technical practice's nd reflection its means. A 'theory' which does question the end whose by-product it is remains a prisoner this end. Examples th realities which have imposed it as the branches many this psychology, sociology, Art, et Politics, Economics, Louis Althusser, Fo Marx
have, among English
advanced film-makers, work which utilises traditional, transparent documentary film-making in an unthought manner. Structural/Materialist operation. under the guise use, for example, black leader cut into a film be th image the time when the camera motor running is a mystification wa th most dangerous sort. That mystification devise routes back to th apparent point departure. On then ends up through this repressive re-rout ing, a stage prior to that th anti-illusionist project. fact, these mis-routin gs ca lead further back, to the original point aggression, th stimulus to one's film practice in the first place, i.e. th 'straight' documentary against which the anti-illusionist film is
working. In this example, black leader posits a direct representation time, which in fact it is not. posits a direct representation action, 'camera motor turned off, which it is not. Thus it is a representation which does no present itself. It posits itself as image something other than itself, which in • ArtJorum. January 1973
fact it is not. posits a gap between two 'real ities'. i.e. the preceding shot an annihilate it presence (thus the following shot, thus attempting representing an repressing the same time). Unquestioned in above operation is the signifying area as well; investigation, let alone intervention, is undertaken apropos that area. Thus the use black leader as posited in my example instantiates illusionist operation which is then covered. masked. The demarcations must be drawn all the more strictly when dealing with such work precisely because the rearguard revision it performs is seemingly in way posit such rearguard work, no obvious. That some films though their makers cannot fully articulate their filmic method and practice, is in no way a contradicti on in terms. Th question (artistic) intention comes exist precisely by its up here, an whether ot that intention an be said presence in the work. More often than not, the nonverbalis ation intention is not a sign the on translatability the specific film practice int o words, ut correct verbalisation, which does rather a mere absence deny in those cases the 'absolu te' tran slatability int o words intention. some few cases, indeed, this is no the case. The root this question is the mechanistic, simplistic notion that without speech there is production. It is obvious, nevertheless, that those intentions which are articulated a re often what is in fact operating as inscription in (and of) the work. is the work ne deals with; slight shifts in words, like slight shifts in filmwork operations, ca radically alter the position meaning. These slight shifts, which are in fact major shifts, exist in that untranslatability between the maker's intention as thought in speech, the maker's intention as unthought in speech though all. th capable being verbalised, the maker's intention as unthought maker's intention as untranslatable into speech, though thought know what I want do, i.e. in advance an having gone through decision-making processes. ut don't know why, i.e. can't say why') etc. Anglo/ American Struc tural an Str uctu ral/Ma terialist film has so far faile to attract any attempt theory. Advanced mainly French theory (no necessarily concerning film directly is either capable dealing with film or posits retrogr ade illusionist, post-Bazinian manifestations offilm. With the (at best) nearly total demise New American Cinema, mainly through its resurgent romanticis (worst) its continued oper ation as pseudo- narrative investigations, there remain the few English (plus ne Canadian and ne Austrian) Structural/Materialist film-makers, ho are working a great theoretical/historical approach. extent without he beginnings Consequently, most cases (at best) these films open contradictions between theory (not necessarily film) the practice film-making as it That these contradict ions are opened up by embodies theory, i.e. is which are largely 'unconscious ly thought' th part film-makers is another problem. As to the theoretical practice film theory, nothing all seems have been begun. Th derivative material publishe d in Screen is merely importation from at most three Paris sources; though moments useful it is no directed
correctly, is not ma de to interact with avant-garde film practice in this country ny other). Operating in vacuum as far as avant-garde cinema is concerned, it finds itself ot coincidentally aligned with dominant cinema, with no production capacity its own. British avant-garde film since 1966 has been studied; the works th European avant-garde experimental film the late 1950s the 1960s. Witness to this lack knowledge is th following extract from the absurd 'dialogue' which conducted with theirs): Laura Mulvey an Peter Wollen (n fault language the way it is used Screen: Nevertheless, th importance in your film is very different from the kin irration al, mystic overtones the Anglo/Sax on avant-gardes, such as Sharits, Wieland Frampton, so on. I see your film as closer to a materialist conception language such as e.g modern French theories writing. Wollen: That's absolutely false characterization those films. instance, Hollis Frampton's Zorns Lemma (1971) is based on mathematical transformations in relation th alphabet Which again comes mysticism Kabbala. Wollen: But by that token Kabbalism is also very strong , e.g. in RobbeGrillet. would say Kabbalism runs very strongly through all that French thought. You can see how, for instance, Jabes Jewish Kabbalism thought feeds into Derrida. There is a very strong streak see Zorns Lemma th Straub side the interface rath er Tel Quel than th Brakhage side, though it does have a neoplatonist aspect concern ing light Screen: Maybe we should talk about that some other time. (Screen, Autumn 1974) More unfortunately, interviewers wrote introduction ending with the following statement: 'The interview with Peter Wollen nd Laura
Mulvey can be described as polemical in the sense that the ideas discussed in i as well as the film itself ma appear totally aberrant when seen in the context British film culture the present time.' Apart from the coy, the word 'aberrant', the statement unmasks the non-normative use complete repression by Screen's editors the film culture as if exists. I 5 Conclusion
Structural/Materialist films
once object procedure. Some are clearly, blatantly a whole, others work as obvious fragments, nonbeginning-non-end film. Both rely upon aesthetic that tries create didactic works (learning ot teaching, i.e. operational productions not reproductive representations). the same time there is attempted avoidance empiricism, an the mystic romantic ism higher sensibility individualism. This romantic base much American Structural film has been elucidated by P. A. Sitney. Visionary film-making is precisely the post-Blakean mire that Structural/Materialism confronts, whether this confrontation is articulated re
not. 'Unconsciously thought' processes define themselves in practice. One must go on after Warhol, not revert to are-invigorated pre-Warholian stance; expressing the same old thing one ought to be, by now, tired 'trying to express when there is nothing to express'. ignore the ideological function of Sitney's exegesis a 'new romantic affirmation in recoiling against the tremendously crucial aesthetic attack that Warhol made' is precisely to be embedded in dominant ideology as located in the specific area being discussed: film. (Film Culture, Spring 1972, P. A. Sitney.) The ideological direction Sitney's arguments is not mentioned here as part criticism, since it coincides with the ideological weight the works he discusses and therefore he becomes in fact the most adequate spokesman for and exegete of the films he deals with, with notable exceptions. shall also not attempt to elucidate the dominant ideology here in specific terms.) Structural film became merely another aesthetic mode, another formalism, in fact, with a vague set rules and self-definitions yet without important function or meaning outside its mere differentiation per se from previous modes. I see Structural/Materialist film course within a materialist function if it is to operate usefully. Some such works Structural/Materialist film ar the following: Lillie Dog For Roger, Yes No Maybe Maybe Not, Spot the Microdot (Malcolm LeGrice); Wavelength, Back and Forth, Central Region der Pfaueninsel (Kurt (Michael Snow); Trees in Autumn, TV, Szondi Test, Kren); Diagonal (William Raban); Adebar, Schwechater (Peter Kubelka); Process Red, Zorns Lemma (Hollis Frampton); the problematic Erlanger Program. Window ox (Roger Hammond); Deck (Gill Eatherley); Film No.1, A' Film, MaR With a Movie Camera (David Crosswaite); Word Movie, 3 min. section Razor in Fluxus (Paul Sharits); my own Clouds, Hall, Room Fil 1973; Green Cut Gate (Fred Drummond). To make distinctions between works is a matter clearly contextualising the problematic, and each work's operation within it. Each work must be brought forth to clarity from the multilayered inscriptions that it is. Using the term Structural/Materialist is dangerous as well, since it refers to Structural Film. Equal emphasis must be on the Materialist 'half the term (and a dialectical materialism, not a mechanistic materialism, is necessary). The ter Structural Film took as basic assumption the contexts merely thre four works and evolved a thesis from them, works not all more than minor importance. Perhaps the same can be said at this juncture definition Structural/Materialist f . The 'theory' was meant for more than parochial definition these (above) works. One creates a work. One also creates, in varying degrees, a negation past work, historically constituted bases for tradition. The Structural/ film Materialist film and production meaning in film is the production itself, in its (thought 'unthought') theoreticalness and (thought 'unthought') ideological intervention. intervene crucially in film practice, the 'unth ought' must be brought to knowledge, thought. The se relations between film practice, theoretical practice, and film as theory, can then be brought forth to operate in clarity.
Notes I. The concept structure's importance, vis that representational content, led to the notion shape taking precedence confused the issue nearly irreparably. Slight shifts become majo r theoretical interventions whic change the locus meaning the work being produced, and the axis along which it operates in time. This is not mere obsessive Talmudic French academic preoccupation. Althusser's concept the absolutely essential importance the correct usage the word bears remembering; the correct formulation is necessary to close the gap between advanced theoretical practice and the dominance idealist speech. (Louis Althusser, Reading Capital, London, 1970.) 2. By the word film-maker, though, I do not mean to imply that the producer (film-maker) is inserted as mythical figure, as shadow symbol the 'real', as mirror. Anonymity is indeed a prerequisite; but a superficial anonymity brought into a false existence through such things as 'coldness' heavy atmospheric intervention - functions precisely as the opposite its supposed intention. Anonymity must in fact be created through transformation, dialectically posited into the filmic event itself. That is, anonymity must be the result, a specific instance; it to must be produced rather than illustrated obliquely 'given' in a poetical sense. 3. This is so because of: associativeness, symbolic reading, integration into the diegesis, subsumation to th dominant illusory system posited, displacement to a mere different level phantasy-acceptance, poetic shock supportive the primary story, etc. The signifier the signified as arbitrary, as artifice an as less than primary, is the area in which production 'meaning' must take place. Meaning this stage must be seen to clearly obtain to Structural/Materialist reading. Yet by collaborating in the current usage the term reading I separat e myself from the bourgeois oppression the dominance the word while acknowledging its hegemony. 4. In the Japanese theatre, an actor holding a mask in front his/her face, so that the audience can see the 'real' face behind, is for all that no less identificatory, no less c % p t a b l e into the narrative structure diegetic linearity. The grasping this example is crucial to the basis for the whole theoreticisation the problem narrative. So far all essays on narrative and narrative deconstruction have been mechanistic, derivative dominant cinema's needs, in inverted form, with no break (epistemological otherwise). The same goes for all attempts narrative-deconstructive cinema I is in order to poi nt to the fac that illustration a thesis (of deconstruction, otherwise) in (on) film denies duration, the basic cinematic structure. Illustration mystifies rea/filmic relations the basic project is thus illusionism representational codes, the latter being recuperated as no deconstruction the narrative is constituted. The lat ter statement should not be seen to imply naivete on part as to th frequent occurrence so-called non-narrative film which in fact sets up an imagist illusionism, a set ideological codifications equally manipulatory,
undialectical, identificatory. The system identification into the imagist code relies heavily on the usage the imaginary referent, that which is referred to transparently, wherein the medium is no produced as opaque. This syste identification also relies heavily on the repression the production th signifier-as-arbitrary, that is, as the strictly ideologically posited coherence artificially manufactured between signifier nd signified. As long as these relations are not studied made to pr oduce work, the illusionist project is not one step further ou its miasmic repressed state. I must add: when stating that in identification real relations are mystified, I empiricist manner. in no way refer to real relations in a positivist 'For objective dialectics the absolute is also to be found in the relative. he unity, the coincidence, identity, resultant force, opposites, is conditional, temporary, transitory, an relative.' Lenin, On Dialectics, in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. 'Feeling like a voyeur watching Warhol's pornographic Couch is precisely not to be in the position a voyeur. is precisely the stare (and the seeming stare Wallelength) that works to counter the identificatory process, thoug necessity smash it. And the word subvert has become to cliched it does not and ambiguous to be used effectively in this context. The ineffable stare presents the medium's presence, though positing a deep space centrepoint ou from the screen, across from the objects the film, particularly in 13 Most Beautiful Women nd parts Chelsea Girls.' (London College Printing Notes on Film, Peter Gidal, 1971.) 5. Aristotelian cathar sis is inseparable from identification an the purging (whether this is a pseudo, i.e. unreal, concept not) is inextricably bound to the latter's operations. 6. In reference to my own work, Michael Snow implies such a constant production rather than consumption. Th example is because often what seems like (and is, in fact) an untheorised position is the order theoretical supposition. Snow's words: ' your il (Room Film 1973) had to be worked at. I felt as if it were made by my father, as if it were made by a blind man. I felt that searching tentative quality, that quality trying to see. (Michael Snow, Sept. 1973, London.) Thi attempt verbalisation, loose as it is, in fact is stating theoretically, beneath the surface, an aesthetic necessitating dialectic attempts at image arrestation, the necessity for production rather than consumptio n. 'Sometimes the repeating shots would be clear, sometimes one couldn' t l if it was continu ous.' The constituti on the work, coming from the material relations the work, but not mechanistically positioning (i.e. illustrating) itself tautologically, is at the base the meaning Snow's statement. Similarly, what seems an aesthete's formalist delight in light in Jonas Mekas' (Vii/age Voice. \0 February 1975 to 29 October 1973) some extent Lucy Fischer's pieces on my film are really attempts to articulate verbally a problematic the constitution the filmic image, opaquely through the agenc light; thus the whole problematic image-constitution through something, a representation as a constitution rather than as a given, 'captured' transparently. This theoretically important difference is thus
elucidated beneath the idealist mask which filmprose in fact mostly is. Fischer less poetic than Mekas. I quote only the former, the is more analytical quote most be diversionary without meaning to be so. 'The rest th room and the way that light illuminates film proceeds with examination the objects within it.' (Lucy Fischer, Soho Weekly News, 16 January 1975, italics mine.) According to Lawrence Van Gelder in the New York Times (1 January [Room Film 1973] is a murky, granular journey around a room, 1975), broken by occasioqal incursions light' (italics mine). The ideological concep journey, a man's journey through given universe, is somehow the base the writings on Room Fil 1973. is as if all film were (and I suspect this to be the case) still recuperated as some form masked not-so-masked documentary rather than a filmic articulation constituting presence, a filmic pro duction precisely in its operations the level th problematics procedure an representation. That the pseudo-documentary is the unspoken gap in current film knowledge, in terms theory, practice nd theoretical practice, have hinted elsewhere ('Un Cinema Materialiste Structural', C A r t Vivant, Fevrier 1975, pp. 16-17, as well as Studio International, March 1975, '5th Knokke Experimental Film Festival') 7. As to Brecht, there are some illuminating comments from his writings. 'Science isn't so free superstition. Where knowledge doesn't suffice, faith produces itself, nd that is always superstition lyricists didn't lose their voice because th book Capital ut in the face Capital itself.' Realism isn't defined purely formalistically (that which in the 90's was considered Realism, in the realm the bourgeois novel) then much can be said against techniques like montage, interior monologue, distancing ( Verfremdung), only from the point view Realism! as a technical means, the interior monologu (o Joyce) was rejected; one called it formalist. never understood the reasoning. Just because Tolstoy would have done it differently isn't a reason reject the way Joyce does it. he objections were constructed so superficially that one go t the impression that if Joyce had put the same monologue (Molly Bloom's final one) in the psychoanalytical session, everything would have been all right.' 'Realist, that means consciously influenced by reality, consciously influencing reality th techniques Joyce simply waste products; if one Dablin ar eliminates their influence, instead modifying it, one ends up merely with the influence the epigones, such as the Hemingways. The works Joyce and Dablin betray, in the largest sense, the world-historical contradictions into production have fallen vi which the force vis the relations production. In the works, productive forces re represented to a certain degree. Socialist writers particularly can learn valuable, highly developed technical means hopelessness (Ausweglosigkeit). They se (Elemente) from these document the way out.' 'Perhaps readers might just no feel that they've been given th to events when they, seduced by many wiles (Kiinste) merely take par in (beteiligen) the soulful emotions the heroes.' Bertolt Brecht, Cbe,. den Realism us , 1938-1940, Suhrkamp Gesammelte Werk e (my translation)
Brecht also, course, wavered from the above views more often than not; though he fought against the formalist notions Realism which the social(ist) realists conveniently sidetracked, he also wrote often 'Realism directly from the standpoint a class, unfolding the ruling viewpoints as the viewpoints the ruling, representing reality, the way it is' (die Realitiit lriedergeben). Brecht's usage th word representation, modification, will be questioned this point. Correct class position representation were linked for B.B. certain film-makers currently working, this is only a necessary link, it is a vital weak link. Th whole platform between two ideological camps within fil production rests, finally, on this opposition; it is the overdetermining aspect. anti-illusionist not, project is determined, this juncture. critical reaction this time against what he 8. 'Stella's emotional an considered rhetorical in the Abstrac t-Expressionist posture was more marked If his style suggests. think I ha been badly . than the gradual mutation Abstract-Expressionism," affected by what could be called the romance Stella recalls, "particularly as it filtered to places like Princeton the artist as a terrifically sensitive, around the country, which was the idea everchanging, ever-ambitious person particularl y as described i magazines, Nell'S Arts. which I read religiously like obvious J, began to be kind an terrible, nd you began see through it I began to feel very strongly about finding a way that wasn't so wrapped up in the hullaba loo, way working that yo couldn't write about something that was stable, in a sense, something that wasn't constantly a record your sensitivity, a York.) record flux." (Frank Stella. by William Rubin, Ne '''I always get into arguments," he reported, "with people who want to retain the 'old values' in painting the 'humanistic' values that they always find on the canvas. you pin them down, they always end asserting that there something there besides the paint the canvas. painting based on the fact that only what can be seen is there If the painting were lean enough, accurate enoug h, right enough, you would just be abl to look it. " in s, all I ever et out of them, All I want anyone to et ut What ou the . ct that you can see the whole idea wit o'ut confusion quote th above with full awareness that t $e...is w at you se . statements broaden th parameters an raise as many confusions as they attempt to close up, yet in relation the problemat ical, humanistic, ideolog of process, Stella was more aware than most. this his painting its best is also clear on.' the Subversion Knowledge', in the interviews 9. Michel Foucault in with Gilles Deleuze nd Paulo Caruso, is particularly illuminating. (Hanser paperback.) a beginning though also insufficient piece work on th above 10. mentioned, see my Beckett Art: Others System (Studio International. November 1974, 183-187). II Reflexiveness be as much a diversionary tactic from the antiillusionist project, as anything. Similarly, the concept subversion, i.e.
subverting the codes, subverting the meaning, is merely a rationalised precisely those codes meanings, with attendant guilt annexation contributing th enormous libidinous energy necessary for this repressive operation. The bourgeois academic cine-semiotician's simplistic usage
psychoanalysis
a ruse. self posited here is situated in its self-alienation/distanciation, 12. th concept, which must be fought, self as cent re though this still refers (distanced though it be), self as unitary. This psychological centering th self must be nullified in order to even begin to set a dialectically concept drop the usage word such as self does posited distan ciated elf. Merely th redefining must be redefining th word. no fulfil the requirement done so that self is understood, be a unitary centre knowledge, an through which the world is th T does no form the world. Consciousness does form th world. Material relations form the self is merely a clinical word for a cipher. 13. Thomas Neumann, So::ialgeschichte der Photographie,Luchterhand 1966. reactionary basis most American film-making has only been 14. clarified recently, this through only the beginnings analyses which work upon the mystificatory that movement. individualist aesthetics (ethics) English problematic, as I've stated, is pseudo-documentary production question itself. (See which does Mike Dunford's Still Life With Pear' in '5th Knokke Experimental Film Festival' in Studio International, March 1975, p. 138.) much stronger European film-makers certainly made impression though without the presence clearly established masters. But th Europeans reject that's a way ofthinking which many It's difficult to pi down, but one senses an attitude towards film-making ot as the on-going motive certain great works bu as artistic work production th structure and ideology which might European film-makers re wary create the conditions fo cultural imperialism in the area film-making. They th nature and function are, therefore, involved in a redefinition filmmaking that differs from those th Americans who re making their way gradually toward the centre own culture.' P. A. Sitney, talking with Annette Michelson, th Independent FilmConversation on Knokke 1975. maker', Artforum. spectre mystique the individual artist romantic illusionism th reactionary concept artist as god, artist as magician, artist as purveyor beauty, artist as fascist. constant (a The Film-maker. film-maker makes th film. is a source frustration that the illusion is so rigidly upheld that the film-maker produces th film ought to be (only) the film but him/her self in it. Reception consumptive productive, relational, the invisibly visible artist's character/persona. Even if Peter Gidal films dark rooms what does it say about me except what it says about itself, i.e. handheld consistency an repetitiveness pr esents procedures on to 'subject matter', dehierarchicalising it, presenting its arbitrariness as against an essentialness; meaning is is
(ideologically) produced,
innate.
centreframe steadyfocus annexation; constitution/deconstruction, deconstruction/constitution image through lightness blackness, annih ilation as w ll through extremes
such The film-maker is specifically not produced in the film, if the film operates on a materialist anti-illusionist level, functioning as a practice not literature, dealing lI'ith illusionism, inside it. Films that en being adequate documentaries about the artist (subject's) concerns transparently posit themselves against anti-illusionist cinema. constant illusionist/anti-illusionist procedural operation is ot (b) Illusion. the same as a positing illusion an questioning its 'reality' in the 'next' shot. usable) is simultaneous with True deconstruction (for which the term is construction vice versa. (c) Narratil'£'. Narrative is indeed a strategic category in the investigation illusion-systems, systems representation, in the process representation; disbelief. is this aspect, which butfilmically this study involves suspension is a central base for the whole narrativity-investigation, which is most consistently repressed. This repression overdetermines the whole 'study' th codes narrativity, an exposes its essentialIy reactionary state. 15. thank Peter WolIen for having brought the issu up in the first place in that my diatribe is not meant to imply that the interview. must subscribe either to Mulvey/WolIen's film their views. would be untruthful if di not admit to a wish to have the Journal the Society for Education in Film an Television deal seriously with current practice, avant-garde film Th editors do, after all attempt a Marxist fil theory; and, yes, important translations have been published. But anger seems just ignoring justified when Screen's policies writings are current film practice in Britain, ut in fact extremely ignorant, so far, aggressive towards it by innuendo, omission, condescension concentration on the narrative cinema, thus to some degree sustaining its dominance, least theoretically. Actual power over the cinema-goer none us has this stage. would have been useful in the past ifthere had been some critical work done; the film-makers also would have found themselves reflecting on their practice to a greater degree. Which can't be bad.
Postscript
have elaborated, clarified an corrected certain formulations since 1974 when this essay was written. refer the following: Further Footnotes, London Filmmakers' Co-operative paper, seminar Practice/Theory, February 1976; The Anti-Narrative, Edinburgh Avant-Garde Film Conference, July1976; letter Ontology, Screen, Summer 1976; exchange Theory and Definition Structural/Materialist Film, Afterimage N o . 8 , London 1978 (written September 1976); Technology/Ideology in/through/and Avant-Garde the 20th Century Studies Conference on Th Film, paper delivered Cinematic Appar atus, University Wisconsin, Milwaukee, February 1978. P.G., January 1978
Abstract
Film and Beyond
Malcolm LeG rice [William] Raban is concerned with the problem real-time equivalence in th Warhol sense, has always shown a need to context the compression time with the actual shooting duration, sometimes including sequences normal-time shooti ng as a reference More recently he has made a number films which are m ade in short takes are edited to include the time between takes as recorded by continu ously r unning sound. He began develop this form in Soft Edge (1973) where the take length is determined by the wind-down the camera, and the he clockwork motor intervening period rewinding is black; the two set images are integrated by a continuous soundtrack. His best work this kind is Time Stepping (1974) where two camera playa rhythmic space-time game, sh ooting alternately and panning away in opposite directions down the street from the same central point, two doorways the front a row old houses. Th film from both cameras is edited together in the sequence and duration its shooting, any gaps between the takes being represented by black spacing, any overlap between the camera runs being represented by superimposition. A second section the film maintains the parallel between projection shooting durations. Whilst single frames from the camera are projected in the normal 1/24 second, from the other single-frame one-second time-exposures are stretch-printed equal their original exposure time. This follows the exploration the single-frame time-exposure in another his films. Colours this Time (1972), where th colour temperature the light different times th da is given its maximum effect the film's colour emulsion by vastly increasing exposure time while diminishing the light intensity thro ugh a dense, neutral-toned filter. the system can lead In the systemic films, the determinate quality false assumption that all 'content' is controlled by the system. In fact, many assumptions condition the form the system how where it should applied, these are as much a source subjective 'content' as the choice symbols in a Symbolist work. Determinate systems may create the illusion is shift the region in which it eliminating 'subjective' choice whilst all they operates. this which has led to more complex notions is a recognition procedural determinants which may not be mathematical. mechanistic
strictly strictly predeterminate. This shift from the systemic systemic to the mo re responsively responsively procedural is seen for example in Raban's Time Stepping. The complexity complexity the inter-relationship inter-relati onship between predetermine predete rmined d strategy, specif specific ic limitations resultant film structure is specifically taken by Roger Hammond in his Erlanger Erlanger Programm (1971) Some So me Friend Friend (1973), by Gidal with great consistency in Bedroom (1971), Room Film 1973 (1973) an Film Print (1974). will take up the Hammond films later in relationship to other questions film structure because they are less directly related to the camera issue. Gidal's major contribution comes in his concentration issues structuring structu ring directly directly related to the act perceiving through the camera an the projection the fil fil . His work in this are a represents repres ents a complex comple x dialectic between subjective existential response the one hand, an a reflexive structural concept on the other. His work is procedural in the sense establishing specific limitations to his action, like the length film in the camera, the space in which he will work (repeatedly a single room), an the objects which will occupy the space. His work does not deny his own response to light, surface, the identity the object, but it contexts context s this subjectivity within the recognizable limits the process. [n fact, his handling camera work, framing, focus an zoom are clearly apparent, indicating his moment-to-moment response to the visual field. However he is not aiming to reconst re construct ruct his his own motives for the viewe viewer, r, but to alert them to their reflexive attention in relationship to the 'events' which which occur occu r before them on o n the screen. Such systemic devices devices which which Gid al has used, as in Room Film 1973 where I OO-foot continuou s takes are are broken down into equal five-second units each one shown twice, maintaining their original sequence, are concerned with the act perception, an its various stages recognition an conception. In it the perceptual stages are deliber deliberate ately ly prolonged an indistinct regio light on the screen will will become more distinctly a surface, though clearly the surface object. Then it may take on edge, bu the scale has to be guessed at, being gradually confirmed, confirmed, denied or neither by the film' film'ss sub sequent sequ ent progress. Then it mayor may not become become recognizable as a book a shelf, shelf, only for for the camera cam era to move on to another regio region n - every every stage being drawn by the sometimes nearly indecipherable double view each segment. Experiences which in everyday perception are over ov er i unconscious flash, in Gidal's films become extended processes for conscious attention structuring. Unlike other film-makers who have been concerned with a reflexive mode for for the audience, Gidal, except per haps hap s in Hall. has never elicited it by the kind puzzle-game used in Frampton's Zorns Lemma. His films have always maintained a distinct link between the perception, conception realization available through viewing the film, an the act perception definition time, space, surface, material object available through the use a movie camera. Other film-makers share some Gidal's reflexive, structural intentions, to whom I shall refer anon, for the moment I shall continue to consider other developments develo pments which spring from a concern with the camera event.
Recently a number works directly referential th camera an its functioning have been produced. This development can be seen as part general tendency towards a conceptual approach to the processes filming projection. those films which refer directly to th camera within the work, the most interesting intere sting have been by Raban, Gidal , David Crosswaite, Gill Gill Eatherley an Mike Dunford. I have alrea dy discussed Raban's Soft Edge an this direction first emerged clearly in Gidal's Movie No.1 Time Stepping. (1972), where a narrator blandly describes the correlation between film exposure, the rate th camera's runnin g speed motion within the image This is visually demonstrated in two situatio ns, on with a static camera, cam era, an hand switching a table light on and off, the second with a hand-held camera viewing a photograph on a wall. Crosswaite's Man with the Movie Camera (1973) is a particularly elegant film. By mounting a circular mirror a little little before the came ra, so that it only occupies the central area the screen, another mirror to the side, the its cameraman may be seen as the central image, with the other camera features th room visible around the circumference. circumference. film is complex spite the simplicity the set-up which is only slowly grasped. Particularly succinct is the way in which the effect manipulating the camera, like changi ng focus, focus, is seen in the image simultaneously with a view how it is the camera brought about. There is no other 'content' than the functioning itself, seen to be sufficient an even poetic. In Gill Eatherley's Dialogue (1973), two cameras are used explore the view from a window then within a room, th camera operators closely follow an complement each other, even frequently observing each other directly. film traces the two cameras' attempts to imitate each other's n the subjective responses making some camera handling more explicit. A similar intention lies behind some the recent works Dunford, Still Life (1973), Deep Space (1973) Arbitrary Limits (1974). In Still Life, th camera around a clearly contrived strongly lit bowl movement fruit is accompanied by a soundtrack giving instructions for the movement, somet imes preceding, sometimes someti mes following it. it. In Deep Space. three sections the film, shot from the same place in a London street, explore distinctly different modes use - the fir first st stati stati on a tripod, the second steady camera use but hand-held, an the third, in violent motio n. fourth section the film involves a single-frame freeze from the third section filming. In Arhitrary th camera is determined by the physical problem Limits the action arm's length, movements being directly related to holding it unsupported, muscu lar fatigu fatigue. e. soundtrack records the film-maker's comments as he struggles to maintain the position an steadiness the camera. In all these the se films films,, the a ctio ct io th camera, its mechanisms handling are deliberately isolated as a conceptual element in the work. next area to consider is that which is concerned with post-camera structuring. Again the range is wide, wide, including systemic systemic proce dure in print ing as in Mike Leggett's Shepherd's Bush (1971), systematic restructuring
through refilming from the screen as in John Du Cane's Sign (1973). also Frampton's includes reflexive modes from the deterministic puzzle Lemma (1970), to the provocative tract Landow's Institutional Quality (1969), an the procedurally reflexive work Gidal and Hammond. In many respects, respects, the historical ro ots for the systemic approach to editing can be found in Kren's early work, as the reflexive aspect systemic structure is also firs seen in his 1968. The systemic permutative aspects printing are probably initiated by ow Reign the Vampire (1969) Crosswaite's Film No. of the same year. The roots the less systemic aspects reflexive intention are much more difficult to pin down, even define. Much European work since 1966, particularly that by Kren, the Heins, Weibel, Gidal myself, has been expressly expressly concerne conc erned d with eliciting active active,, struct uring mod in the audience. In America since that time, Snow, Landow, Sharits, Frampton and, in some work, Jacobs, seem to have had similar intentions, though concern with the mode of audience reaction an perception percept ion seems seems only to have been expressed expressed directly in the theoretical writing Eur ope an film-makers, film-makers, frequently viewed viewed as a political as well well as an aesthet ae sthetic ic issue. issue. This can be seen seen as a develo dev elopmen pmen Vertov Vertov's 's stance stance a polit politic ic perception. is in eliciting a conscious, structuring mode in the audience that th systemic direction has most validity, though this can lead to a deterministic form where the mode is simply one unravelling the nature the filmmaker's particular 'scrambler'. In this case, system tends to replace narrative as an 'involving' device. The best examples systemic structure which derives from printing are extensions the loop-printing concept. With loops film as the basis, permutative permutati ve relationships between between loops differ different ent kinds ofl engt hs can often be followed through more simply than where material is edited according to system. Again, the problem of narrow determinism applies to work this kind, the most interesting work not necessari necessarily ly being defi defined ned by the n atu re the syste system m applied. C rosswaite's rosswa ite's Film No. explores explores a simple simple permu tati on travelling-matte loops. The original material this film is unsplit 8mm film, which results in four images being projected simultaneously when shown in 16mm. The film is printed so that each the four very simple images changes independently, building up a pattern rhythmic interchange. As in looppermutated Reign or the Vampire. appreciation the system is kinetic perceptual rather than intellectual; neither film encourages ny kind 'puzzling' the system, system, thoug h it is plain that the film's film's repetitions have a systemic pattern. Similarly, the system is not a 'content' to be 'discovered' in Leggett's Shepherd's Blish. A loop m shot from a fast-moving camera, pr esumabl close to the ground, is repeatedly printed, each time with a change in th exposure, so that its visual quality alters in imperceptible stages from totally black to totally white, while the soundtrack, also a continuously repeated pattern, gets lower lower in pitch. Th systemic structur al aspec this film is again partly directed towards the appreciation duration through
attention to minimal developments in the image. Since Jacobs' Tom Tom the Piper's Son (1969), an the Heins' Griin, film-makers have used refilming from the screen as a means number
transforming the image, particularly extending the time a sequence exploiting the changes in visual qualities lighting, resolu tion an grain as in work by Ernie Gehr. films which begin from a sequence Cane has also made number film shot often in single frames with a fast-moving camera; then, as in Sign, the original material is refilmed from the screen progressively allowing longer longer attention to th component frames as the sequence is repeated: or, as in Praxis (1974), reorde ring the sequence shots, like shuffling a pack cards. A different use refilming from the screen is not concerned with transforming the image, the act filming nd its is a reference relationship to the act projection, which I shall return. In discussing Gidal's Room Film 1973 I considered the reflexive activity in relationship perceiving, defining structuring. or continuous ac the audience, a process assessment an prediction seems be essential to a reflexive concept cinema. simplest form this emerges in the puzzle format, as in Frampton's Zorns Lemma, where he exchanges sequences words arranged in alphabetical order for twenty-four 'action' st'quences. aesthetic control, and the nuances the Though the film has many levels the form for the audience is that 'game' are varied, the general implication there is a solution be worked out, existing, as it were, a priori in the work. This conditions the nature the reflexive behaviour which the audience engages in. A less deterministic mode is brought about in Frampton's more recent Poetic Justice (1972), where the film image is more than the sequential presentation sheets a film script, written to demand conscious structuring corrected restructuring the events described n the script with careful, deliberate ambiguity. In Landow's Institutional Quality Remedial Reading Comprehension (1970), the reflexive mode takes on a provocative function. By addressing the audience directly through the film, giving instructions, asking questions proclaiming blandly 'th is is a film about you - not about its maker', it forces th audience to recognize that apparent surface intentions, like the instructions part icipa te in a way which cannot be complied with, re not the 'subject' the work. They ar a provocative demonstration that the audience must treat a film, however subjectively structured by the film-maker, as raw material for their own use. This is demand that film should be approached sceptically, counteracting unquestioned acceptance the film's authori ty. incidental, many the films structured with a Although it is perhaps reflexive intention make use words nd didactic in tone. A number these re concerned with the method constructing meaning in cinema, questioning the codes as an end in itself. However, other works, which are not systemic, semantic didactic, can still be considered as reflexively structured. An example is Hammond's Some Friends. I n this film, he reacts clearly against
the who list, systemic problem-solving structure, looking instead for a method struc turin g his activity so as incorporate particular response his material, an the changes in direction which this might demand. Also difficult categorize is the Heins' recent work. he level experimental work in Germany ha fallen off since the late sixties they have found themselves in relative isolatio from other film-makers. Pa rtly as a response to this state affairs they have engaged upon a general project consolidation an clarification which they title Structural Studies. This is continuing work which attempts to order analyse various concerns their earlier films. involves the selection films for specific nd devices apparent movement creat ed by flicke qualities, like the examination by frame jitter, depth so motion created by focus aperture changes, on. In some cases new material ha been shot to precede films with a simple the device follow. new material takes the 'abstract' presentation form a simple rectangle circle exposed the s ame filming conditions as other cases, the more complex 'live-a ction' sequence which is shown next. the new material is shot to fill gaps where the more systematic research suggests experiment which needs be carried out or demonstration made. a very high rate, much it, li¥i Though they continue to produce work Stills (1974) an the growing series portraits which began with Manson. Biggs Hein (all 1970), is outside the stricter confine th Structural Studies project. However it is this general project which represents their most important contribution to the current situation. Though openly academic in intent, the individual works lose nothing as films in their own right. Whilst analytical at ne level, each work has a complexity image control quality which make it clear that th particular problem selected for attention is only ne aspect the wider meaning the work. is a project towards extending clarity about the material perceptual phenomena film, one which realizes the continuing development th phenomena being studied. Th work is perhaps as significant fo th 'long-term' attitude which it embodies as for the specific films. From Abstract Film and Bevond, Studio Vista/M .I.T. Press: 1977
MALCOLM LeGRICE
Yes No Maybe Maybe Not Peter
Gidal
There are two basic sequences. An image water splashing against a wall barrier, and a long shot Battersea power station (with its huge smokestacks, smoke risin them). Through precise strategy, which includes, however, elements chance, Malcolm LeGrice has set up this film. [b/w, silent 12 mins., 1967.] The film starts with a negative image the water superimposed upon the image-positive. The we e Battersea power station superimposed upon itsel (again negative positive.) The we come to variations the power station through a change in synchronization, the negative is held back about four frames, and the sync is lost, creating a space between the negative and the positive. Following this, the wate is superimposed upon the Battersea power station, to give us a triple layer movement. The space between two equal opposite images that are several frames sync makes for the effect basrelief; also, the separation two images (one negative, one positive) makes for a line-determined space grey that varies shape and tone according to the change synchronization (moving, that is to say, the negative another 5,6,7,8 frames ahead the positive). The interplay same images creates the dialectic. The larger the difference between two 'same' images (negative over positive) the larger the grey in-between shape becomes. the space between two shapes create a new image. As this new image is the product the space usually considered a negative area formed by the separation a negative and a positive image-layer, one cannot immediately grasp hold the precise situation when watching it. add to this, the second image, Battersea power station, involves itself to the same triple extent. The intermittent negative shapes formed (negative ot in film terms but in terms the leftover space created by the separation oftwo shapes, either on negative on positive filmstock) are defined by line. The image foreground and background becomes reversed, and through the abstraction process we lose sight 3D space representation. Here the illusion is on that can be visually clarified. the process separation we focus on a certain space, we become aware image, and cannot help b ut react to this impulse. The process-viewing itself is
the content this f . This becomes appar ent. The film consists primarily a 30ft. (50 second) sequence the water. and a 25ft. sequence Battersea power station. After LeG rice (who printed this film. himself in the labs) came to the end each section. he would start over with the same piece material. The images themselves are ot found images. They were filmed by LeG rice to be used specifically for the film. They are no chosen images that serve a purpose in terms any specific meaning prior (or anterior) to the film. The play the horizontal waves crashing repeatedly against the barrier, together with the vertical chimney, makes for a complex (therefore intense) image in its own right. The repetition in this film points to an obsessiveness. When the waves hit the barrier. again again, with varying areas intermittent shape formed by the negative/positive image, are led to path studiously becoming involved with precisio vision nuance change. Th e loop-effect, which can never be securely ascertained, makes for a ap in knowledge: we not know whether the splash waves is a repeat the splash two seconds previously. Is it similar, is it the same? We become deeply involved in lI'atching. We attempt to relate the negative image space to the positive imag n e x t to it, as it seems in the final marrying beneath it. the two sections. Film does. after all, consist a combination illusionistic three-dimensional space two-dimensional 'abstract' space, nd this film makes the most sophisticated use both. The obsessive repetitio image as question /answer dialecti is shown as part the intention in the title the film. This thought-process, the internalized dialectic with the self, the posing question anti-question towards 'maybe not' rather than an affirmative is clearly a preoccupation for LeGrice. Together with the other elements in terms inculcated response visualization, this approach has found its purest formation in this fil is a masterly example the perfection which this idiom is capable. Journal
the Royal College of Art, London (Ark), Spring, 1970 (corrected 1974)
On Malcolm Gordon
LeG rice
ow
dominant concern to Malcolm LeGrice is the 'unlinkable gap A matter between narrative -and-them atic structures th abstract factors cinema. This concern is reflected in his experimental short films, which owe much to the versatility the printing equipment used by the London Film Makers Cooperative. Watching a work by LeG ric is an exercise for the senses and for the mind. He tends place negative as well as positive images before us, sometimes with several projections r unnin g simultaneously, duplicating superimposing elements alr eady seen bu recurring in varied permutations. He l inform an audience politely that his Spot the Microdot is no intended as a kind assault: it might seem like that some, bu this is purely accidental. he purpose is to 'explore the perceptual situation you are in while you are looking the film'. steels oneself, unnecessarily. Is this going to be the is kind stuff they describe th as 'not for the squeamish Well. no. a bright circle white light, blinking in the blackness image without a frame, pulsating in a predestined rhythm. Th white light comes goes, its after-image lingering as if one had blinked tightly against a sudden emergence hot sun from behind a cloud. By degrees, colour is employed as well, and almost subliminal imagery within the circle. Perception is the essence. LeGrice intends the spectator to consider 'how the eye works, and how the mind builds up a perpetual rhythmi c struct ure'. In an earlier fi m, Castle One. he used documentary material about the 'surface' industrial and political matters, ut more consequentially he placed a light bulb in the auditorium. During the projection, the bulb flashed off: 'This was a Brechtian device make the spectator aware himself. I don't like to think an audience in the mass, the individual observer an his behaviour. What he goes through while he watches is what the film is about. interested in the way the individual constructs variety from his perceptual intake.' provide the intake we receive from Spot the Microdot, LeG rice used 16mm magnetic emulsion film, the sort which is generally employed for laying 16mm sound tracks. It is fully opaque, therefore light from the projector indication the customary frame. an penetra te it, which is why there is he circle light, comin going, is achieved by punching holes in the film itself: 'I made up a series varying distances, exploring mathematical systems, an through the holes the beam light from the projector shines
directly on to the screen for a twenty-fourth a second a time.' Although LeGrice affirms that the film-maker can 'build up associative structures' - as indeed e does - the Spot the Microdot upon me was no in the least suggestive th torture chamber. When the white circle light turned red, ne individual i midst gave forth a sound which I took to be ecstatic. W hatev er it signified, it meant least that somebody was reacting as a sepa rate entity, regardless the audience group. silent remainde r, including myself, were no doubt doing likewise personally, I neve anything else: in a packed auditorium perfectly capable keeping a straight face if I ot amused, even while those around me roar with laughter, an conversely) have been known to chuckle audibly if ) find something funny in a film, despite the fact that everybod y else is wrapped in serious silence possibly sleep. So Le rice has me on his side immediately when he begins to speak in favour the individual response. 'I have a thing about crowds: he says. 'I have a distaste for a lot people thinking the same thoughts. ) dislike the idea a large gathering where two three people stand on a raised platform an have access to microphones.' Something this feeling might be discerned in Lucky Pigs, which LeGrice made on th Co-op's printer by combining loop his opaque film (with the punched holes and another loop selected images which come go within the circles in multiple projections side by side. Genuine pigs appear, for example, grovelling around mindlessly. Humans are seen moving, equally mindlessly it would seem, on a dance floor Others are observed from outside the windows their dwellings, apparently cooped up so forth. What struck me, individually, was the hint that the pigs in their animal state were luckier perhaps than humans who had relinquished something their ow personal identities by conforming to th group experience in the dance hall the crowded apartment building. LeGrice said nd the humdrum life style this was interesting: example, to his mind, th transformation experience an th wayan observer 'creates a meaning'. Being occupied so much with the abs tra ct, he is not dogmatic about the cerebral interpret ation his work 'When) called it Lucky Pigs.) was aware a possible inte rpret ation a trite semantic reference the present symbolic connotation pigs with th police. th automatic level, operate on 'Our peripheral nervous systems, different plane from associative functions. We impose awareness on upon the other. So this makes the abstract elements useable, in a flexible way, within the semantic structure. In Castle TIro ha threatening images hovercraft, for example which were photographed in the daytime were therefore light, while the sensuo us images were dark. There was no reason wh this should be so. But it is possible to create associations.' th other hand, Your Lips. despite its title, is wholly abstract: a series oval graphics, constantly widening growing more complex as a loop superimposes upon itself in what LeGrice defines as a means exploring time-perception. Thi s on e was made by computer, programmed by Le rice at the Atlas Computer laboratory in Chilton. Berkshire. This produces a
magnetic computer tape which is into a small computer linked to a cathode ray tube, ov er which is placed a 16mm camera. he tape controls the output on to the tube, an the progression the film in the camera untouched by hand.' Aspects these film combi ned i Reign the Vampire: "made from six loops in pairs, by printing two loops together rather than in two runs following each other. effect is largely to eliminate the transparent aspect superimposition. on-going under-consciousness which is a kind repeats, an does ot resolve into any semantic consequence. On the factors the use the loop, which interests me particularly, is the way the viewer's awareness undergoes a gradual transformation from the semanticassociative th abstract-formal, even though th information undergoes only limited change.' An influence upon these ideas was LeG rice's first viewing Eisenstein's Strike. "I was interested in my own reaction to the sequence where hoses are then, turned on to hold people back. This is established in a narrative way ironically, the beautiful abstract imagery the water, going in all directions like fountains, gets you twisted between fact (or semantics) an an appreciation th abstract elements.' This is no uncommon reaction to almost ny Eisenstein film. His use the medium can be studied with the acting, detachment from the narrative significance because so much especially as far back as 1924 when Strike was made, is too theatrical for its realist purpose. While he chose good an credible faces, their contortions in the close-ups are more akin to the stage than to the intimacy cinema. Th emotive value resides very much in composition his famousjuxtapositions in the cutting room. One can understand that the impact Strike might well have seemed very realistic when it was new. Today it is still useful as formative technique, but more readily admired for its abstract qualities than For its illusions actuality. A resistance to cinema as abstract conditioning part anxious urge to comp rehen d a meaning. In Berlin Horse, LeG rice has arrive a mirror-like imagery in dual projections a horse moving an weaving within the frame in both negative positive prints which are eventually heightened by the use title is utilitarian: the horse was colour filters. the well-known city, but a village the same photographed in Berlin original shooting in 8mm. was refilmed in name which is near Hamburg. 16mm, nd the outcome leaves LeGrice himself "uncertain about what it implies, also about its decorative qualities'. This element selfquestioning is indigenous to his work, leading on to the further questions that each spectator must ask himself. Undoubtedly the tired submissive mind. long accustomed to being told a story with a beginning a middle and an end, even compliant the didactic schools film-study which tend at times to instruct the individual so rigorously as tell him what he is supposed to think, will be perplexed by the freedom interpretatio n tha t LeG rice permits. This is exploratory work, for the film-maker himself nd for the spectator as well.
Malcolm
LeG rice
Jonas Mekas Malcolm LeG rice's 'White Field Duration' (20 minutes) is on th state here clearly that I find important works I saw i London. I have also Malcolm LeG rice by far the most important film artist working today in England, maybe even in Europe . His work is serious, inspired nd inspiring, original, very very beautiful. His wor k is formal direct deals with the basic capabilities cinema. Almost all it is in the multiple projection area nd I think he's the most important artist wh has worked with multiple projections yet. This particular piece is two-'screen' projection. he first five minutes the screens ar practically clear white. During the next five minutes w begin to see tiny, unimposing scratches moving across the screens. scratches obviously were placed there, bu they also could be taken for dust by some. the next five minutes so both screens flicker lightly softly an there are images ('screens') different grey (white) intensities within the larger images or screens). During the last five minutes so slight traces some representational imagery begin to be barely visible on both screens, an then the screens blank again. is a very pure, a very classical piece. Since LeG rice is major artist working in the film medium today an since his work is not known in New York, I'll give space to LeG rice himself to speak his ideas: about some 'AII my work as a film-maker, except for one two films, has involved which has been double non-standard projection facilities, the simplest projection, 16mm, side-by-side. This inconvenience method intention has meant that most my work is ot easily distribute screened, nd I have had to present almost all the shows my work, travelling with it nd organizing the machinery. There is in this probably some partially conscious motive, the films deter mining that must be present their screening. I have become increasingly concerned with the act uality the projection situation (the only tangible point existential reality for the audience), making it the PRIMARY basis experience an meaning. has occurred me that it is useful distinguish between epistemological, an a phenomenological approach to film (though both concepts must be understood as linguistic contrivances with strictly limited application to EXPERIENCE, far more complex than is available to the convenience verbal categorization). Epistemological concern leads to the use models/concepts derived from
linguistics, th attempt to isolate codes their elements (Metz). Th problem with this approach is that it relies on (or encourages, in spite some disclaimers by Metz) the acceptance the historic cinematic culture as its basis for analysis. he rejection almo st all aspects the prevalent cinematic culture by myself most th current avant-garde, post-underground film-makers, has made the phenomen ological alternative more attractive. In a sense, the re-invention cinema from SCRATCH at least from celluloid, projector lamp, light, screen, duration, shadow, emulsion, and scratch. Th two alternatives are in fact exclusive: there can be an epistemological approach to the modulations from the phenomenological base however, I am not interested in an academic "understanding", which view as a subtle means for the destruction experience nd consideration. only interested in th PROCESS action-on (making) the PROCESS active experience in relationship-to (viewing). Both are ongoing in effect a work undergoing constant constant flux, the meaning modification (and constantly modifying), in its passage through the world. The notion "fixity meaning" for a work, somehow held within it as an essence, is an illusion enco uraged by cultural habits passive awareness. interested in transformation, the modes qualities thereof. and in creation the bringing about unpredictable events which existed nowhere before their realization." The Vii/age Voice,
27
September
1973
Malcolm LeGrice, on whose work I wrote extensively in my report from presented his work London last September, was in New York Millennium April 20 21 LeG rice s work in cinema ranges from 'str aight' one-screen one-projector films to multiple screen projections which he calls 'durations' and which he projects for specific time lengths, multiple screen projections which he calls 'installations' an which he projects for unlimited time lengths, usually in gallery situations, conceptio nal live par ticipation pieces to structural Whatever the form, all his work seems focus the self-referential aspects cinema, on the tools, the materials, the processes cinema. This, course, was explored in this country extensively from 1960 to 1965. But LeGrice looks it all from the formal. post-structural perspective. Take, for instance, the projector. On the earliest instances where the projector was brought into action I still remember it vividly. was Ray Wisniewski's performan ce with the hand-held projectors the old Cinematheq ue. He used the projectors the wayan action painter might use his brushes. LeGrice uses them very formally very intellectually in order gain different image and screen structures during the projection. He uses screens the same way. If George Landow could be credited for exploring the 'thingness' ofthe film strip
itself. so LeGrice is using the properties the screen an the properties th projector more intensively more dynamically than anyone else I know Harry Smith. LeGrice, with, course, the obvious nd unique exception like Harry Smith in his early projections, uses the single, regular shape screen image only as the beginning point, the beginning norm. From there on he builds and weaves with multiple screen stru ctures which contract expand to all four sides; they overlap, they work together to produce usually colour f d - images no betray any Even when LeGrice uses images taken from life, his films memory, and employ a minimum illusion. It's all structure, all very abstract. all centering the process making the images that we see, on the tools, materials, the components. ut it is an abstract cinema, no doubt makes for a very sensual experience. the sense that is sensual experience light an materials that are very sensuous least they are so to me instance, I find few sounds that I've heard in my life to contain more sensuous sonority than th sound the six 16mm projectors running simultaneously, loaded with loops. I listened the sound, it was like the ocean, and it was like rain splashing the roof, it was like wind in leaves, an it was like six project ors ru nning with six loops. The sound was deep, rich, full. very pleasant, very sensuous, very good for the mind for the body. Anyway, LeGrice came went, I hope he'll be back again, because his work deals with important aesthetic issues, deals vitally with film language, and should be widely seen. th other hand, the only way to really see an experience his work is to see Malcolm LeGrice himself, doing it all. That makes him less packageable than film artists who ca simply ship their films to no much less so than, say, the work u Jasper Johns (to whom LeGrice pays tribute as ne his early inspirations), whose work must be first assembled in order to be presented in a one-m an show thus ca only be in one place any given time, in tw places. There ar other film artists whose work ca be really seen experienced only with the artist present, and thus are neither packageable exportable. I have in mind artists like Jack Smith Jerry Jo/Ten The Vii/age Voice,
Ma
1974
MICHAEL SNOW
Ten Questions to Michael Sno Simon Hartog He wants to make
film that ha
explanation .
Why Wavelength? Critical moment in my life and/or art. Light sound waves. Limits pun on th room length zoom hear see time monument'. th photo waves (sea), through the light waves on the sound waves. Electricity. Ontology definitive statement pure f lm space and time .' my nervous system, religious inklings aesthetic ideas 'A summation Th quotes from pre-prize piece written for the NY Co-op catalogue. 1.
Why is it 46 minutes long? Nice fuck. Could have been longer, couldn't be shorter. Money! Much shorter the movement would have been fast. Much longer was too expensive. 2.
3. What is it about? is about question one. Yes. Question one. Also question two, four, five, six seven. question three perhaps most. 4. Why does life enter the film Life is in the film ne the subjects the film perhaps more accurately what the film is is different orders, classes events nd 'balancing' protagonists. Th image the yellow chair has as much 'value' in its own world as the girl closing the window. In life(?)thefilm events are ot hierarchical scale mobility that runs from pure light events, the ut there is a kind human beings. The inert: the various perception the room , to the image bookcase that gets carried in, the corpse, visually, dying being a passage from activity object. Inertia. It is precise that 'events take place' 5. Aren't the beginning and the end arbitrary They are the beginning an th en the film. And in between? Wher you start? you decide to make a film all that narrows do wn your choice
considerably. course it could have been shot somewhere else. From th beginning the end is a factor. In the context the film the end is 'arbitrary'; it is fated. An past the en it should have ripples. Th wave photograph; waves are the visible registrar invisible forces. Because it is (a first) seen as flat (on the wall) it makes a total spatial ending for the film th same time as an image it implies continuity 6. Wha t determined your choice the different textures? I presume you mean the colour an light-value changes. They were given their tendency by the arranging the different kind film stock which was done before shooting. Basically I played/improvised with plastics filters while shooting, bearing in mind many considerations, such as their relationship th human images, their 'abstractness', though their passages complementaries as a general form they go from warm colours cool. Spectrum. Oppositions are drama. didn't always make a 'choice'. I was surprised wanted to be. However I set up a system container which could both shape the fortuito us nd give it a place. I wouldn't make works art if I knew, etc. 7. How does the sound track function? Like the image, the sound starts as 'representational', 'realistic', when the image becomes 'abstract' (negative sequence) that is, ne does 'believe' in the image in the 'real ' way, the sound also becomes 'abstract'. These terms are reversible. The sine-wave glissando is 'realer' than the other. does no have the 'feeling' being in som other place (dream-d rug aspect oftilm). is 'concrete' while, for example, Strawberry Fields the radio, in the film is already a quote a quote a quote, etc. This glissando is all the sound we ca hear. What else is there? It' meant to be an ear equivalent the zoom. I think all the sounds as music an compose in that way. The sound glass breaking, etc. against the sine-wave before the-man-who-dies enters is very beautiful me. 8. How did you get there? Have been working on it for all
my lives.
9. Where do you go after? I'm going to Edinburgh on Tuesday. What would you say to the spectator who, after a few minutes, wants to walk out? I might be interested in his her reasons. might be interesting discuss them. It might lead to friendship sexual intercourse both. I would hope that he she would disturb the others, some whom presumably might wish to stay. 10.
Cinim No.3, Spring 1969
Toward Snow Annette Michelson
The working his thought is thus concerned with that SIOlI' transformation the notion space II'hich. beginning as a l'aCUllm chamher, as an isotropic I'olume, gradllally became a system inseparable from the matter it contains nd from lime. - P a u l Valery, Introduction to the Leonardo da Vinc Method M)' eye, tuning tOlrards the imaginary, will go to any lI'm'elengths for il.\" sights. - S t a n Brakhage, Melaphors 011 Visioll metaphor recurrent in contemporary discourse on th nature consciousness: that cinema. nd there re cinematic wor ks which present There is
themselves as analogues consciousness in its constitutive reflexive modes, as though inquiry into th nature and processes experience ha found in this century's form, a striking, a uniquely direct presentational mode. illusionism the new, temporal reflects nd occasions reflection upon, th conditions knowledge; it facilitates a critical focus experience in the flow time. Thus Aron Gurwitsch. upon the immediacy this inquiry: 'Hume expressly likens consciousness to a on the origins theatre, bu it is, so speak, a theatre without a stage. In modern terminology kinematoon could compare consciousness with a perpetual succession graphic pictures a unidimensional sphere being, whose fundamental exclusively Gerard Granel. structure consists only temporality.' discussing its modern developments: 'Phenomenology is attempt to film. in slow motion, that which has been, owing to th manner in which it is seen in natural speed, not absolutely unseen, ut missed, subject to oversight. It calmly, draw closer to that original intensity which is attempts, slowly processes do. no given in appearance, but from which things nevertheless, in turn proceed.'2 Epistemological inquiry nd cinematic experience converge, as it were, in reciprocal mimesis. film. a very few artists whose work. in its radical There are, in the history purity nd incisiveness, strikes on as paradigmatic in this respect. Among
them is Michael Snow, whose Wavelength, some four years old, is now a celebrated film, a tu rni ng point fo many in the history the medium as in th maker's own development. was once described in this review by Manny Farber, distinguished for the accuracy his insights, the vigour his style an the firmness his allegiance to th tradition American action film, as 'a pure, tough forty-five minutes that ma become The Birth a Nation in Underground films straightforward document room in which a dozen businesses have lived gone bankrupt. indeed, the film does seem to be, among other things, just that say 'that' observation is strikes on e as 'just' accurate conveying, however, insight which, in some fifteen successive viewings an consider able reflectio the film, ha never at ny time occurred me. I will wish examine briefl and to account that remark . But here for both the accuracy the surpris begin with, his film, prepared for the 1967 International is Snow's description Experimental Film Festival Knokke -Ie-Zo ute in which i took first prize. notes, on week Dec. '6 6 preceded by a year WGI'elength was shot shots, mutterings. was edited first print seen in '67. I wanted my nervous system, religious inklings nd to make a summation esthetic ideas. I was thinkin g of, planning for, a time monument in which the beauty an sadness equivalence would be celebrated, thin king trying to make a definitive statement pure film space nd time, a balancing 'illusion' nd 'fact ', al about seeing. Th space starts th camera's (spectator's) eye, is in the air, then is on the screen, then is within the screen (the mind). he film continuous zoom which takes 45 minutes to go from its widest fiel its smallest final field. was shot with a fixed camera from on en 80 foot loft, shooting th other end, a row windows an the street. This, the setting the action which takes place there ar cosmically equivalent. The room (and th zoom) are interrupted by 4 human events including a death. The sound on these occasions is sync sound, music an speech, occurring simultaneously with electronic sound, a sine wave, which goes from its lowest (50 cycles per second) note to its highest (12000 c.p.s.) in 40 minutes. is total glissando an a dispersed spectrum which attempts to utilize the gifts music have to both prophecy an memory which only film offer. Among details one would want to to that description would be the quality the 'human events', their somewha t scattered, random aspect. The take place abruptly, ar discrete with respect to one another, are played in a range which runs from the strongly distanced an flat to the conventionally
mimetic, linked in some suggestion causality by only a few lines dialogue. Secondly, there the occurrence, through the film, colour flashes in a range extraordinary intensity, the field from positive to sudden changes negative, superimposition fixed images over the progressive zoom , itself
by no means absolutely steady, proceeding in a slight visible stammer. The superimpositions visual obbligato, as does stammer function as a sort the evidence splice marks, the use varying film stocks, creating within the movement forward, a succession fixed still moments. Then there is th precise nature the visual field in focus: it is, as have said, the far end loft, opening through windows onto a street whose signs, sounds, traffic and traffic lights are perceptible to us beyond the tall, rectangular windows which are each in turn composed eight small rectangular panes. Th perception wall, window, street will be modified in clarity by colour, by superimposition, as the crescendo the sine wave will modify perception the sound within beyond the loft Th camera's movement is, course, beginning to slowly reduce re-define the visual field, as we ever so slowly move closer to the wall, begin to perceive rather e tw things: first, the presence some other, rectangular objects on the central panel the wall (they are as yet only per ceptible as small rectangular surfaces) then, as well (though the temporal threshold this perception will vary with the viewer), the destination the camera. rather, sense the fact that it has a destination, that its movement will terminate inexorably in focussing upon a particular area no yet known us. Th camera, in th movement its zoom, installs within the viewer a threshold tension, expectation; withi on the feeling forms that this area will be coincident with a given section the wall, with a pane the window, perhaps - in fact, most probably with on the rect angular surfaces pun ctuatin g the wall's central panel an which seems this distance to bear images, as yet undecipherable. No the effec these perceptions is to present the movement forward as a flow which bears in its wake, contains, discrete events: their discreteness articulates an allusion the separat e frame which persistence vision organizes cinematic illusion. Above all, however, they create, through the slow focussing in time, through relentless directionality, that regard for the future which forms an horizon expectation. We are proceeding from uncertainty to certainty, as field, arousing an then camera narrows resolving tension puzzlement as its ultimate destination, describing, in the splendid purity its one, slow movement, the noti on th 'horizon' characteristic every subjective process fundamental as a trait intentionality. That steady movement forward, with its superimposition, its events passing into the fi ld from behind the camera nd back again beyond it figures the view that every perception there always belongs a horizon the past, as a potentiality recollections that an be awakened; to every continuous intervening recollection there belongs horizon, intentionality possible recollections (to be actualized my initiative, actively), up to the actual No perception'. as the camera continues to move steadily forward, building a tension that grows in direct ratio th reduction the field, recognize, with some surprise, those horizons as defining the contours narrative, that narrative form animated by distended temporality, turning upon cognition, towards revelation. Waiting
for an issue, we are 'suspended' towards resolution. And it is as if by emptying the space his film (dramatically, through extreme distancing, visually by presenting it as mere volume, the 'scene' pure movement in time), Snow has re-defined filmic space as that action. The eye investigates the length th loft, moves towards that conclusion which is a fixed point; in its movement toward that point, alternative conclusions false 'clues' have been eliminated, as street signs movement an certain objects pass from view. The camera reaches the object its trajectory. That object is indeed another surface, a photograph the sea. The vie is held, as the sound mounts to its highest intensity, splitting otT from itself, doubling, sliding up an down the range cycles as the photograph is re-projected in superimposition upon itself. The eye is projected through photograph beyond the wall an screen into a limitless space. The film is the projection a grand reducti on; its 'plot' is the tracing of spatio-temporal donnees. its 'action' the movement the camera as the movement consciousness. Th film a masterwork, a claim hardly to be seriously contested this point in film history, an though we have strayed some distance from Farber's observations, we are now in a position to consider them more clearl to see their very real interest. Indeed, for someone so deeply an exclusively committed to the film tight narrative structure, Wavelength could, above al other films from the American avant-garde, present something both new an familiar, welcome, in any case - one understands the continuity the zoom that spatio-temporal action to stand as a kind quintessential instance continuity subtending the narrative integrity those comedies, westerns, gangster films which formed the substance the Hollywood tradition, an Farber's delight the object lifelong critical attention. to put it another way: Snow's work came a time in the history the American avant-garde when the assertive editing, super-imposition, the insistenc on th presence of the film-maker behind the moving, hand-held instrument, the resulting disjunctive, gestural facture had conduced to destroy that spatiotemporal continuity which had sustained na rrative convention. The entire tradition the independently made film, from Dere Anger through Brakhage, had been developed as extension, in American terms, an avant-gardist position the twenties in Europe , distending the continuity, negating the tension narrative. Grounded in the experience Surrealism Expressionism, its will to destroy narrative was an attempt to situate perpetual Present, one image sequence succeeding another film in a kind single-frame in rapid disjunction, tending, ultimately in the furious pace construction, to devour eliminate expectation as a dimension cinematic experience. The disjunctiveness that perpetual No can be seen, its most intense, in both the work the theoretical writings Stan Brakhage. As film-maker and theoretician, Brakhage is concerned with the primacy kind quintessential vision, innocent, unco rrupted by the conventions perspective inherited from the Renaissance an built int o the very lens the camera. With that Platonically inflected terminology characteristic the Expressionist sensibility, this vision is described in the writings as truer, finer,
higher, in that it is the direct visible projection inner 'inward sight'; it is. in fact, presented as a 'closed eye' vision, the inner vision projected through the eye. Reading Brakhage, especially when watching the films. one recognizes the images in question as tending towards both the intimacy nd elusiveness those we know as 'hypnagogic', those experienced in the halfwaking state. Like the hypnagogic image, the Brakhage image, 'truer than nature'. does seem situated inside the eye. aspires present itself perceptually, all at once, to resist observation cognition. Alain, in the Sys/{!me des Beaux-Arts. defines anyone entertaining an hypnagogic image th Pantheon to count th number columns the facade in the image. the hypnagogic is immediate. appears all at once. once, does no fade into appearance view; it is no disappears all subject to the laws perception those perspective for instance. ha th property exciting attention perception. 'I see somethi ng but what I see is nothing.'5 Such indeed is the state toward which the style. the rhythm, the cutting nd lighting Brakhage's films tended. In the great works his maturity. in the Songs. The of' Vision. Anticipation the Night. Fire or Waters. among others. there is time, room, as it were, for expectation; the spatial fractured by spasm odic movement. by painting upon donnees ar obscured film. by speed; continuity is rhythmic. postulated on the metaphoric syntheses elicited in the viewer by cutting from one image to the next. Wavelength. then. in a very special sense was 'eye-opener'. as distinguished from both the hypnagogic vision Brakhage an the stare Warhol. Snow. in reintroducing expectation as the core offilm form. redefines space as being what Klee. in fact, ha claimed it was: essentially temporal notion'. Voiding the film or the metaphoric proclivity montage. Snow created a grand metaphor/or consequences re still inc alculable; Sn ow's example an narrative form. influence. intensified through subsequent work, in film as in other media. acknowledged unacknowledged, re among the strongest factors in a th most extraordinary interest. Together with the film current situation Frampton, Jacobs, Gehr, Wieland, Landow. and largely influential upon them. Snow's work defined a new leve cinematic endeav our. opened a ne cinematic style. This. I believe. explains the manner ra in the evolution in which it could unite. in attention fascination, critical opinio a great norma lly divergent. Sno w. in restoring the space many kinds 'action' relentless investigation the modes filmic through a sustained, firm presentation, created a paradigm, transcended the a priori distinctions between the 'linear' the 'vertical', the 'prose' 'poetic' forms. the 'realist' 'horizontal', the styles 'mythopoeic', the 'vertical' continuity montage which animated the film theory nd polemics the past forty years so. The paradox which turns upon the creation grand metaphor from the elimination th metaphoric function montage is by no means unique in Snow's work. might say that all the films th mature period are perceptual paradox. One Second in Montreal is animated by a cen tral visua
a cinematic construction which plays upon the seriality film images. A succession still photographs, representing park sites for a projected monument in the city Montr eal under winter snow, is the film. Each unit is held progressively longer as we approach the centre, the pace speeds up again as the film comes to its end, forcing upon the spect ator the consciousness ut unmeasurable, expanding an contracting in time as duration the act attention to detail, the acceleration producing a curious effect structural contraction. But the central paradox involves the presentation still photographs film the still more curious impression that, despite the fixity and discreteness each image, are involved in a filmic experience, rather than a slide projection. Classical experiments in cinematic perception photograph instruct us that the projection a place object an that the place object as filmed produce the same visual effect. Th flow time is somehow inscribed in the filmic image, immediately given, perceptible in experience it. That inscription remained to be articulated. Snow seizes upon it, projecting the photographic still cinematically, so that th flow time is superimposed, inscribed upon the projection th photograph's fixity - as the discrete images the loft had been superimposed upon its traversal by the zoom. In he isolates the panning movement th camera in acceleration that movement carves a kind sculptural segmen its projected space (that a classroom, as against a loft), producing the impression a flatness and pure directionality which negate its visual depth nd and incident. he film, proceeding, as In MO/ltreal. through temporal acceleration, does, as it speeds up, convert a haptically defined space into an optical one, returning, in ritardando, from the projection a space flattened by that speed into a plane parallel to the screen's surface, back to the projection room space. Th film holds in balance those two degrees visual illusion. As in Wavelength, th human events (a class in session, a sweeping, a co peering through a window, men sparring wit one another) are, so to speak, contai ned, as discrete units withi the rhythmic structu re the film, variance with it, and though these events (the passing a ball back forth, the sweeping, etc., the appear anc the title sign upon the blackboard) echo the panning movement the camera, they punctuate rather than structure the action the film. In general, the effect is on succumbing the grip th moment; compelled follow it, point within the field. we are unable to focus, to settle upon a given object The effect. then, is rhythmic compulsion an relaxation. he notion limitation is transposed from the gradual reduction the size field th gradual imposition insistent directionality, intensified by the metronomic click which seems sometimes lead, sometimes accompany, the action. In these three filmic works, the artist has seized upon a strategy proper to the medium carried to ultimate consequences, exploring its resonances, part re-inforcing it with parallel strategies, insisting the isomorphism and whole. These strategies, the persistence a certain speculative quality in Snow's art, a preoccu pation with the manner which a statement . - - - - - - - .
generates counterstatement, variation an extension can be seen as constant in his evolution as film-maker as painter, sculptor Aron Gurwitsch,
th
Intentionality
0/ Edmul/d Husserl and its Interpretatiol/.
p.
ConscioUSl/c.u." in Phcl/olI/cllology: The Philosophy 125.
'Gerard Granel, Le Sens dutemps et de 10 perceptioll che: Husserl. (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1968), p. 108. Th translation is my own. this in increasingly frequent other instances Peter Koestenbaum's Introductory Essay metaphor, I refer the reader to pages XXI and XXII on Husserl's Paris Lectures, translated by Koestenbaum an published in 1967 by Martinus Nijholf, Th Hague. he view sustaining these observations also adumbrated in an essay my own, Bodies in Space: Film as Carnal Knowledge, (Art/orum, February 1969), written, however. before the presen t essay ha presented the·occasion for this sort anthologizing. Th earliest text to me, bearing upon these considerations Musterberg's The Film: A Psydrological reissued in 1970 by Dover Publications, Inc. is an early originally published in 1916 an phenomenological analysis the cin ematic experience an remarkable attempt at
3Reprinted in Negative Space: Manny Farher on the 1971), p. 250.
(New
York: Praeger Publishers,
"Edmund Husser!, Cartesian Meditations (The Hague: Martinus Nijholf, 1960), p. 44.
the discussion the hypnagogic image, I have relied heavily on Jean-Paul Sartre's L'lmaginaire (Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1948), pp. 58-76. E1ltract from an article in Art/arum, June 1971
Back and Forth Peter Gidal
a film sheer physical streng th, the streng th process bending space into his (her) vision. A relativistic film wherein the act th film-makers's mind/body is th primary motion in space an time. This act, for Mike Snow, is the utilisation the machine/mechanism (camera lens) to concentrate on and effect change within a specifically narrowly delimited reality (a classroom). he film is 'about' camera swivelling back forth from one end the horizontal th other (i.e. left to right, right to left, left to right, etc.). (Then up and down, down and up, etc.) The concentration, within this defined space, on one singular movement/rhythm hypnotically defines the arena for physical nd mental action. This arena becomes activated through the film-maker's consequent consistency, the recurring movement, over an over again, unti that movem ent (by virtue the repetition) becomes the subject the film. should be mentioned, though, that the repetition is over in the labs) no a mechanistic ne (i.e. loop structure reprinted over bu rather a non-mechanistic ne (i.e. the film consists re-takes, each back and-forth, cluster back-and-forth actions, re-shot by the film-maker).· course is that there Thus we are dealing with actual repetition. The paradox such thing, since time, for one, moves forward in a linear fashion nd is thus n o exact replication a previous vision action is possible. th constant back-and-forth movement is the subjectTh specific actio the film. But more than this, the quickening back-and-forth motion matter forces the three-dimensional classroom into a flat space sheer visible movement. (The room is rectangular, we see a corner an two adjacent walls, partially.) he quickening pace th camera's pans forces, coerces, th depth-perspective physically into a flat space, flattening walls, windows, lights, chairs, desks, peo ple, into the frantic flat blur, with only the back-andforth movement per.l'e still intact. Perspective is wiped out, literally, in front eyes, the universe (the specifically cho sen reality here being the room) becomes dominated by the relativistic actions. We become aware relativity perceptual cognition. theory relativity (the Einstein through the act asking when this tra in sto ps in Zuric h, we must joke explanation: 'Instead ask, when does Zuric stop this train?') becomes the basis this film in all its intensity. this intensity is made up the incredibly complex notion simple structur this act change. We feel the pressure unbending space Back alld
Forth
is
Space
flattened out. is also compressed. Th space between one point another (either extremities th pan) is short ened (physically!) throu gh the speed the pans. area space becomes real, as felt weight (space distance between objects, i.e. walls; consisting nothing. mainly). that weight becomes shorten ed as the pans become faster, so An the length that again the film-maker's actions force reality as 'given' into a malleable, betray it as such. strength this act is all the domina table entity, more powerful in that we are dealing with an almost empty arena action. So the film deals (literally figuratively) with nothingness, nd the weight thereof. the reshaping thereof. concept these processes is thus primary, rather than ny possibly metaphoric content shape Irithin. We re forced, through the quickening pans, to actively work mentally to recapture the specifics the defined space as we originally saw it: the process the disintegration form is paralleled by the viewer's mental process reforming reality (and dealing with the newly formed for its perceptual;visual concreteness). the new vision created by the film-maker becomes fact relativism is ours. Th choice being an equally real, concrete 'reality'. ours, we work with the two realities an decipher both them, analyse them, the connections between the 'two', although this both terminology is simplistic in that the eventual speeding up the pans left to right/right to left doe make such a distinct demarcation line between 'one reality' and 'another'. individualist, existentialist (even romantic) vision combines with the communis tic Mar xist-Lenini st analytically-materialist one, forcing the worl into conceptions needs (though consciousness is produced by the world's material relations, vice versa), no accepting a fait accompli reactionary nature, accepting the status as 'real', not adapting, sublimating rationalising. This becomes even m ore apparent at that point in Back nd Forth when we lose momentary control the feeling that the forth a mindobject-bending pace. At this camera is speeding back point, the relativity the vision becomes ultimate: the room itself seems to be racing back forth in front eyes. But this is no traditional. mystificatory illusionism (and course there is also narrative, no vicarious identification, none the conventional manipulations cinema which make it so perfect for indoctrinated passive audiences). he illusionism in Back and exposed illusionism: we re totally aware the relativism forced Forth is senses through the specifically clearly defined (film-maker's) actions upon with the camera. We are aware the process this relativism. An the this vision, rather than ny specific subject content, is the Film process itself. the film is also clear and apparent in that the Th anti-illusionism mentioned 're-takes' th pans clusters pans are spliced to gether with ohvious splices. This means that each time the camera has been stopped nd restarted, each time the editing (after the shoo ting, not in the camera) has been effected, we see the splice mark (a white flicker the screen caused by the light penetrating t h e ! a frame where the splice is). Which means that is
instead B rolling the film for a perfect fit, Snow has decided to make clear all manip ulation only in the stage shooting-process ut also in the editing-process stage (re)construction. Th structure the film, both as representation an as actuality materiaL is de-mystified. (It would ot be too far-reaching to attribute a Marxist-materialist ethi these matters.) Interjected in the film ar e various human actions. Snow has a liking for this; it is what puts most people olT, in Wavelength too, because it detract s from the seeming purity the statement. But what on must realise is that these actions, for all their camp y obviousness (throwing a baseball back forth in a classroom, writing on the bl ackboard, having a mock-fight, etc.), for all their glib statements as metaphors about 'acting', about 'reality', about 'movies', ar used for precisely that: they manage force the viewer to get rid these notions, to stop dealing in verbal terms with concepts ahout reality. The actions are interjected early in the film, alm ost as if Snow is saying, 'O.K., we pu in all that stulT, all the ideas, all the notions, all the intellectualised bullshit, all the gimmicks, even make it funny, but let's get on with the real film now.' They are also a dilTerent set signifieds for eac 'back forth'. An then the f lm really gets into its own, becomes its own total experiential reality. actors is that I think he is trying to Another notion concernin g Snow's use put people in, in all their obvious self-awareness, so that he can dispense with the 'human', and get into the inanimate which takes no equal (as in Warhol) greater importance. Films are, among other things, the dialectic between human object, but the human element importance is behind the camera behind the cameraman (i.e. audience), while the real subject (if one can use traditional narrativ e descriptions like 'subject') is space time. And space time und er the duress the film-maker. People have no place, ultimately, in front the camera, except as baroque appendages. This is no only true for Snow's work, is also Snow' s obvious critica attitude towards film as such. this level Back and Fort works as film criticism. interpreting the film-maker's statement (whether is no more a matter that interpretation is crystal clear takes 8 hours is ultimately irrelevant). is much more a matter trying to understand merely the film-maker's terms reference, and then dealing with the process that (film) experience on a dialectic level as active viewer within the context film viewing, which is obviously always basically a structured, manipulated experience. On can't deny that, ut one can overcome it in process-oriented films (rather than model-oriented ones) which deal with awarenes manipulation rather than using the manipulation as a basic authoritarian experiential form, as th commercial cinema does, as does all traditional fo that matter. Back and Forth changes its rigidly film-frame-defining motion about twothirds the way through the film, from left right/right left to up down/down their fastest pace. We thus are immediately up tilts. And they start inundated with visual blurs the material for perceptual analysis. We 'know' the 'blur s' as such due to the previous process the horizontal back forth attempt movements. We are forced decipher the contents the visual stimulation, mentally un flatten the space to fit it into (tradit!onal)
notions spatial reality, while the same time time responding respond ing to the actuality of the situation as presented (i.e. flat space images almost totally abstracted through movement in time such speed that articulation specific images is impossible, and unnecessary). So two processes are working within us; we ar consistently relativistically, dialectically dealing an trying to deal with the reality as we see it nd the reality that we know it has been taken from (the 'original' vision). If one wants to call the f lm Marxist M arxist one accurately accurate ly can, although course such a defensive position shouldn't be necessary. (The coda superimposed scene scene repetitions, which which ap pears pear s aft er the film-cr film-credi edits, ts, is rococo rubbish, merits no further thought.) What I have no yet discussed is Snow's position as to narrative. Although his films are non-narrative films, they nevertheless employ expectancymanipulation. Snow's interest interest in climactic struct ure (i WQI'('/ength, towards the picture on the wall the far-end the zoom-shot; in Back an Forth towards a higher higher speed in the first section) betrays this partiality towards one aspect the conventional. narrative cinema: expecta expectancy ncy.. And Back and Forth the hypnotic element a film such as Wal'elength encourages this this 'involvement' on the audience's part. that sense, one loses oneself in the traditional way one does in the narrative cinema. One is Forth manipulated towards a finality, towards 'resolution'. But Back works ou this this prob lem alo ng satisfactory line line in tha t the up/down up /down tilts tilts begi begi at their fastest speed, two-thirds through th film. Thus, rather than a climax a denoue den ouemen ment, t, we have a curve which lets 'down' as slowly slowly as it built 'up' 'u p' This hints less a goal-oriented linear orientation than a system wherein pace per se exposes re-defines (and refines) perception in time and space. The compression space the flattening space is paralleled by the cumulative addition moment-upon-moment speed-increase followed by speed-decr speed-decrease; ease; the e ndura nce created is related directly to speed (all within actual physic physical al duratio n). The wholeness wholeness the experience is thus made up accumulations speeds their suhsequent suhtractions suhtractio ns (i.e (i.e.. the pace reta rds more and more towards the end the film). The 'end' the th e fil is literally literally the came ra(ma n)'s n)' s coming an almost-standstill. The 'end' shot has no wider wider more close a vision vision tha the 'first' shot, unlike Wavelength where, at the end, we have reached the photograph the waves on the wall seep into their re-presented infinity. he final 'shot' Back an Forth is final only inasmuch as is more still still than th an its predecessor. Its scope the same sa me as the t he film's film's first first shot; there has been no progression. (I should add that am discounting the film's actual first shot the outside the room, whic is too descriptive contentuall conten tually y biased biased to be value in terms the film Back nd Forth. which thus, for me, comprises 'shot one' an the beginning everything hetll'een the end the 'coda' (after the end credits!) wherein segments the whole film are superimposed for several minutes, to no avail.) Shortly after writing this piece I sent it to Snow, who replied at length. (See below.) He objected mainly to my harsh words about the coda. Those words
were not a personal attack; rather they were a powerful (yet rather unnecessary) reaction to a great weakness a great film. Snow sees the coda as 'recollections', 'reminiscence'. 'Superimpositions are dreamy. (The coda) has some beauties its its own own visuall visually, y, too .' I'm quite happy hap py to admit admi t that th at I am not intereste interested d in Snow's work for the 'b eauty'. eaut y'. Snow mentions oth er aspects aspects his concepts (pre and post). I'd rather not discuss them as such, for the intentions the film-maker not necessarily (or ordinarily) fit the finished work. His disagreement with concept 'nothingness' (he sees it as the opposite side side 'somethingness') is just on many. Though this is not definitely ascertainable. Wal'f!ienglh. the constructiveness
expectancy is presented. National Film Theatre Programme Notes, December 1971 (slightly revised)
Letter from Michael Snow to Peter Gidal on th film
Back Bac k a nd Fort Fort March 1972
Thanks for yr. letters an
the article on 4 which I found very interesting. In the light what the film is the violence violence your reaction to th 'coda' attests to a kind success for it say. Still its ill-mannered, snotty, total condemnation doesn't seem like 'criticism'. is action/reaction to put it another way: oscillation which implie impliess 'op posites '. educational film. is also a kind can't claim to be 'right' about it but as far as depiction goes I feel the relativity view is as 'correct' as the E Me one. In other words the depicted solid (mass) is transformed into energy (light) by velocity. But it isn't totally transformed even as depiction because it gets as far as it might, it, (disappointingly?) turns into its 'opposite', i.e. in reaction to 4 there is can't as you say seeing the film is a very physical experience. No understand why you didn't also say 'hearing' it because the sound, its qualities, relationship the image, elTect, re so important to the whole thing.) That is: the 'body' ofthe film is very physical physical bu it itself ha it reaction which is the unstructured 'mental' superimpositions the 'coda'. This is 'recollection" 'reminiscence'. Superimpositions are 'dreamy". Th 'coda' lacks 'body'and 'direction' especially by contrast to what wh at went before. Being forced use use my own mind as example a mind at work I didn't/wouldn't/don't remember the order things happen in the/a film in the order they happen. muses at first. Remembering them, unless there's a specific elTort (and even then it only goes so far), is a seemingly random 'coda' is selection. th other side the 'credits' which are course the th e film, film, i.e. i.e. also obviou sly pedagogical which might part also lead one to interpret the 'coda' as a 'review' what went before. ha some beauties its own visually, too. the screen the space th room is asymmetrical. move is from parallel the picture plane perspectival. Speeding up 'flattens' it, almost 'fuses' opposites. he total shape the th e fil is asymmetrical pivoting on the green board credits (the only hold, bu there one's eyes a r e . . - ing) thought your article was powerful bu there ar several points that I sa that the fil film m deals with ' not hin gne ss' seems peculiar. peculiar. don't understand:
I think it deals with 'som ething ness' with 'nothingness' as its (mental) shadow. people actions in 4 have some resemblance to those in Th Wavelength but mostly they have very different qualities an functions. They 'people' the space, they 'real' the space like in Wavelength ut there re so many other things to them, migawd! They embody, by what they do, what th film is, they partake what the film is. All my films are attempts to control the type quality belief in the 'realistic' image. example think about the beginning. First the 'outside' naturalistic shots. Gre en. Then th indoor sequence which isjust long enough (to me) become very 'abstract'. This 'abstractness' is broken in a (to me again) thrilling way when one first sees the person outside working on th windows. Thi kind thing happens in all the sequences with people. There's lotto them nd their function. ow they appear and disappear is beautiful think ). is percussion an Wal'elellgth is song an the people parts in each case have qualities proper to those 'idioms' naturally consists cons an so totally experiencing i pros attitude which ther e seems (to repeat, I thin k) calls for a kind be oo little of. I think is the way things are. Yes the 'Marxist' (humanism?) is balanced by a cosmic so what glad the fil matters to yo yo have an interesting advantage on me (one 'd like have had) in considering for the first time. it: I've never seen 4 - - - - - - .
Yours
Michael Snow
Notes on
La Region Centrale
Peter Gidal
These notes are tentative. They were made after an initial viewing. I. Description: A film, three hours long. The film begins with the camera scanning slowly moving upwards, over the mountain location in 'deserted' part Quebec. The film continues, in various ways, to take in the region. The apparatus for the film's making was constructed so that the camera could swive an turn, down an in around on its own axis. It could also zoom change aperture. Snow composed the camera movements an created overall plan for the fil . Pierre Abbeloos Montreal worked a system supplying the orders to the machine to move in various patterns by means sound tapes. 2. There is not a series static captured images but a progression segments made availahle to viewing through the (programmed) directionality camera movement, an the (programmed) parameters field vision (through determination the zoo m lens' position). T he series of.images made available read as disappearances; for a long section time (15 minutes?) the frame swoops quickly diagonally upwards to the right, thus forcing the image-flow into the lower left-hand corne the frame. 3. Throughout, camera movement seems be located by an design, thus at root by ::;::::-::::::: . The circumventure is permutated in size, shape, depth, zoom lens position, etc., so that only upon occasion is it illustrated by the camera's trajectory. image-flow, as that implies flow disparate 4. One can hardly speak images when what we re given is pure continuum, wherein darkness, lightness, tactility, flatness, pure space(?) (sky), filled space(?) (clouds, rocks, whatever), all function as non-ceasing existence. Inanimate. 'It' is there. But emphasis on there. attempts to integrate that into an illusionistic hereness. 5. At some point attained camera-movement-speed, the relativistic transference (as in Back and Forth) takes place. longer is the camera moving over the (designated) central region. The frame 'becomes' static. The flow is from without, thus more distanced than when the machine was seemingly doing physical work. Th illusion frame-stillness is constantly broken down reiterated through sheer knOll'iedge. This relativism matter amplifies the relativism that is inherent consciousness. such. How it 6. The fil is not a metaphor for consciousness. It is a form
secondary importance: th represented iIIusion, the content. it is. ("Content' in the tradition al term s wherein it is no understood that the whole, th formjstructure/method/etc., is the content.) he significations re ot psychological bu epistemological. film is mythical. he secondary Snow's importance: the represented. A huge arena, empty, de-peopled, daring works (those 'perfect' clouds, those 'beautifuIIy lit' rocks pebbles, Back an Forth, that 'tactile' brown earth). Again as in Wavelength the edge a glossiness, a largeness which could turn into picturesqueness method, through th idealism. does not. remains a film there, overaII persistence in time (duration: 3 hours), and through the persistence camera movement (n hierarchical determination, merely changes in focal length, speed, f/opening, readable as such). 'The speed information is in terms beats pulses going fro m slow to fast.' (M.S.) This is no the way the 'each direction having a film works. Perhaps the breakdown this is ue different frequency, it starts very high, ends low : (M.S.) A time-segment fiIIed, another faster, slower, wider angle, permutations speed field, a paring down, a high tone, faster beats, longer intervals, etc. Changes. there; yo don't direction. Central Region is into it through it. (A fact film: given constant speed, a wider-angle shot seems slower, a close-u faster. ) non-action second time the camera turns itself, films the plane 7. 'upside dOll'n', the relativism directionality t akes over in a forcefulness that is physical. Film is physical. action th film-maker upon the machine (camera) is here utilised t o its fuIIest And that without the film-maker actuaIIy being in touch with the machine throughout the filming. complex alienation from the machine, inasmuch as the film reads as a series inscriptions onto manipulation acetate (film) forced by th film-maker's physical presence the machine (device). Snow here retains control nd separates himself from the moment-to-moment-film-shooting-mechanism. 'Control' is not dominance, ut structure. Central Region was programmed into tape (the soundtrack). 'result' is in way synchronous to its programmed was it planned to be. Snow is not an empiricist. I state th 'intention'. hours obvious. Snow looked through the lens once. A to tal footage was shot. 8. There ar shots when we see the machine's shadow. overwhelming problem: the futuristic notions, the possibilities consciousness domination through and romanticisation reading the machine as an heroics break down the inherent the machine, rather than attempts to build the machine (such as when its speed iIIusionism through th manipulation generates a set responses independent transforms the image-reading, a wholist reading, whoIIy dependent on the cumulative non-atomistic continuance the filmic event). Thus in fact two objectivities Il'ithin the il (not interpretations). First: the machine as device, as intermediar y, mediator, transformer, magician, as weII as mechanism, for breaking down such iIIusion, for reading precisely th system its materialisation. Second: th labour, as machine as 'self reliant', autonomous from its human source is what
metaphor, as power, as coercion, as icon. the machine is momentary, hints what is there, at the 9. Th shadow device that is informing this 'consciousness' (i.e. this film). Then on with the filmic event; Snow does ot reiterate the machine's own qualities; a mere shadow, an admission, an viewing the other, why should it not also vi w itself
at least its shadow? Narcissistic, alienated, the detached eye free swivel in its own socket, those are the narrative moments, associative metaphors, but they are other things as well 10. When the camera views the region counter-clockwise in circular lateral motions, the perspectival arena flattens out. This is not a physical flattening the material (as happened with the walls, windows, people, desks, etc., through fast pans, in Back an Forth); rather, through persistent medium speed(?) the viewer is inculcated with the inahility to focus in perspective. The inability the eye, my eye. We go through a series changes in mode operation, the one-to-one connection viewer/film camera is as nearly obtained as it ca be. In reel 4 the 5-reel film, da has darken ed, lens aperture closed down (both?). Probably the former. A dark green-blue for s ky-earth an a darkness finally such that we see the green-blue colour without outlines object horizon. Even movement is obliterated by the darkne ss which makes visibility in the terms we are accustomed to impossible. Th film grain takes precedence. In fact it becbmes the sole recognisable movement. Th colou r's make-up, th grain, asserts its presence, ineffably. he thereness the film has relativised into a thereness per se. nd reflexiveness that is as uncontrollable, as immediate in response to 12. th film as the 'film' is immediate response to its own devices, its own viewing-mechanics. A system consciousness, a method, an epistemology. sound. Differing rhythm patterns, akin to both Steve Reich's 13. Th Drumming structures, made up of variations on a basic pattern, and to early Terry Riley (Poppy Nogood's AI/nite Flight, 1967), in terms of: pieces timesound, beats, lengths, stretching sound into layers, paralleling, overlapping, cutt ing off, rather than melodising. 14. In reel 5 the camera movements begin to whip into three arenas. A counter-clockwise movement, in terms three rapid jerks (thus inscribed by triangle). first the counter-clockwise circle/triangle capt ures the 'image' ground, speeding past, a blur, up to the 'sky', then slower; (after recurrence one sees it is th distance sky which 'slows down' its passage). Acceleration. The circular movement finally completely flattens everything after establishing its own shape movement upon the representation. Close-up earth. Longshot blue sky. Longshot into whiteness sun overexposure. Close-up earth. Longshot blue sky. Over an over. Speed is annexing areas space, earth, blue, white, pure non-temporal light, empty(?) screen. the film are 'interrupted' by a rostrum shot an 15. Sections (distended laterally). (The camera ha to be re-Ioaded; editing cuts were made.) It's th diagram th root the camera movements throughout the film. the film. This is rather the analogue for the gestalt is th gestalt,
whole, closed. However, it is heuristic. no to sa that the film is Artificial time-insertions cancel ny interest Snow's part in illusionist splice-denying; time-break denying editing procedure. the last intercuts is rather than a ' real time' filming off rostrum (the way titles re filmed) - a freeze th image. seemingly simple inanimatene ss th intercut is revealed as dialectically oppositioned live action. If memory serves, sound terminates when the interruptive section is spliced on between sections. These sections ar each reel beginning, as well as variously placed throughout the film They structure the time-segments, an external structure to that generated by the film-making process itself (the recording which the film). Central Regio is there, a film, 3 hours, five reels; to end 16. with a quote from the film-maker: 'I decided to extend the machine aspect film so that there might be a more objective feeling, you wouldn't be thinking someone's expressive handling the thing but perhaps ho why the whole thing set in motion.' Snow's words Central Region having been studiously a voided until now, 1 find the sentence 'You re here, the film is there. entertainment.' is neither fascism ot read that 1 would have written it July
1973. LiK'"
One
KURTKREN
Kurt Kren's Films Malcolm LeG rice present him as some kind temptation in writing about Kurt Kren is father European avant-garde film. Hi work is certainly held in very high regard by almost all he Atlantic involved in sofilm-makers this side called structuralist film. forty-six years ld (born in Vienna 20 September 1929), beginning hi experiments with film on 8mm as early as 1953 his first 16mm film in 1957, he least ten-year Gidal, Werner Nekes, Peter Weibel. Wilhelm Hein, those like Birgit otherwise have been Valie Export myself main generation initiating th 'formal' direction outside th USA. However, to see Kren in this wa is somewhat misleading. Though his way be condemned to th historical role i great importance he should in history books, leading figure the avant-garde. he continues be th innovators Secondly, none started work later, in he mid-sixties, started in this directi on Kren. Most, like myself, was a follower before encountering Kren's films. lack information here about th American underground film was matched by similar lack exchange within itself. first saw a film in 1967 '68, during the early presentations th London Film co-op. It was in a programme dominated by USA. (The first American works some very poor obscure films from mostly from Robert Pike's Creative Film Society be distributed here my reaction was very unfavourable to to realize latcr were films quite unrepresentative the New American Cinema.) as his less evidently formal Kren film, 10/65 Selhstl'ertiimmelung. works, even so, I recognized a close affinity in filmic concept with the work I was doing. This wa borne by seeing some hi other films soon after, particularly 15/67-TVwhich remains or me his most influential film independent In many ways, he post-war Vienna scene revived as quickly than it di in force was also less other European centres. movements originating in th affluence dominated by th powerful ne post-war America. Though th development th Austrian direct rt Brus, Muehl Nitsch parallels th material aktion movements Happenings movement and has similar roots in Abstract Expressionism, th
Viennese development was an independent growth from the already strong expressionist tradition Klimt, Schiele Kokoschka. Film experiment in Vienna also significantly preceded any other similar development in Europe the American Underground nd was likewise completely independent cinema. Apart from Kren's early 8m films, which he does ot consider as 'public' work, the first important post-war experimental film from Austria was Mosaik im Vertrauen. made jointly in 1955 by Ferry Radax Peter Kubelka. In 1957 Kubelka made A debar. Kren made /57- Ver.l'uch it Marc Adrian began work on Black Movie. Though syntetische/ll Ton Kubelka collaborated with Radax on th ne film, these four Viennese filmmakers were not a group; they worked separately an ha no significant influence on each other. Kren an Kubelka, whose respective films represent the most radical innovation in film thought that time, demand some comparison. By 1961, both film-makers had produced least three films, which together with contemporary work by Brakhage (particularly Sirius a little later Warhol (Sleep. 1963) brought about th Remembered. 1959) biggest changes in concepts film form since the early experiments Ray, Leger, Eggeling, Richter et al. As such, see these four film-makers as the main precursors th current direction avant-garde cinema. In the case Kubelka, the three films ar Adebar (1957), Sci1l1'l'chater (1958) an th exceptional, blank screen, alternating black white Arnulf Rainer (1960). Kren they were 2/60-48 KapIl' aus dl'm S:on di-Tl'st. 3/60-Biiume im Herbst (both 1960) nd 4/6J-Mauern-Positiv-Negativ We (1961). Perhaps Kren's first 16mm f m s hou ld be included as it certainly breaks significantl new ground, bu it is no as clearly successful as the other three. have never considered Though, unlike most other commentators, Kubelka's Unsere Aji·ikarei.l'e be more than a well-made ordinary film, his three earlier films rightly recognized as major points reference, it surprise to myself my is a source consternation many contemporaries that Kren's work is no similarly recognized by American critics. An atmosphere recrimination has come to surround th comparison these two Viennese innovators, it is difficult to maintain an impartial stance Kub elk a's best film remains the imageless, cinem a-concrete Arnul{ Rainer. Considering the time at which it was produced, it makes extreme surprising challenge to preconceptions about film content, eliminating both representation. A debar ScllIl'l'cilater re also important photography their concept nd accomplished works, abstracting kinetic qualities by high contrast printing nd the use negative, counterpointing this with the orchestration the montage, be seen to fulfil a graphic function similar certain abstract avant-garde films the twenties (i.e. sequences from Hans Richter's Film Studil' 1926). Through the image contrast an th editing rate, the photographic trace is separated from the identity association the image. Movement rhythm are thereby abstracted into the visual-musical play forms, consistent with the often explicit aims early abstract films. development this graphically abstract aesthetic in
film lagged behind through the lack experiment between the wars. But by the late fifties, in comparison with contemporary developments in the other arts, it no longer represented as fundamental an aesthetic challenge as Arnulf posed as complex artistic problems as the Kren films the same Rainer, period. In fact, a major distinction in Kren's work is th broad rejection th abstract-graphic solution the search for new film form. Th image never becomes divorced from the thing filmed the processes film. His work maintains a constant, tense dialectic between conception structuring on the one hand and experience in the subjective, existentialist sense on the other As a Jewish child in Vienna, Kren grew up with the spreading anti-semitism the emerging Third Reich nd was sent spend all the war years hidden in relative safety in Holland. He rejoined his family in Aus tri in 1947, bu seems never to have been able recover a satisfactory emotion al contact with them. He became a cashier in the Aus trian National Bank, continuing work there until 1968. Since his first 16mm film, 157- Versuch syntetischem To (all his film titles are methodically pre-fixed by the number the work in complete chronology, followed by the year realization, thu 1/57 denotes no I, 1957), there have been three distinct phases in his work. Th first extends from 1957 to 1962 during which he completed five films; the second from 1964 to 1967 when he made eight (6/64 to 13/67), all based around the work other artists, particularly the actions Otto Muehl and Giinter Brus, though J 65 the is based on an Op-art picture by Helga Philip; an the third is from 1967 present, continuing individual film work (14/67 to 31/75), it has extended include the production drawings, collages, prints an in particular limited edition boxes, each containing 8m copy his films, on facsimiles th preparatory diagrams, documentation an photographs which are sold in the same way as prints. In last phase there have been further collaborations with Muehl - bu th more clearly defined role cameraman participant in Muehl's work - an with Brus, where Brus has been simply a participant in a Kren film. In many ways the work divides more simply in two, the wholly individual films and the two years deep involvement with Muehl Brus. The notoriety the Muehl actions, an the overwhelming content in the films which are based on them, perhaps explains some the lack understanding Kren's work in America. Even amongst English film-makers there is Kren's main contribution. This tendency to dismiss this period as irrelevant is short-sighted, since the films stand as satisfactory works and certainly have an important bearing on his work as a whole Th psychological approach is inevitable for many Kren's films, but almost all his work raises philosophical questions about the relationship between experience an structure. Almost all, including the middle period, have used systems to govern either the editing shooting. In most cases this preparatory diagrams has taken the form graphs drawn with mathematical precision, indicating the various correlations shot s arid their durations. Whatever the general implications using mathematical systems
for ord ering experience, considering how, with constant projection speed, the single frame unit cinematography provides a simple link between duration nd numbe r, in film, system becomes part icularly apt. In his attempts to order experience through film, Kren has made this number-duration correlation basic, discovering for it a variety functions potentialities. he germ for most these functions can be traced his first four films, because the development is not tidy some films characterize a direction well, whilst others contain a number directions in on film, I will take the work chronologically. In classical montage, shots follow each other in combination intended either to maintain the illusory flow action, as in the Eisenstein sense, to maximise the dramatic, expressive collision between them. From his first 16mm film, Kren has counteracted both the narrative expressive concepts montage through mathematically organized montage configurations. Consequently. many his films make use a limited number repeated shots in various combinations lengths. Though some his films, like 3/60 employ system th shooting stage. In these the &illIllC connection between shots should be considered as montage in ny sense, a problem to which I shall return when considering the structuralist question. I will again begin with some the middle per iod films, for whilst I find th Mama. 7/64 - Leda der Schwan Muehl action films. like 6/64 - Papa 9 6 4 - 0 Tannenhaum, quite satisfactory works as a whole, I find their use system the least aesthetically challenging. In spite th strong content, is in these films that th montage is most abstract, in a sense, with the greatest divorce between image system. As in most his work, these films re constructed from shots fragmented into very short lengths, rarely longer than one second, frequently short as a few frames. In the Mu ehl acti on films, the result this fragmentation is to minimize recognition the objects in favour increasing attention to their abstract qualities colour, texture movement. he systems explore intricate network links based on these th montage itself in these films abstract qualities. In addition, th rhythm tends to work as a 'musical' composition, the system giving an overall coordinating shape. Although th rhythm movements within the shots in these films may combine with th rhythm the montage, because Kren more typically uses fairly static images an camera, the montage rhythm is frequently a dominant feature his work Kren has developed a consider able control over visual rhythm in this musical sense, the concepts being Schoenberg rather than with comparable with the note-row techniques more classical compositional ideas. As with Kubelka's Adehar the shots musical concept ScllIl'cchater, this visual abstraction montage is consistent with the aims the early avant-garde abstract films, thoug h i Kren this never becomes a grap hic light-play, always mainta ins some link with associative identity, particularly in these films with tactile, body associations. Even though initiated within a similar compositional concept system, certain his works lead in another direction. In
llj65-Bild Helga Philip. for example, the element S:ondi Test perceptual enquiry becomes dominant. Wat ching the fil s provides the basis information about optical an cinematic functioning, which becomes the films' chief content. Especially in 4 KojJfe aus dem S:ol1di Test, where a set still photographs faces (the contents a box originally intended for an obscure psychological test), are sequentially permutated using different rates image change, the system provides the visual changes in information but does ot constitut e a unifying composi tion in the classical sense. This shift in attitude, where the film becomes, as it were, perceptual raw material, makes way for a reflexive engagement by the viewer, where his own, rather than the film-maker's perception an reaction become the pri mary content. Kren's use system provides an opportunity to look for some clearer edg In my view, there are very few cases to the loose terminology str uctural fi where any useful relationship ca be drawn between the so-called structuralist films an th broad field Structuralism in general. System and structure should no be used synonymously. Almost all Kren's films are systemic, but only a certain group raise structuralist questions. (Though in the loose concept structuralist film which persists, all his work would be classed as structural. ) Broadly, I see structuralism as a result the dialectical problem the order (ordering) in relationship concept experience. In this respect, far from being in conflict with existentialism, it can be thought as development from it, making extreme subjectivity compatible with orde by authoritarian removing from the notion structure either an a priori implication (the main bases existential rejection order). Order is no longer seen as a fixed, immut able cond ition the world. the consequence changing and developing acts ordering. Whilst there is a recognition that no fixed structure for experience exists, there is also a recognition that there can be no neutral state unconditioned experience. Th development experience depend developments structuring. I see the movement from Cezanne Analytical Cubism as the historical basis visual structural art. Structuralism in would seem imply a br oadly representational, more accurately, homological, condition. This 'homology' is defined by LeviStrauss as an analogy functions rather than substance. In The a process whereby the Structuralist Activity.2 Roland Barthes talks structuralist decomposes the real then recomposes it. Th reconstructed 'object' , which I take to imply mainly the structural ist object, is described as a simulacrum th 'natural object' is seen as 'intellect added to object'. He stresses that 'between the two objects, two tenses, structuralist activity, there occurs something new . (Barthes' italics). Structuralist ca be thought as the material formation experience through the explicit incursion into the thing (event) observed by the mode observation. In this sense, structural ist ar does express experience derived from the world: it a dialectic between perceiver an perceived. forms experience in the trace structure as process activity which most is perhaps this concentration recommends the project the time-based film medium at the present time.
However inadequate it might be later, I would like for now to confine the use the term structu ralism in f m to situations where the space/time relations a filmed situation are reformed transformed through a definable structuring strategy into a new 'experiential' (as opposed to didactically conceptual) homology. In this notion structuralism, whilst the shape wholist element Snow's films, most evident Wavelength. would ot constitute a structuralist problem, the transformation (or fusion) time/space in the experience his 4 Central Region would. In both cases, the space/time experience can be thought as homology brought about by the consistent application a camera strategy. Kren's first structuralist film then is 3/60-Biiume im Herbst (Trees in Alltllmn. incidentally the first film in general I would call structuralist). Its structuralism is a result the application system, not to subsequent montage material already filmed with unconstrained subjectivity, but to the act and event filming itself. This limitation, by narrowing the space time range the shot material, gives rise to a greater integrity in the film as homologue. In Baume im Herbst the new space/time fusion the experience branches shot against the sky IS the the shooting system become the relations the objects shots their space/time observational relations are inseparable. Structural process becomes object. This prefigures Snow's 4----------+ echoes the plasticity time/space relations in Giacometti painting. Though similar conditions occur in a number Kren films, particularly the window sections in 5/62-Fellstel"!(lIcker. Abfal/. etc. 1762-Grlin-Rot, 28/73-Zeitaufnahme(n), is most perfectly illustrated film which has a striking relationship to a Giacometti portrait (I would cite contemporary structuralist painter). Giacometti as the clearest example Kren's preparatory drawings for the shooting this 'portrait head' film show how he sees filmic space as a result the interaction between various focal lengths lens, the minimally changing came ra position an the rates change both. Sections the film have successions single frame shots made with small changes viewpoint, other sections superimpose viewpoints on each other. n the ilm, the tr ansparent, vibrating head defines its spacetime image as a function the filming procedure. As in Bdume im Herbst. it is the nature the relations established between the separat e 'shots' (significantly different in kind to montage relations through editing) which determine it as a structural homologue. n a sense, what represented in these films is not the trees the head (as Levi-Strauss' 'substance'), but instead the space/time relations the film viewing shooting process (as 'functions'). Objects are seen as an am algam with their space especially with their time as the process their accessibility through acts perception. So again, what a head ut a filmic perception. is 'represented' in the film is ot a tree It is also not represented in the sense that the film becomes a description, expression or even model for the generalized act perception existing prior to the 'representation'. The films are acts perception taking place under particular constraints procedure medium acts film-perception. Th result this activity is a genuinely new 'ob ject' (the film being Barthes' second
tense structuralist activity) wherein certain 'postulates' time/space procedure have been added to th 'natural object' (Barthes' first tense structural ist activity). That m stru cturalism . structu ralism in literature anthropology. differ. relates the specificity ofthe medium. In the same way in which a Truffaut existentialist hero, is because its Godard film, illusionistically portraying interior filmic relations ot existentialist film. so a structuralist film is no defined simply by the structuralist attitude its maker. There must be integrity between the capacities material properties the medium nd the structural procedures adopted. That these procedures re not confined to the application numerical system, be achieved through other strategies. by Gidal is evident through films like Snow's However, I have drawn the structural definition in this instance in a very narrow way, including the provision that the work should have homologous relationship with a particular observ ational situation, so that the two tenses structuralist activity ma be appreciated within the film. Some the difficulties maintaining thi narrow definition in the light some recent conceptual an reflexive works ar also raised in Kren's /5,'67TV. Although the filming sit uati on is narrow in this film. being confined to five short sequences all filmed from within a dock-sid e cafe. the work does not aim to be a homologue the space-time relations intrinsic to the situation nd procedure the filming itself. filmed sequences are largely separated from their representational function, to become the subject subsequent systematization where their relationships within the film-presentation arc much more significant than the proce dural relationship with their origin. The historical significance this film lies in shifting the emphasi broad effect structural activity away from th e film-maker's ordering his filmic subject to that th spectator's structuring the filmic presentation. Th film's viewer must engage in a speculative, reflexive structuring the film as it other undeniable levels proceeds. Ther course a number content n the work. These include the subjective choice situation nd image by the film-maker, his attitude to the act filming, the similarly subjectivc choice mathematical system an its application in the film. But by far the most significant level content in his own is the viewer's awareness the film itself. This is not simply behaviour in structuring the experience thc attempt to elucidate the film-maker's hidden system, but an experience various phases, stages strategies which are encountered in the act the film. attempting to structure the events five sequences (each appears twenty-one times in all) arc sulliciently similar to each other to ensure that the initial problem faced is the discrimination th shots themselves. All the shots, which are about one and a half seconds long, separated from each other by periods when the screen is black. Again the viewer begins to discriminate the differences in black duration, becoming aware that there is a consistent pattern and tha t this form a system punctuation, first separating the shots, then longer gaps between the 'sentences' (gro ups offive shots),then even longer gaps markin g the ends
the 'paragraphs' (which vary in length). At a certain stage discrimination and recognition the shots their pattern combination, the viewer begins to speculate, attempting to predict the development; this prediction is subsequently confirmed denied by the film. Though the system ultimately consistent as a permutation is basically logical, it is no symmetrical structure. In some more recent films like Bill Brand's Moment even Hollis Frampton's Zorns Lemma. a similar concept has tended become a mor e mechanistic puzzle, encou ragi ng the viewer to identify content with a specific solution to the ·scrambler'. inconsistency in Kren's system eliminates any simple goal for the viewer's reflexive, structural activity. In TV. the viewer is drawn into a mode behaviour by the systemic aspect th film, but no permitted to identify 'content' with a systemic abstract th work. The content, which continues develop after repeated viewings an even when fully aware the system, lies in the experience the stages structural activity from perceptual discrimination, awareness a rhythm repetition, to the conscious use memory an prediction in conceptual patterning. In the same way in which I would quote Biiume im Herhst as the first structural film, I would quote as the first thoroughly realized work reflexive cinema transferring the primar arena for structur alist activity to th viewing the film itself. ISee Malcolm LeG rice's bo ok Abstract Film an Beyond. Studio Vista/M.I.T. Press, 1977. 'From
Enais
Critiques. 1964. Translation by Richard Howard in Partisan
Extracted from an article
in
Rel'iell".
Winter
1967.
Studio International, November 1975
HOLLIS FRAMPTON
Interview with Hollis Frampton Peter Gidal PG What do
you consider
Zorns Lemma to
be about?
Well. I can tell you what the film came of, how it reached its present form I first began using a movie came ra at the end Fall 1962. At that time I was being systematically forced into cinema in a way by my still work. I'd been working for a long time in series, sometimes long series, an there were things that began to trouble me about the still series. Such as, if you have a bunch photographs that you believe cohere even in book space, let alone a gallery wal something like that, there's no way to determine the th amount time for which each one is seen, order n which th ey're seen, to establish the possibility a repeat so that had alread y made me think the film. As a kind handling stills. ordering control, a way F:
PG:
So the control element
time?
Yeah. Then at the same time I was thinking a lot about the standard have all these spatial illusions, tactile paradoxes about photography. illusions even, whereas there is a cultural reflex somewhere to believe that when you're looking something it's real. Let's say. Even if that is the impression you're assembling only from the barest thing abstract kind nd at the sam e time the thing is und enia bly absolutely flat, it doesn't have impasto , it has nothi ng, it is perfectly superficial, it only has outside. That paradox seemed to me most strongly embodied in some stills I had made words, environmental words, where the word as a graphic element that looking at a mark on brought one back to reading (and being conscious surface) emphasised the flatness the thing. nd at the same time the tactile the word an spatial hints that were compounded with it, the presence within the image, were full illusion. So that I'd begun make a bunch these still photographs. thought, 'Well, I'll make them into a film', shot better than 2000 words in 35mm still. With the idea that I was going to just put them stand shoot them. nd I did a little that as a matter fact. It's perfectly dead. was simply going absolutely noplace Well, that's how the thing began,
as a concern with that spatial paradox set spatial paradoxes, the kind malaise that it generated as you get farther farther into it. There still are those original black white photographs. They all have some real few object lying on it. The oldest one is the word 'fox', from the old Brooklyn Fox theatre, that I think is the first one I made dark blue sky, some little straw flowers paper flowers on it as a memento to the sentimental natur the occasion. Before you go on about your concerns Lemma could you briefly, fairly descriptively, give idea what Lemma itself is? HF Can I describe it?
Yeah, and then go on to the concep tual thing which led to the actual fi To some degree first give a clarification the film itself. that's easy. There are 3 parts, first part is 5 minutes long, soundtrack with no image, a woman recites in a schoolteacherly voice 24 rhymes from the Bay State Primer which was designed to teach late 18th-century an early 19th-century children the alphabet. The primer is oriented towards death, towards accepting authority, a kind rote learning in th dark, I suppose. The second section opens with enunciation th Roman alphabet itself, with as little context as possible. Th letters are made metal, actually they photographed in one-to-one closeup. That's how it were typed on tin foil developed. F: Well
I was wondering about that. HF Yeah, they weren't cast.
They look like huge cast, 3, 4 feet tall, silver In the body ofthe second section, the main section the film, which is 45 minutes long, there are 2,700 one-second cuts, one second segments, 24 frame segments, which about half consist words; the words were alphabetised. The reason for alphabetising them really was to make the order them as random as possible, that is to say to avoid using my own taste an making little puns them something like that, much as the encyclopedists the Enlightenment thought they could somehow categorise all human knowledge a large part the name the it under the initial letter subject. So that it just happens that quaternian s are found in volume so-andso under 'Q' - it's crazy when you thin about it. As it is, it does generate some intelligible phrases, some pairings anyway. Let's see, there's a kind that reads 'nectar Hart Crane line early pain', there's a phrase Victorian pornography, 'limp member', which sticks like a sore thumb, a limp thumb something straight Secret Life or A Man and a course the words were mostly, ot all them Maid. Well, that happens but mostly, shot from the environment. They 're store signs, posters so on. And one find very quickly that very many w ords begin with 'c and's' 'q'. One quickly begins to run so forth, very few begin with 'q's'
'x's' 'z's'. What happens here is that essentially on is using a chance operation. What always happens when using a chance operation is that along with generating some things that you want it also generates holes. Fate has problems. It's always true. An one has to think a great deal more about the holes, having taken care the operations. Well, I don't know what point the notion substituting other images for words as they disappear in each alphabetic slot supervened. Particularly, I first thought all the images would be different. It would be what John Simon called (fake German accent) 'Just a jumble ofimaches And for quite a long time I held tha t notion of the film. The greatest bulk time was really shopping in Manhattan for the words themselves. I can't say I did it day after day for seven years, but I did it for seven years, an I shot actually four times as many words as I used, as well as duplications. he word 'shot' comes again again; I think I used the word 'shot' five times. which to choose essentially. Some just didn't work ou for one reason another. Rather than make 1,350 entirely separate shots. I didn't want to use stock footage. I could achieve essentially the same degree randomness by using 24 by dissecting them, exploding them, developing an iconography an once that occurred to me, the possibility PG
As separate
Yeah, as separate from the words wha t they were doing and so forth presented itself From then it was easy, I did shoot some images that I did no use in fact. There's one image I remember sawing wood, sawing a board, that I tried several times to get together. Many the images are in some sens sculptural, to do with kind generative acts concerning 3-dimensional space rather than 2-dimensional space. HF:
But each image is I second long, an substitutes. So the time sequence, the time span is the same, whether the image is visual verbal-visual.
PG
Yes, that's right. They're all one second. Well, in fact they're not all one second. I suppose I should talk about this: all my work contains mistakes, presumably everybody's work contains mistakes, and sometimes I find them when 'm doing them, lock into them one way another, sometimes I find them ou later. Some people think the whole thing is a mistake. But if you think about any long comparatively ambitious work, it always contains errors some kind other. Divine Comedy contains metric errors where Dante got locked into the text and had to, you know, fight his way out of it; maybe t do esn't come off so we So I decided deliberately to incorporate a series kinds errors. HF:
PG
A system
errors.
Right, so that know where they were, since they were gonna be there anyway. nd the moment I won't go into that, there one class of metrical errors. There are 12 images which ar 23 frames long and 24 which are 25 frames long. And I did ot generate those myself. The person who was helping me cut the footage down into one second lengths determined by his HF:
own chance operations where they were, and cut them. Still, but even when it happens, I mean I noticed the 'errors' while watching the film again. Still, it comes over very clearly that it's on e secon segments. You fe l a certain tension moment s when it breaks. But not to the point mystification where one thinks, 'Is it a second or not?' It's basic that each time piece is one second. But then that's elastic interval. depends a lot on how much there is to see in the frame. I mean, some them ar very simple very graphic, where you almost star t to get bored, 24 frames There are ot hers where there's at least a suggestion that if you saw one second over fifty times it would still be frantic. Your eyes would be crawling around the frame trying get the stuff it But to get on with the description the thing: finally, all the words are replaced by images. The last one is 'c which is a red Ibis flapping its wings in the Bronx zoo, which is seen for only one second in the entire hour the film. I think many people leave thinking whether the images totally substituted. It's not a sense completion. There is completion but no that total sense completion. Yeah, well it depends some people play that part the film as a game. Some audiences were playing it so much they were waiting to see which would go next nd what would replace it so forth. An when finally the 'c' does substitute in the last cycle the film, there have been cheers, so forth (giggling, laughter, etc.). Then finally there's a section 10 minutes long og walk from very near foreground to a distance which a man, woman close to 400 yards across a field snow an disappear at the end into pine woods. It is for all intent purposes a continuous take. In part, it' not; it's a shot suggestions offogged ends are left in, an it's five 100 feet rolls, dissolved, so if you're at all into the materiality film, it suggests several times that it's about to end, then it dissolves into a new image, th en finally goes to white. There's a track the last part which consists six women's voices reading a text by Robert Gros-tet Grosse-teste who was a bisho Forms', which is the Ingression of Lincoln. A text called 'O Light, beautiful medieval Latin treatise which is variously translated. Translated, vulgarised by me, then cut down to about 620 words. It 's read pocketed. At the rate one word a second. An the text itself I thin is apposite to fi to whatever my epistemological views film are. The key line in the text is matter along wit sentence that says, 'I n the beginning time, light drew itself into a mass as great as the fabric the world.' Which I take it is a fairly ap description ar film, as the total historical function film, no as medium bu as this great kind time capsule, so forth. It was thinking on that which led me later posit the universe as a vast film archive which contains nothing in itself an presumably somewhere in the middle, the undiscoverable centre the whole matrix filmthoughts, an unfindable viewing room in which the great presence sits through eternity screening the infinite footage.
Screening un shot negatives. Well, what have you! Is it then the infinite intelligence which in the act doing the screening imagines the images into the frame and they reflect back into the projector? One can make a whole religion this thing! We're trying. I plan to have more say about that. That's y metaphor because I'm a film-maker. I mean Borges has a wonderful story called Library Baber n which the entire universe has been transformed into a library books. And while conjecturing about the actual structure the library he manages to reconstruct the entire history human thought. In terms this one metaphor, 'm not so much in sympathy with books as Borges is, so that this cinematic metaphor seems to be more poignant; more meat. But if you're talking about Borges, I find important and beautiful in Lemma the fact that it's non-mystificatory, that t isn't labyrinthine at all, and that on one level, for me least, it denies logic and function. In that sense it's really an anti-calvinist film Oh, I'll go along with that. And you're substituting visual templates for verbal ones. Considering the cultural system we're brought in, really you're setting up a defunctionalised system. Let's face it: the word. 'First there was the word.' And if you are goin to fuck the word in some cases in Lemma with a non-linear image, you are making a non-hierarchical system which is already blowing the whole game. Absolutely. Let me tell you a bit more what this fil is for me. A couple people spotted it too. Th film is for me a kind cryptic autobiography, n a way. I have the kind standard mid-Western American Protestant education in which you learn by precept by rote in the dark. And it was, althoug perhaps to that kind puritanical extent, authority-ridden and deathsaturated, and so forth. Presumably, everybody, well I won't say everybody, many my contemporaries peers have very much the same kind experience. was highly oriented to words. And even to words only in the most superficial denotative kind way. This is where one could call it Calvinist as well. Definitely. Part 2 really has a great deal to do with something that happened to somewhere between the age of20 and 30, 32, 33, something like that, a decade you think about it, it an a half that I've spent largely in New York. represents a kind oflong dissolve, a very attenuated and skippy dissolve, from primarily verbal to primarily nonverbal concerns: the last part in the film, also course the middle section, was all shot in Manhattan, pointedly urban, in
one way another, in its visual style; a conglomeration, a gluttination successive visual styles which are imitated in the individual shots. This is still very much distancing itself from, in one way another, renaissance space,
that sort of urban rectilinearity. Then finally the last part turned to be 1970 prophetic. Simon Field wrote to me in the summ er least 1 think it was him asked me whether the film was autobi ographical, whether the last part the film had something to with some kind gesture leaving the city, as a lot New York artists were doing. An the time the film's making 1 had no left. 1 thought it in January 1970 on a farm a friend mine had just got 25 miles from where my place now is. I was the country looking for a place. And it turned to be prophetic. The second segment air fire water.
PG
the film already hints at that, by ending with earth
Sure. Very much so.
G: What you should perhaps talk about is that it isn't just leading to getting out, moving in one direction; what find so important is precisely that some images are linear in their substitution for letters, like tying a shoe, peeling an orange; others are not. And not in any specific order. Although the last are earth air fire water, the n the third segment is walking to the snow, the fina feeling the whole film the final structure the film as such, doesn't leave one with that feeling. Doesn't leave me with a narrative notion the filmmaker leaving the urb an env ironment. It leaves me much more with a system, a new system alphabet. A self-contained serial. Ok. 1 might want to get back t that later. I suppose most my work in such a way that 1 supply a certain amount, 1 make a kind container, for the rest it the film, the work, generates its own set demands an its own set rules finally if possible - an this is think the very oldest kind idea, ot new at all it consumes itself, uses itself up, leads to a stasis some sort. can't say precisely how th well one begins to something 1 get to a point where I've don e as much as 1 know how to do. Ok. So 1 then wait, and after a while something comes. What 1 tend to is wait around for some kind insight into how to the next thing, you know, where does the insight come from?·1 don't know where it comes from, not here to make explicit appeals to the muse the angels what have you. But it wasn't simply a question of, say, getting more more ambitious and wanting to or der larger larger amounts material. Th ere are ways doing that. But to find some way they would order themselves, that would have something to do with it that would see appropriate to my feeling. An feeling is something whic is partly genetic an has been generated partl by own understanding the medium also the more distant tradition the ar that has moved e specifically, which may be genetic too. There are some things that appeal to you some things that don't. I guess in some sort way, know that some those Egyptian things in the British Museum are great sculpture, but mean 1 unmoved by granite colossi. 1 may the 70 be moved by granite colossi. 1 may have been moved by them at the age 5. age F:
PG:
But that's the ultimate test, though, in that sense. What we're talking
have worked structure, construct, about, th structural part: yo substituting certain images for words, that whole business, even to he point it still be a terrible film great film. That's the thing. rationality involved in something is Yes, th degree guarantee at all. sine qua non: it doesn't It's like sincerity. Sincerity presumably is some kind most guarantee goddamn thing. Most is sincere is bad. Perfectly
PG: That's th
rationalising al with easily.
problem wants
in art-critical terms. a film doesn't work. That aspect
be can't deal
remember being time th floor th permanent collection th Museum in Modern York and passing by Matisse's there's a little lady standing enraptured in front it. A Maroccans, to Rouault, German Expressionist it, went young girl went by, glanced stuff, the Picassos, the whole tour the 3rd floor, sh came back th around and the little old lady was still standing enraptured in front Matisse. she said to her, obviously stunned, '4 minutes ago I was here you're still standing here, what is it that yo you were standing here see in this pai nting ?' the littl lady said 'Ah, my dear, it's plain that it requires a sensibility'. She wasn't insult ing her. She was saying she ad organisation. reached that level
verbalisation. Well, if you understand that phrase in its depth. Aristotle talks somewhere six kind intelligence. we've whittled it down to kind intelligence, right, goodness, being able talk, to write something which is like talk. Being articulate. That leaves fiv intelligence recognised by Aristotle shivering in the cold. Well, the kinds he talked about wa tee/we, which is he kind that lets people make things, presumably good things. Well, we get technical from that. We say, 'That's merely technical .' But pertaining he didn't it he meant it as the whole faculty be able to march up to a billet mind that makes it possible for a Bran cusi bronze nd get the 'Bird in Space'. Whereas if march up, whatever my powers are, to the same billet filings, essentially. Yet bronze I get a pile all, to my knowledge, Brancusi say in his whol e life about sculpture was ten sentences. Something like that. None which is what your reviewer would recognise as rational. trained sensibility disciplined sensibility is obvious again to person we're dealing here with a dumb intelligent man, that Brancusi was even a crafty Rumanian peasant. We're talking about individual extraordinary intelligence. us have six kinds that yo see intelligence we could call a, b, c, e, f, then make something with intelligence be apprehended by yo with intelligence 'a'. Something that is intended intended to on channel apprehended on channel 'e'.
But it's the crossings that are interesting. That's why Zorns Lemma works. PG:
Well, Ok. I mean they have wide penumbras. Yo don't dial the station by pressing a button. Presumably y ou're receivin all channels all the time Maybe I used the wrong figure. Here I trying use metaphor from radio rather than a cinem metaphor; a cinema metaphor is richer. I mean, we think it as pictures with sound, but film has this whole tactile channel as well, this whole level being so real you could touch it. And d uratio n, which nothing else has. F:
Yeah.
I mean, your film has pieces time, whether they're visual tensions come basically from the piece time.
PG:
verbal. Th
I like your word 'duration'. That's a word which means something. When you say 'time', you're floundering course. Duration PG: From
is
how long something lasts.
point a to point
Something that frames on the strip.
is
concretely measurable by counting the number
The other thing is that it's narrative. Point to point in duration as opposed to narrative. Because everything moves forward in time. That's an import ant distinction. PG:
Ok. What about time? Since so much my work seems to deal with notions time it's something I've thought about. What are these views time? There's time as the universal solvent. We're dropped the surface the tub, which is corrosive. We slowl ro away sink down an disappear. elastic fluid. Th frog Tennyson leaps into the elastic Or there's time as luid and creates waves which ultimately joggle the co rk Eliot Or in Eliot's view, the elasticity travels in both directions: tradition individual talent. Eliot course says that Eliot has changed Tennyso and that is clearly true. Or there is th model time, the spiral in which it's possible in four dimensions to have every turn the helix cross every other turn the helix within one lifetime some other finite thing. time: the Pound's view continuous co-presence everything. That is essentially the view time that the generation the 80's comes down to. And then there's Beckett's vie presence nothing.
time which could be the contin uous co-
Which still amounts to the same thing. I don't know there is anyway this what would you call ? this incubus that settles over any attempt to
think about time, time being itself a phenomenon like gravitation, radiation what have you. There's a problem with that. That is that phenomena are directly sensible an the intellect can devise direct ways to measure them. '32 feet per second per seco nd' is an expression about gravitation. Which leads m to suspect that time is not a fiction, you know, but simply without being a phenomenon nevertheless a kind intellectable condition perceiving all other phenomena. An unavoidable
thing, really.
Well, but I mean it is the condition under which other phenomena proceed. I mean, if you say 32 feet per second per second then we're talking about rate total duration and so forth, we're talking about conditions, a condition under which gravitation can be spoken of HF
So how does instances pieces PG:
relate back now to Zorns Lemma? I mean, specific time, which means also pieces space
that
think very specifically in that film I have made the cut in duration (the pointed sense the passage time) explicitly, a condition perceiving everything that's going in the film That's one vie the matter. course, I've gone on with this black white thing the w f s - to elaborate other possible views HF: I
London,
May 1972
Notes on Zorns Lemma Peter Gidal
authority, authoritarianism, in its restating th Bay State Primer's rules, e.g. 'I Adam's fall, we sinned all', Life to mend after slay'. A, B, C, etc. Th verbal God'shook attend', 'The cat doth play, notation, the indoctrination from childhood into disciplines, through
I.
film which deals wit
language, logic, rhyme, repetition. 2. Images are substituted for letters; an analogous system is set up. Som the images are linear (tying a shoelace, one notch at a time, until the whole shoe is tied; peeling an orange); some are non-linear (waves the ocean coming and going an coming; fire); some are indeterminate (ground beef egressing from a meat grinder; fog from a smokestack filling the frame, then emptying, filling up again, etc.). Th problem is whether setting up new system is positivist, i.e. still a dictation analog ous system wherei the initial alphabe is used. In other words, does ne always thi nk the smoke image, for example, as a substitute fo 'Q'? on does, the alphabet's authority merely resubstantiated (o trans-substantiated, a unrelated metaphor). Lemma is th attempt to break down th authority 3. The essence language, that rationalistic 'truth' the verbalised materiality an spirituality existence. Thus whatever the result question 2 posed above, th film still attemp ts a breakdown into images, non-logical, non-hierarchical, non-narrative ones. Images which are designated as meaningful only in that their presentation has been determined by the film-maker in a certain sequence. But there is mystification, illusionism, as to reasonableness the image-choice. There is authoritativeness based on some mystique. There is no model set-up 'incorrect', what is 'correct' though the film does imply a moral system to the extent its attempted destruction a specific domination, namely that language. Still, Frampton has set up a system which is open rather than closed in spite first appearances. the film is 'continuous' sequence a couple walking 4. Th last third away from the camera. Unfor tunate ly there are reel-end flare-outs (thus the continuity is only apparent). Th reel-ends flare-outs break the unity duration. An time is the most important element (the) film. he soundt rack has six women speaking in order, each on word, from a piece
writing, 'O Light, the Ingression Forms.' This piece writing is broken down, its logic contested, because the aural continuity sound (speech) is, for each wo man's voice. And since the listener/viewer, determined by the tone they each take one word a time (though in order) we cannot readily follow the logic the sentence-content. We follow, instead, tonal continuity. Thus words 1,7, 13, 19, words 2, 8, 14,20, etc., relate tonally, thoug 1,2,3,4,5, etc., relate logically. he piece selected by Frampton had been a non-obscurantist piece, an easy piece prose, the system understanding and its breakdown would have worked. As the piece takes several readings to understand, it is Frampton's purpose. Even one voice self-destructive in this context, reading that piece would have raised comprehension problems, and would have inculcated the intended (positive) frustration not being able to grasp the represented meaning (verbally). Also, the dialectic between chopped-up the verbal and the supposedly continuous linear time the images time should have worked to a clear, precise, degree. The concept is clear, the working it too loose. 5. Frampton seems really concerned mainly with presenting piece of time. Lemma is one second long (there are some exceptions which are Each letter noticeable as such thus tend to reaffirm the strength, the duration, the physicality each piece time). Lemma thus does, on that level, what Kurt Kren's Trees (1960) did: establish units time (film time/real time) which take precedence over any content (representational otherwise). Tight units stretched space in time; piece film, taut, once conceptual and purely physically existent. Units determined at each end by a splice. 6. Lemma is a seminal didactic film, nevertheless; and a beautiful film. persistently establishes non-narrative film as time-segmentation-material. uses the represented (photographic) image in direct contact with the actual material time-reality the film in a non-illusory manner: the alphabet's authority stands in direct relationship the monotony, i.e. the (one second per letter) consistency its presentation. 7. Lemma overcomes its own conventionally 'beautiful photography' through the precise, intense, simple structure he film is a lesson (tha is made clear). A didactic film an a space/time piece importance. The only problematic is point 2. It hurts to hav to realise this, because it strikes as one the best and most important films I've seen. It is a strong film. December 1971
Letter from Hollis Frampton to Peter Gidal on Lemma* Re: yr/ piece on ZL. yr/ later surmise that it might have bugged me. No. I cannot, logically, get annoy ed at anything a critic writes about my work. you say something is wrong with my film, you're wrong, time's pyramids wi squat on yr/ remarks obliterate them. you're right, then course it is to me to correct the situation. (Hell's bells no, change the specific work. an I mean it's written down, as part have a handy list my current testament errors I y work to contai n, rang ing from the grossest simplest mechanical goofs in cutting, to precise moments when I blew the pivotal decision absolutely, where I aesthetically ad my head my ass so far I cd/ justly claim to see daylight ahead. AND: only two people have ever caught an them, that would be Ernie Gehr and Stan Brakhage. Neither whom ever go back change a film, in an particular.) However, there are questions Such as:
detail to which I
care to reply in your piece
A) yr; point 2, with its question. I suspect you're 'trying hard' here. in watching the film, keep tabs in the central section by cycling the Roman alphabet? I betcha you don't. one does that, then there's no way to go the rest the way with the process. I have been asked, dozens times, if there is any esoteric connection between the subset 'images' the alphabetic matrix. course there ain't. People have repeatedly tried to find one, side tracked themselves clean the work. But (yr/ point 5) I shd point out that am no in business to 'attempt to break down the authority anything. Language has its dominion. Until recently (1839) the only thing we cd/ trust that bind ain't gonna get that the dead left us was words, overnight, via an single masterpiece. The rumour (anyway) that my mother's name was Rose Selavy is substantially corrt'ct, I think she has something to teach us all about the intimacy the ties between language perception on a level that goes a lot deeper than the Wiener Kreis wd/ have understood the word 'language'. If you mean the film attacks the authori ty what Carnap Co. wd/ call a 'predicate', I agree Among other thillgs. But course 'verbal logic' is but a tiny wen mole on the buttock language, which I understand as a fundamental neural ph enomenon among vertebrates, probably living things. ·Some of the text
this letter has been omitted.
autobiography. is my own trip. is meant to be work IS interesting nd amusing, as well as helpful (aliter. 'didactic'). Words dominated me. No they don't. How di that happen? Waaaaal (he spits, hitches his overalls, sez vehemently), seems me it went something like this (undsoweiter). be seen, an heard. many times. That Yr point 4. Th film is meant includes the text, On Light. etc. Yo consider the problems making that section from what I might call a 'textural' point view: you wd/like it to be lapidary: a cabachon, let us say, in onyx. Yo are saying: H F has muddled the chemistry the element cobalt, it is impure. But I ain't INTERESTED in the chemistry cobalt, which is a fictional construction very much akin to your tyranny words, since cobalt is more found going its own way, chemically, in nature, than the world is filled with nouns adjectived, adverbially verbing on another. I am, in fact, interested in the chemistry dirt. Yes: here in the West, we isolate things for study. Repeat: for behooves us to keep in mind that we are studying convenientftctions. and very ingenious ones that. B) Th
more precisely: I want both th cobalt for both is there.
the dirt. I think the evidence
D) yr point 5. he plasticity time is what is issue. Vide my remarks, passim. time, in the Field interview. the next AFTERIMAGE ever sees print. The sort interest in time you associate with me might be more SECOND IN MONTREAL). But accurately ascribed Snow (in, say, 'space' is more like Mike's specialty. 'matters' like hell what is going on, in those bits time, and on those bits film. So that no good German would ever recognize me as a sang-pur proper Formalist. Aw well, shucks folks, Bach said he made his works ad majorem gloriam Dei. E) yr point 4. I offer to you only that oll'n. owned in 1970 when the shot was made, a camera that will shoot 400' a single take, which is about the and that I was w ll aware, having planned that shot for that shot length a long time, what options were open to me so you may assume, with my authorization, that the reel-end flares are absolutely deliberate. In fact I held the individual rolls revolved them each in the sunshine, at loading an unloading, to make damn good an sure they got fogged. was no unweighed gesture. Quite a bit was issue. Part with asserting it ha to the materiality film, with spitting the lens, cracking the illusion. Noth ing would have been more inimical my purpose there than slinging the Warhol ian hammock real-time conundrums. I made a precisely measured distance from that. Again, concerning the Grosseteste text: I do. an deeply, regret the hairy mechanical quality the track, which mitigates against comprehensibility more, I think, than the hocketing. I hope to reprocess that tape, which was • Afterima ge
No.4
made in poverty to reprocess it under dreadful circumstances that MIGHT help. What interests me, electronically get a new transfer comprehension comes from channels other than in part, is this: how much the dictionary. words, an their 'sense', re unchanged course. But a large part speech seems to be understood as you understand the phrase 'Shave-and-a-haircut' from a knock th door: i.e., in ways that have little to with Verbal. When you're thrown back on comprehension words themselves. it becomes difficult. traffic between you me over grounds objection to Surely there need be any work its being 'difficult' understand. We have on a basis exercised minds on for instance, Webern. Ef 'd ofwawnted it be easy, don't yew think I wud ov made it easy? F) yr/ poi nt 7. Concerning 'conven tionally beautifu photography': precisely, it is a convention. ha be 'normal' photography. started smarming the whole thing up with incessant gross shifts in distance from a nominal illusionistic norm rendering, the whole thing would have ot bogged down '(bass) clef, th in perceptual push-pull. That was the base-line, 'key' whole thing. In fact, course, most the images are modified with respect time. E poi basta! this is all just thinking on paper about yr / remarks. You're right, ZORNS LE is a seminal didactic film. is a masterpiece, if we still use that word. is also a film I finished on 21 March, 1970, an considerably more interested in what be some doing n o w : about which there seems cultural lag, as it were An course you're by which I mean that artist whatever criticisim you write h as primarily with your own concerns as artist. (Such as: my Paul Strand piece is course by way expounding F' views on th phot/ image: I loathed that Strand show.) I said to Sitney, dinner in July: I have found your Structuralists, P. Adams, they are in England. Complete to the diacritical mark, influence Warhol. the whole number. Yo see, Peter, most us to whom that tag has been stuck, are a little (or more than a little) exercised about it. if some th foregoing seems suspended near th point irritat ion, it ha with feeling myself conde mned for nonconformity to a set Laws that were extrapolated from work that I myself (among others) did in the first place. Personally, I believe Structuralism is a term that should have been left in France, to confound all Gaul for another generation. Now I'm by way making some films (post-HAPAX LEGOMENA) which re especially 'structural'. Am I then to be hung by my thumbs'? discarded what-o'? he new work is made, as all the other stuff has been, according to my possibly imperfect understanding the classic canons my root necessities 25
August 1972
JACOBS
Tom, Tom,
the
Piper's So
Lois Mendelson and Bill Simon Jacobs' film, Tom. Tom. the Piper's Son. is, with Vertov's Man lI'ith a reflexive cinema whose the two great works Movie Camera. on th nature primary subject is esthetic definition the medium, Jacobs himself ha cal1ed it didactic film' deals with several major critical areas abstraction, with the il1usions involved in with representation, narrative the film-viewing experience, with th possible ways handling space time, with structure with perception, It is, as wel1, a work radical transformation; a primitive work from th earliest period film history is transformed into a highly innova tive work, modernist in character, constantly th eye and, the same time, a sophisticated exercise in film pleasurable Ke
criticism, Jacobs, then, ha taken early American film cal1ed Tom. Tom, the Piper's the nursery rhyme, recreated it. first presents the Son, a rendering original film as it was made in 1905 (probably by Billy Bitzer, Griffith's great cameraman). Then, for 70 minute s, photographing the original film while i is being projected, Jacobs performs exhaustive analysis it. Final1y, he shows the original film in its entirety once again, adding a brief coda his own. original film is 10 minutes in length consists eight tableaux Tom and a stolen pig. Al1 eight tableaux shots showing a crowd in pursuit re photographed in a basical1y theatrical way in long shot, with the camera placed front row centre. space in each th shots is shal10w is articulated in a very simple manner some use groups with some th sets. There is also very little suggestion receding space painted rhythmic articulation. Events either happen al1 once difficult to great length on after another. distinguish else re strung he film has great charm, largely because there is a decorat ive quality to the painted sets the costumes (supposedly modeled after Hogarth prints also because there is so much close attention to detail. In the opening Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son at the Gallery Ken Jacobs, Programme note prepared for showing Modern Art, New York, April, 1969. The Audio/ Brandon Film Catalogue (Mount Vernon, N. Y., 1972/73), p. 380.
tableau, at tpe fair, there are acrobats,jugglers, many revellers, a fight betwee sailors, as well as the stealing a pig a tableau crammed with simultaneou activities. The subsequent tableaux follow the chase with each the ten twelve chasers individually jumping into haystacks, climbing ou chimneys, climbing over through fences, all ending in a barnyard filled with ducks, geese, an flying birds. From this, Jacobs has made a radically different fil . Using the basic procedure photographing the original film from a screen upon which it is being projected, he employs just about every strategy known to fi . He photographs varied portions the original shots, sometimes showing a shot the original. in almost its full size, sometimes blowing up a very minute part He moves his camera along, up, down, into, an away from the original, in which there is no camera movement all. He uses the freeze frame technique, stopping the original on anyone frame for any period oftime, then going back into motion. He uses slow motion, reverse motion, superimpositions, masks, and wipes. He adds black clear leader, creates a flicker effect an leaves in the circles and flares that appear the end reels il . He photographs the film strip as such an sets his screen within a larger spatial context, creating a kind screen-within-a-screen. He does shadow play with fingers against the screen while the fil is being projected, even photographs the light bulb the projector. He also adds two colour sequences which do no appear in the original film. All these strategies are employed both individually in the most extraordinarily complex combinations. Jacobs sets up an extremely rich vocabulary and proceeds to employ it exhaustively, using the basic montage principle (the possibility combining in any way) to create a completely new work. In doing all this, Jacobs is essentially involved in an analysis, a contemplation, the original work. 'I've into the film's monumental homogeneity (8 statically photographed sets with some sens trespass, cropped and given a Griffith emphasis parts originally submerged in the whole - but (this is a didactic film) it was necessar do so in order to begin to show how much was there.'3 Very much attracted to the original film, he decided to show what interested him in it. His film is a revelation the original, achieved by analysing, fragmenting, an abstracting the origina reconstituting it as a new film. In revealing what interested him in the original, Jacobs has revealed what interests him in film. And in so doing, he has created a discourse on the natur film. He has created a fil that deals with several major esthetic problems an preoccupations. Th 1905 Tom, To is both a representational and a narrative film. depicts a world which has reference to people, places, and objects that we can recognize and it tells a story which are expected to follow. Ken Jacobs' Tom, To is quite different. Because Jacobs subjects the images to so many radical alterations, they frequently lose their recognizability an attain varying degrees abstraction. The point reference both to the outside Jacobs, Programme note.
world to the original film, disappear s. A human body becomes patterns lines, forms, light and dark. Thus, Jacobs' film constantly oscillates between two kinds images the completely representational an the completely abstract , with all the varying gradations between representation al abstract also included. In addition, there constant oscillation between narrative an abstract images. As long as enough the original images is shown, the actions the original film recognizable. audience react to what is being seen in terms actions, a narrative. th other hand, when Jacobs photographs a smaller part ofthe original film otherwise distorts the image, the audience can no longer react in terms actions. points become clear i Jacobs' treatment this problem. Th first is the degree to which representation narrative re inextricable. Th reaction in terms narrative, following actions, depends on representation, the recognizability people an what they are doing, on the existence a certain kind space in which action happen. second point that is very clearly elucidated by Jacobs is that these two modes elicit different kinds experience. As long as the images are representational narrative, we re following the film in terms actions, with interest i attention to these actions. Wh en t he image ar abstract. a very different response is called forth. We must adapt a much more contemplative attitude see the film largely in terms the interaction form, line, light, movement. Jacobs forcefully demonstrates the difference in these two experiences by constantly oscillating between the two poles representation abstraction. Jacobs is also very much concerned with another element in the filmviewing experience. is concerned with exposing, through the systematic reduction images, the two major illusions upon which the filmic image depends. Th first illusion con cer ns light. Because he photographs a film off a screen because he photographs it so closel times, the image is reduced visibly various intensities light shadow. fact that the filmic image always consists varying intensities light projected on a flat surface. the fact that film is really always a kind shadow play, is revealed by the process reduction. be seen in terms Much Tom. Tom Jacobs' preoccupation with the dark, preoccupation that he has demonstrated in areas light nature outside film well. He has created a number shows involving shad ow play (live people behind a white screen) the illumination dark environments. is fascinated by the Blackout 1965, stating that he felt th Blackout than in the usual illusion security. more secure in the truth his part 'illumination' the original is possible to talk Tom. Tom as film, as bringing the qualities the original 't light'. Jacobs' inclusion the flicker effect, black clear leader, the flare circles, shadow play, shots the actual projector bulb, well as his major exploration the
light and dark areas the original film, all attest to his interest in an revelation the light potentialities film. The second illusion that is revealed in Tom, Tom is the illusion movement. By using the freeze frame technique (holding anyone frame for any period time) an by constantly alter nating frozen frames with moving images, Jacobs reveals that the film image consists a series unmoving, still images. (The illusion movement is achieved the eye combinin g the still images into movement through the persistence vision.) As always in Tom, Tom, this demonstration is taken as far as it ca go. instance, Jacobs sometimes moves his camera over a frozen frame, complicating an reemphasizing the fact the frozen frame by insisting once the lack movement in the frozen frame and on the presence movement, albeit illusory movement, because the moving camera. Jacobs also demonstrates a deep interest in the spatial potentialities cinema. He explores this aspect by using as his model point departure, a primitive film with shallow, stage-type space, in which the camer is placed at fixed distance from the subject in which the only change space is accomplished by a cut an a change setting. He transforms this conventional concept space by literally breaking down the spatial unity the original an reconstructing from the fragments, a more radically filmic space. He does this in a number ways. example, he is constantly compressing expanding the spac the original film by juxtaposing the full range shots from long shots which generally have deep space to extreme close-ups which are much flatter. He also juxtaposes moving images an frozen frames, taking advantage the fact that a still a moving image always appears to be flatter therefore closer to the screen surface. Thus, the flat screen surface becomes a point reference as the eye is drawn alternately towards away from it. A tension is created between twodimensional three-dimensional space. Sometimes he demonstrates the process this expansion compression. In one sequence, involving the boy with the striped trousers, a serie stills the boy is projected on the screen, each shot becoming progressively closer. Then, the still becomes a moving image, in slow motion, which flickers, and, at the same time, the camera begins a sudden an dramatic move forward into the picture. The movement continues until the black white stripes are so close to the surface that they become flat black and white shapes, flickering and moving across a flat screen. In another sequence, the ladder-climbing sequence, the camera again moves into the picture until the magnification is so intense tha t the image appear to disintegrate into flat abstract shapes. Also, at this point, the grainy, pointillist texture the image, evident throughout the film, is heightened to its magnificent best. Still another point concerning the compression expansion space 4Jud Yalkut, Critique 5. The New York Free Press, New York, March 281968, p. 9. is interesting to note that Jacobs is pursuing his investigation spatial problems by experimenting with 3-D film.
should be made. In addition to creating a tension between two- an threedimensional space, which Jacobs does throughout the film, in certain sequences, he generates a dynamic tension within the flat screen surface itself There is one outstan ding exampl this the most magnified portion the ladder-climbing sequence. Here, the shapes press against one another as they move in slow motio around the surface nd off the edges the surface. Light areas react against dark ones, large shapes against small ones, curved lines against jagged ones, negative planes against positive ones. Altogether, this section is exquisitely choreograp hed balle forms. Another way in which Jacobs questions the spatial conventions of the original film is through experimentation with the notion offscreen space. In the original, when the characters move off the screen, it is as though they wal offstage; their existence seems to stop the edge the screen. Jacobs, however, sometimes creates awareness space outside the limits the screen. example, one the original tableaux shows three spectators watching people jump, one by one, a chimney. Jac obs shows a detail these spectators in the act watching bu t he excludes the spectacle which they watch. Thus, we are encouraged to fill in the missing images from memory the original film; the offscreen space is extended to visual memory. Later in the sequence, there is a shot which includes both the spectator the spectacle. Now, both actions are 'onscreen'. Suddenly, the spectacle is 'wiped out', as if a black shade were drawn halfway down the screen an again the spectators appear to watch nothing all. This time, however, the offscreen action is taking place behind the black wipe. That is, the offscreen space no part the visual field. Still another variation this theme takes place later in the sequence when the spectacle. This time, a complete we are again shown both the spectator wipe occurs. The black shade is drawn down th bottom the screen, is lifted briefly, exposing the image, is drawn once again, leaving us to contemplate blackness. Although we are seeing nothing but blackness, the action seems to continue through memory image the previous shot. Now, all the action takes place in offscreen, or, more precisely, behindscreen space. There are severa other interesting ways in which Jaco bs shatters the spatial unity the original film in order to cons truct a spatial concept whic is special to the film medium. In the scene in which the chasers break down the door to the cottage, for example, t here is a long sh ot the interior which perpetuates the stage space the original. Suddenly, there is a cut to a sho t in which both sides are masked the remaining central figure is frozen. The effect is dramatic. The illusionistic stage space is radically compressed the image resembles a flat wall upon which oriental painted scroll is hung. But Jacobs does no end his spatial experiment here. Instead, he unfreezes the still image with explosive burst, the moving figures reacquire their volume and spill through the door, punct uring the flatnes the screen creating "This section the film seems to reflect the influence studied painting for a period time.
Hans Hofmann with whom Jacobs
exciting tension between two- an three-dimensional space. Another commentary film space is contained in extraordinary se ten sequences which are scattere throughout the fil which shall refer to as the 'screen-within-a-screen' sequences. In these, the screen we have been watching is suddenly reduced set within a larger, black screen. Eac th ten sequences is different each reveals, with varying degrees complexity, the subtle relationship between the flat screen surface the projected illusion depth. Several these sequences shall be described here. In one, the small screen which is set within the larger on e begins to jiggle then moves quickly up, down, across, away from us, back again, carving a space for itself in the amo rphous black field. In another, the small screen shares edge with the larger one. Its apparent diagonal intrusion converts what would have been simply a twodimensional black surface into a dark, undefined suggestion space. The final screen-within-a-screen sequence to be described, p erhaps the most spectacular all, can be more easily visualized i we describe briefly the way i which the f lm was shot. The setup consisted a transparent screen which wa flanked on one side by a projector an on the opposite side by a camera facing the projector. As the original film was projected onto the screen from one side, Jacobs photographed it from the other side. Keeping this setup in mind, on is better equipped to enjoy the subtleties this sequence. This time, we see moving silhouettes which appear to be in front the small screen-within-a-screen. A shadowy hand moves an turns corner the small screen, jiggles it about, then actually lifts it up, revealing the light bulb the projector. Like the other screen-within-a-screen sequences, this one deals with spatial ambiguities, but, in addi tion, it reveals the actual space in which this particular m was shot. And it goes still one step furth er - it extends into the space th audience. We suddenly become conscious ourselves watching image projected upon a screen in which someone else is watching another image projected upon another screen. We experience ot only the space between ourselves an the large screen but also the space, or, more precisely, the illusion a space between the sha dow man the scree the small screenwithin-a-screen. Tom. Tom involves the use The short coda at the end split screen. first, the screen is split vertically into a black a white panel. One panel is quickly replaced by a frozen frame then by a moving, flickering sequence from a scene in the film. The other panel alternates between black an white in such a way that the eye is repeatedly bombarded by intense flashes flickers. Although this section is extremely brief, it reiterates many the spatial preoccupations the m - such preoccupations as the tension between two- an three-dimensional space, the interactio light an dark, and the juxtaposi tion still moving images. Tom. To
must also be studied
in
terms
Jacobs' treatment
time; it
illustrates the many ways in which time ca be manipulated film. Tom can be seen as a In the most general terms, Jacobs' section distension, largely through editing, the original film. A 10-minute film has been made into a 70-minute film. There are several factors involved in this process, the most basic which is th elaboration certain section parts the original. This elaboration is achieved through the use all th various strategies have already discussed and through extensive use th principle repetition. Th most extreme example this is the stepladder sequence. In the original, it t akes the whole group chasers about 30 seconds to climb the ladder; this sequence is expanded to about 20 minutes by Jacobs. ne part this sequence - woman with black dress white trim who is climbing the ladder, followed by a ma with white sleeves lasts about on second in the original becomes an extended 12-minute, almost entirely abstract, section in Jacobs' film. Basically, what is happening here is that Jacobs is taking a portion the original, fragmenting it, treating the fragments in various ways, an reassembling them into a new whole. This general process distension is furthered by severa other factors, most notably the addition extran eous material like black an clear leader and the tw colour sequences. It shou ld also be added that within this overall pattern minor pattern distension, there is contraction. Jacobs does not elabor ate al the material in the original . While elaborating some it at great length, he also completely omits other material, thereby illustrating the possibilities ellipsis in film. In addition, Jacobs rearranges the order th material within each the original tableaux. In his treatment the first tableau, for example, he starts with material in the middle, then goes back material the beginning (including the title), then treats material at the end. Interestingly, however, he maintains the order the tableaux, never skipping back an forth between them. Jacobs also illustrates the various kinds temporal experiences possible with film. This is seen especially in his treatment representation, narrative, abstraction. As long as we have a clearly perceivable element representation narrative story-telling in the images, we tend experience the passing time in terms he time events actions seen. When the images become more abstr act, this sens narrative time begins to disappear, becomes much less pronounced. In the most abstract part the ladder sequence, for instance, the sense time the original action, or of an Jacobs' film, the time actions, is completely lost the time which the forms, lines, patterns light interact, becomes paramount. In general, the moment produces extreme elaboration extreme distensio in which the sense th duration formal interaction, whether it be line, form, and light edited pieces film, becomes the predominant experience. This supremacy film time ca e illustrated with one more example again wit camera movement over a frozen frame. he freeze frame absolutely the use stops, freezes, the time the original film. Th camera movement over the freeze frame produces a sense evolving time, ut the time in this case, is th Jacobs' moving camera. It is Jacobs' newly created film time, not the time
time the original film or of narrative actions. In his remaking of Tom. Tom. Jacobs also investigates the overall structure composition the film. The original version is arranged sequentially, in narrative order. It consists eight shots, each separated from the other by distinct cut. Jacobs dissolves this simple rigid structu re constructs its stead a much more intricate fluid one. He includes the model in his reconstruction, so that what emerges can be viewed as a kind triptych: the original Tom. Tom shown twice forms the two narrow side panels, Jacobs' version forms the large centra l panel, the split screen section the end can be seen perhaps as a 'misplaced' predella panel. Like the side panels, the central panel is also divided into units. (These include the striped trousers sequence, the woman with the hoop sequence, the ladder-climbing sequence, the abstract section within it.) However, these new units are a radically different kind. Instead eight long tableaux, there are now many units varying lengths, often created by the isolation, magnification, distention small details taken from the original shots. In addition, the new units are freely interwoven are combined without regard to narrative development. Although Jacobs systematically dissolves the basic structur the original, his film is no exercise in chaos. thing, he utilizes the triptych another, in spite framework mentioned above. the structural transformations which occur within the central panel, he retains certain aspects the original organizati on, such as the movement from one tableau to another. The special way in which Jacobs integrates the model into his structure is significant because it gives rise to a new dimension in film perception. viewing experience the central panel is intricately linked to memory the first panel. When the figures actions in the central panel are recognizable, one cannot help ut identify them in terms the original narrative arrangement. When we see the woman with the hoop, for example, grasp location in the original, location, in fact, in someone else's film. During the long abstract sections, we are to lose place in that other film, even though we have no difficulty following the flow images in Jacobs' version. Whenever the images are recognizable, they serve as landmarks in an unfamiliar territory, as ever present reminders the fact that the original film is literally the construction materials for the new f lm The memory image ofthe original is, in a sense, projected in minds whil we are watching the new film That is to say, the original Tom. Tom is mentally superimposed upo ou viewing experience Jacobs' Tom. Tom. The model is thus continuously present in this unique manner, as a continuum comparison to its own transformation. In Tom. Tom. Jacobs presents a brilliant lesson in perception an perception-training. He shows u what to look for in the 905 version Tom. Tom. He selects for us those aspects the film intriguing to him by isolating and magnifying details, by distending important moments. Those elements towards which he directs concentration formal elements for the most
part tend to dra attention away from the narrative. When he projects the original film once again the end his reworking it, he is allowing us the pleasure viewing it with newly trained eyes. the same time, he is heightening awareness how much we have just learned about visual perception. But Jacobs' film is ot only about what to look in the primitive version his visual analysis, one Tom. Tom. While one watches the unravelling becomes aware the fact that perception perception-training is actually on the subjects the film. As P. Adams Sitney has pointed out, Jacobs retards the fictive development the original and, through his process elongation, induces an awareness perception itself as a value and an esthetic experience. is clear that Jacobs does no expect the viewer to respond passively to his method perception-training. He presents a rigorous course for the eye and he demands, in return, a great deal visual work. The level difficulty perception demanded the viewer varies throughout the film; times, one can easily grasp what one sees, while other times, the images and interactions images are so quick, complex, elusive that repeated viewings are necessary in order to comprehend them. With each viewing, one actually sees more. One becomes visually more sophisticated and more attu ned to the multi-faceted potentialities cinema. One emerges with a set visual tools with which to perceive not only the original Tom. Tom and not only Jacobs' intricate reworking it, bu also film in general. The second point concerns transformation. We have already stated that th entire film involves a major act transformation, the transformation the original primitive m into Jacobs ' radically modernist one. Further, we have implied that in each the areas we have discussed, there is an element transformation the transformation representational narrative into abstract, the transformation the image to reveal the illusions behind it, the transformation space, time, structure. What is especially impor tan about Tom. Tom is that we always perceive the process transformation. he film itself is an act visible transformation, demonstrated in the film. We witness the stages between representation and abstraction, we experience the state forming. Similarly, we see the illusory image in the process dissolving into light dark, the moving image become frozen. The space is visibly changed, an we feel the shifts in kinds temporal experience. Th fact that all film involves some degree transformation is made manifest in film in which the subject is the act process transformation. Ar/forum.
September
1971
Edi/or's no/e: This articl is included mainly because its methodology is symptomatic of current 'misunderstanding', i.e. a marked anti-materialism and the fetishisation of process and idealisation of the formal in its weak sense. At issue also is the uncritical acceptance of pseudodocumentariness. I point this ou t because. while most of the oth er writing here hints at o r tells of
the problema tics engaged and the contradictions which may operate, this article seems blind to such considerations, as Tom, Tom.
MIKE DUNFORD
Four Statements 'I studied at Goldsmith's where I began by making fairly straightforward sculpture and then moved into events happenings. These experiences, coupled with an interest in the work people like John Cage and Rauschenberg, had a definite impact my early film-making. I began with four short films m them is just of a person walking backwards and forwards in front a wall for three minutes another is a single take (again three minutes) curtain blowing in the wind. I set up a context an allowed things happen from there, without trying influence the course events too much. 'Feeling in the end that this sor work was too simple and that I should get more involved in the processes film-making, I started making films that originated with an idea that I' then try film edit pseudo-Antonion impressionistic things: a girl walking across a piece waste ground, an aeroplane flies over, a train goes past she walks away. It wasn't narrative but it was still a manipulation events. I then made a fairly informal film consisting imagery weeds which was then bleached, scratched and painted on. It's very much an improvisation which happens be very beautiful to watch. Stemming from this I did a lot work rephotographing projected film and in this I've been influenced by the structural school filmmaking. 'But basically not very happy about making art-type films that aren't doing much more than maintaining the illusion that a capitalist society can continue to function as it is. I decided some time ago to involve myself in mor directly political activity, using whatever talents I might have as a film-make to that end. There was a film for the Claimant Union about unemploymentI was unemployed myself the time which has been shown their meetings. It's one very long shot people standing outside the labour exchange with an almost subliminal editing in every four seconds imagery to with wealthconsumer goods, Rolls Royces driving down streets and so on. The soundtrack is simply an unemployed person talking about the difficulties he was facing being unemployed. The aim wasn't to make a political statement (Liberation Films criticized the film for that reason) rather to provide a catalyst for discussion. And as such it worked very well the meetings, sparking off a lot talk.
think that the kind film that attempts to make a general political statement tends to be about politics rather than a political film becomes just another kind cultural product. It's important that the film deal with a very specific situation - say a strike in a factory be shown the people involved in that strike, so that it functions as part that strike. Although I've my previous type film-making I' most in fact reverted recently interested in contin uing in thi sort area, bu it's a problem, finding other people to work with.' Interview by John Du Cane,
Time OUI, 30
June
1972
Each film is a true experiment in the sense that the most useful features are those aspects that are failures. Th direction that my work takes is mor e likely to be affected by tangential results than any other. Each time I make a film 1 see it as a kind hypothesis, a questioning statement, rather than a flat assertion any particular form idea. Three years ago I was making poetic imagist film-statements. No I see myself as a ttemp ting to re-investigate re-create the film medium which 1 used then unconsciously. Each film a film experiment in the sense that the most attractive features are those that work. My films ar ot about ideas, aesthetics, systems, mathematics, but ar about film, film-making, film-viewing, an the interaction intervention intentive self-conscious reas oning activity in that context. 2.
Programme notes. International Avant-Garde Festival. National Film Theatre. London. 1973
3. Stiff Life lI'ith Pear. 1974.
Still Life's, painterly preconceptions, space, flatness, context, movement, progressive reformalisation in fluid contexts. A still life with a pear, lighted in a darkened space. he camera is focussed. and after remaining in the first position for on minute is moved to right left every thirty seconds according to a prerecorded set instructions. Centre section in which the pear is eaten. Third section in which the first instructions are repeated, with the addition a second person who eats the still life, the camera uses the instructions as basis for action, attempting to adapt them to the obstructive presence the second person. A second soundtrack is added to the first in which the cameraman describes the actual actions that the camera makes. which Th film operates dialectically, in that prior structu re was arrived denotes the operations be performed by the camera cameraman, and this. during the course the film, interacts with the variables the filming situation. A synthesis results which is a result these two elements, and which
was arrived during the course the film. The intention in this film was deal with the act intention initiate a film, the prior structure for filming was limited a simple time-base, the other factors renders the process as we l as the distortion this as a result elements involved perceptible. Catalogue notes, Knokke 5th Experimental Film Festival
. I have been interested over the last year in the use continuously recorded location sound as a means rendering the visual element opaque, nd subvert its representat ional role (in the illusionist sense) he use sound in this way produces a dialectic between what is seen what is ot seen, reflecting on the formalizing intent an its interactions within the initial filming situation. Th visual information corrects is re-corrected by the continuously renders assumptions about reprerecorded sound sentational correspondence visible (both figuratively literally). Th difference between continuous discontinuous, an two forms discontinuous recording systems without element precise synchronization between the two, an yet used in conjunction with one another, generates the basis for a critique an analysis the immediate recording situation. he intention is to produce a film which records, is recorded recording i F the process is ot effaced within the content; the content is not effaced within the process. On Still Life
Il'itil
Pear, Bristol Independent British Cinema Festival. 1975
PAUL SHARITS
Notes on Films Paul Sharits General Statement: 4th International Film Festival. Knokke Le Zoute
tempted to use this occasion to say nothing all and simply let my films function as the carriers themselves except that this would be perhaps too arrogant and, more important , a good deal my ar does not, in fact, 'contain itself.' is difficult for me to verbalize about 'my intentions' with the 'films' intentions' and with the 'viewers' intentions'. This has nothing to do with 'pleasing an audience' - I mean to say that my cinema flashes projected light initiate neural transmission as much as they are analogues such transmission systems and that the human retina is as much a 'movie screen' as is the screen proper. At the risk sounding immodest, by re-examining the basic mechanisms motion pictures and by making these fundamentals explicitly concrete, I feel as though I am working toward a completely new conception cinema. Traditionally, 'abstract films, because they are extensions the aesthetics and pictorial principles painting or are simply demonstrations optics, are no more cinematic than narrative-dramatic films which squeeze literature and theatre onto a twodimensional screen. I wish to abandon imitation and illusion and enter directly into the higher drama of: celluloid, two-dimensional strips; individual rectangular frames; the nature sprockets and emulsion; projector operations; the three-dimensional light beam; environmental illumination; the two-dimensional reflective screen surface; the retinal screen; optic nerve and individual psycho-physical subjectivities consciousness. In this cinematic drama, light is energy rather than a tool for the representation non-filmic objects; light, as energy, is released to 'create' its own objects, shapes and textures. Given the fact retinal inertia and the flickering shutte mechanism film projection, one may generate virtual forms, create actual motion (rather than illustrate it), build actual colour-space (rather than picture it), and be involved in actual time (immediate presence). While films have thematic structures (such as the sense striving, leading to mental suicide and death, an d then rhythms rebirth in Ray un Virus and the viability sexual dynamics as an alternative to destructive
violence in Piece Mandala/End War), they re all stories. I think present work as being occasions fo meditational-visionary experience.
my
Piece Mandala/End War
This work was made for films the general th eme which was anthology to be Life, Against the War; the film was completed in time be eligible for inclusion in that anthology its ow as thus stands statement that theme. Piece Mandala is narrative drama; instead it is meant to provide a short but intense meditative experience. 'Meditative' implies suspension linear time an spatial direction; circularity simultaneity re basic characteristics mandalas, th most effective tools for turning perception inward. In this temporal mandala, blank colour frequencies space white images an optically feed into black on love-making gesture which is seen simultaneo usly from both sides its space its time. Colour structure is linear-directional implies a nd both ends larger infinite cycle; light-energy image frequencies induce rhythms related the psychophysical experience the creative act cunnilingus. Conflict an tension are natural to a yin/yang universe atomic structure, yabjyum an other dynamic equilibrium systems make more cosmic sense as conflict models than the destructive orgasms th United States is presently having in Vietnam. what I was actually doing while making (More truthfully, I had no idea Piece Mandala. My wife been separated I began the film immediately following reconciliation; since then, in unending attempt to understand what the film might mean, we have come to understand that that search - an then, the m - has bee the deepest significance in the reconstruction of our marriage. Only recently in Providence, while travelling with the poet David Franks, after awaking from nightmares writing the following note to Frances, did it become clear me that the film is properly dedicated her: 'seeing, last, your mind as it must be times in unend urable angu ish, a series events leading to that sense self as burden, artaud making it, misery, saw your minding such in my ow horror, shocked, shaking my head to get a feeling for what is dream what is not, my head a crazy catal ogue images, classical symbols cartoons grief - bu it is no always so it is that lack it which has to stand fo in the absence blessings there are, in rare instances, blessings yo re often there those places I have a total sense sense yo "are" absolutely cream, having step plastic flowers, my mind bursting, blossoming someday I w l tell you my dreams when it is quiet more willing to let the tragic have its due warmth that comes later; now content that my dreams were dreams.' N:O:
T:
I:
From an Application for a Grant
film will strip away anything (all present definitions 'something') standing in the way the film being its reality, anything which would
Th
prevent the viewer from ent ering totally new level awareness. The theme the work, if it can be called a theme, is to deal with the non-understand able, the impossible, in a tightly an precisely structured way. The film will not 'mean' 'some'-thing t wi 'mean', in a very concrete way, 'no'-thing. The film focuses concentr ates on two images an their highly linear but illogical images an their highly linear ut illogical and/or inverted development. The major image is that a lightbulb which first retracts its light rays; upon retracting its light, the bulb becomes black and, impossibly, lights the space around it. Th bulb emits one burst black light begins melting; the end the film the bulb is a black puddle at the bot tom the screen. The other image (notice that the fil is composed, all levels, dualities) is that a chair, seen against a graph-like background, falling backwards onto the floor (actually, it falls against affirms the edge th picture frame); this image sequence occurs in the centre, 'thig Ie' section The mass the film is highly vibratory colour-energy :O:T:H:I:N rhythms; the colour development is partially based on the Tibetan Mandala the Five Dhyani Buddhas which is used in meditation to reach the highest level inner consciousness - infinite, transcendental wisdom (symbolized by Vairocana being embraced by the Divine Mother Infinite Blue Space). This formal-psychological composition moves progressively into more intense vibration (t hrough the symbolic colours white, yellow, re green) until the centre the mandala is reached (the centre being the 'thig Ie' void point, containing all forms, both the beginning en consciousness). The second half the film is, in a sense, the inverse the first that is, after one has passed through the centre the void, he may return to a normative state retaining the richness the revelatory 'thig Ie' experience. The virtual shapes I have been working with (created by rapid alternations patterns blank colour frames) ar quite relevant in this work as is indicated by this passage from the Svetasvatara Upanishad: 'A you practise meditation, you may see in vision forms resembling snow, crystals, smoke, fire, lightning, fireflies, the sun, the moon. These are signs that you are on your way to the revelation Brahman.' am no
all interested in the mystical symbolism Buddhism, only in its strong, intuitively developed imagistic power. In a sense, I am more interested in the mantra because unlike the mandala and yantra forms which are full such symbols, the mantra is often nearly pure nonsense yet it has intense potency psychologically, aesthetically physiologically. The mantra used upon reaching the 'thig Ie th Mandala the Five Dhyani Buddhas is the simple ' a m ' a steady vibrational hum. I've tried to compose the centre one level, to visualize this auditory effect. :O:T:H:I:N From a letter to Stan Brakhage, late spring 1968: 'The film is "about" (it is) gradation-progression on many different levels; for years I had been thinking that if a fade is directional in that it is a hierarchical progression, that that exists in implies forward moving "time", then why couldn't one construct inverse time patterns, why couldn't one structure a felt awareness really going through negative time During the final shooting sessions these past few
months I've had Vermeer's "Lady Standing at the Virginals" hanging above animation stand an have had the most peculiar experience wit that work in relation to N:O:T: H:I:N:G (the colons "meant" to create somewhat the sense the real yet paradoxical concreteness "nothing" as Wittgenstein so beautifully reveals). As I began recognize the complex interweaving "gradation" (conceptually, sensually, rhythmically, prop ortio natel levels even the metaphoric level subject mak ing music, etc.) in the Vermeer I began to see what I was doing in the film in a more conscious way. I allowed the feelings I was getting from this silent dialogue between process seeing and process structuring to further clarify the footage I was shooting. can't get over the intense mental-emotional journeys I got into with this work an hope that the film is powerful enough to allow others to travel along those networks. 'Light comes through the window on the left an only illuminates the "Lady the Virginals" illuminates the subjects in the two paintings (which are staggered in a forward-reverse simultaneous progression - creat ing a sense forward backward time) hanging on the wall the one painting on the inside lid the virginal! he whole composit ion is circular, that circle exists folds in on itself but implies that part in front th surface. What really moved me was the realization that the light falling across the woman's face comp ounded the light-gradation-time theme by forcing one back on the awareness (the paradox of) awareness. I.e., one eye, itself dark, is half covered with light while the other eye is in shadow; both eyes are gazing directly at the viewer as if the woman is projecting music the viewer throug her gaze (as if reversing the "normal" role "perception I mean, the whole point is that the instrumen t by which light-perception is made possible is itself in the dark.' POSTSCRIPT: Interrelated proportions welded into a formula consisting terms, some known an some unknown, some which were equal th rest; rath er al which taken together are equal to nothing; for this is often the best form to consid er' Descartes.
Notes on Word Movie Gidal
Seems be about the impossibility two systems (speech vision) working once, the impossibility a coherent, rational, logical system language (especially when fused with vision). So a sense what he is concerned with is a negation the traditional notion logics, truth, rationality, intellectual certainty. The soundtrack is two people, a man and a woman, speaking totally clear, rational functional statements, bu alternating one word apiece, are driven attempt to clarify what each or one, at least) is saying it is nearly impossible to keep one's verbal capacities 'focussed' on person without letting the other's statement interfere. At the same time there is a visual treatment which is many words in no apparent logical order which in turn interferes with the listening/comprehending capacity are using. An the varying colours/tonali ties the background to the letraset-words makes for again a nuance difference in response to what are presented with. whole thing is very short (due to lack the main element film-in-depth: duration) it does manage make the point (rather humorously, I might add). In fact most philosophy has this element humour except that most philosophers don't notice it. They don't seem to notice that their apparently r ational attitudes interpretat ions are usually least 50 per cent right best thus 50 per cent wrong also. As Becket said, in reference to Christ nd the two thieves: 'One was spared, one was not. a bad percentage.' Funny the same time, these obsessive, neurotic philosophers (noble though they be !), tryin to grasp everything nd in reality setting forth tiny, limited theories which encom pass little more than their own individualistic fears an hopes therefore the humour and the pathos their attempts. An Sharits' fi is doing a similar thing; it is the shortness the venture that points the humorousness, the obviousness (and th humour his approach at the same time as we see that he is paradox) totally serious in what he is trying to present. Affirmation the impossibility affirming clearly, rationally, either image spoken word spoken word visualised (on screen). Sharits here deals with impuri ty, impossibility non-interference various levels perception (visual, verbal, etc., etc.) Notes on Film. London College
Printing. April 1972
VID CROSSW AITE
Notes on Crosswaite's films Peter Gidal
Films numbered 'I', '2', '3/, 'A', '. Crosswaite, like the best English film-makers, ca be labelled a 'st ructu ralis t', though this definition limits severely the various aesthetic concepts work. 'Film No is a ten minute loop film. Th systems superimposed loops mathematically interrelated in a complex manner. he starting an cut-off points for each loop are not clearly exposed, sequences in different colours, through repetitions in different material realities (i.e. negative, positive, bas-relief, neg/pos overlay) yet in a constant rhythm (both visually and on the soundtrack hum), one work the system-structure On relates to the is manipulated to attemp repetitions in such a way that ne concentrates working the serial formula while visually experiencing (and enjoying) the film the same time. the superimposed loops is made alternating mattes, so that th ne screen is broken up into four more less equal rectangles which, anyone moment, two three are blocked (matted). Th matte-positioning is rhythmically structur ed, thus allowing each the two represented images flickeringly appear in only ne frame-corner a time. This rhy thm powerfully strengthens the film's existence as selective reality manipulated by the filmmaker and exposed as such. Th mattes are slightly 'off; there is no perfect mechanical fit, so that the process the physical matte-construction by the film-maker is constantl y noticeable, as one matte (at times different hue different colour) blends over the edge th matte next to it (horizontally vertically). The film deals with permutations material, in a prescribed manner, but one by no means necessary logical (except within the film's own constructed system/serial). The process looping a given image is already using film for its structu ral and abstract power rather than for a conventional narrative 'content'. But it is the superimposition the black mattes which gives the film its extremely rich texture, an which separates it from so many other, less complex, looptype films. Crosswaite works, in this film, with two basic images: Piccadilly night a shape which suggests moment s a 3-D close-up a flowerlike organic growth a Matisse-like abstract 2-D cutout. Depending on the colour dy he positive/negative th particular film-segment an
interchange, the object changes shading an constantly re-forms from one dimension to the other, while shifting perceptions from its reality as 3dimensional re-presentation its reality as cutout filling the film-frame with jagged edged blackness. Utilizing the same principal aesthetic concerns, Crosswaite's Film No.2 has as its ostensible subject Buster Keaton, filme refilmed off 8mm, off a screen, again mathematically (though not linearly simplistically) structured he dyeing the film in colours is never set a pattern suggesting some sort logical progression constancy; first reacts as if this were the case (colour on the contrary, the viewer only narrative), bu eventually is forced to realise deal with the film's colours for what they are an not in terms ultimate 'design' 'purpose'. The films are non-climactic. Programme notes, National Film Theatre, London, September
1973
Puddle
Film
In 1968 David Crosswaite made his 8mm film Puddle. serves as the basis for his A Film in 1971. Puddle deals with the given subject (a minimal transitory one, as unsubstantial essence as possible) in a variety ways. Crosswaite utilises the camera-mechanism for inherent possibilities f/stop (light) film-speed variances. Clouds are reflected in the mirror-like 'subject' the film: water. Grey clouds in grey water on gre ground on grey film. Th clouds move at various speeds from left frame-edge to right frame edge. Th frame is a stable (static) enclosure the film's ostensible content, motion combine ut th holl' is much more relevant than th 11'hat. Speeds with changing light-intensity in manner which makes the film the axis tw inconstant (manipulated) variances: time an light. he emotional conceptual tension (if such a separation indeed exists) relies on structural combinations these obviously manipulated mechanistic functions. Various just repetitions above-mentioned procedure endure: the film consists that, as well as a pigeon by the puddle reflected (right side up is the film upside down?). Th constructed nature the event, in duration, plus the blatant 'documentary' (deadpan) stare makes for a film which is both procedurally experimental (and interesting as such) an cinematically matur e. Film (1971) develops along these lines simplifies these intentions into four basic, rhetorical devices; right side up negative, right side up positive, upside down negative, upside down positive. Th newer film is more didactic, simplified, and each segment is handled in a cooler, greyer tonality wherein positive greyness an negative greyness become virtually indistinguishable. All the while, with gentleness an irony, the pigeon (five years after the 8mm version, the pigeons an the puddle look the same) walks along the bottom frame-edge various speeds (depending camera-speed), reflected in th water, closing the between pseudo-objective empiricism (i.e. 'real' information) material reality, the actual film formed from humour the closest analogy would be conceptualised 'intuition'. (In terms Joyce Wieland's similarly indefinable funny superb little relativistic film Sailboat 967).) Crosswaite's Puddle an A Film as well as his brilliant Film No. (1970) situate themselves squarely between the r equirements a formal concretely abstractionist cinema rhythm and (dis-)continuity constructed str uctural minimalism. From an article in
Ar
and Artis/s, December 1972
PETER KUBELKA
Interview with Peter Kubelka Jonas Mekas
About the Irrelevancy
this Interview
Jonas Mekas: Should we con centrat cen trat e specifi specifical cally ly on your latest film, Unsere Afrikareise. should we also talk about the European avant-garde? Peter Kubelka: Kubelka: No cannot talk about the European film avant-garde at all, because there is nothing there that I respect. When you transcribe this interview, you should state that nothing I say has anything to with my
film films. s. I have, I fee feell a very gre at need to comm unicat uni cate. e. I work wor k hundre hun dreds ds hundreds hours for on particular minute in my films, I could never produ ce such a minu te by talking. I want, therefore, th erefore, my talk to be completely irrelevant. Because, otherwise, it might just spoil what I have to say through my films. The real statement that I want to make in my world is my films. Everything else else is irrelevant. Jonas: You mean, there is nothing that we can say about Unsere Afrikareise all? Films
Documents for the Future Generations Generations
Kubelka: Yes, we can talk. There are certain things that could be said. instance: What I had in mind, with Unsere Afrikareise. was to leave a docu ment for the future generations, when all all this life will be over thou ght this this is is a document. course, it may seem like a poem. course, it has very lyrical form - ut this is document, too. My film is document for future generations.'" There is nothi ng that has to t o be said with it. just can't be said. interesting that Andy War hol , too , considers his his f lms lms - even even fil films ms like Sleep as documents for the future generations. Once he said to me: films ms made mad e in the year 1266 1266 a f Wouldn't it be great today to have fil his ass, to see how differently people looked man's shoulder, for instance, 700 years ago.
Jonas:
is
• All italics mine. Editor.
Did he say that? Yes. It's true. Then there is a second thing that would like to say. I work for this living generation. I want to help in aging mankind, mank ind, to get it it away from the s tone ton e age age Make it adult. adu lt. I fee fee that mankind stilll a very very young child child - if you can make such a compar ison. ison . I f that th is stil age mankind now is that a very young you ng child example, it just begins to be articulate. These are the first stages where it's articulate. It's beginning to have have a memory. memory. Histor H istor is very young. What we call call history hist ory is ot history but very very subjective stat ements emen ts single beings and not right all, very mystic mysterious. Mankind is no just in the process growing up a little bit, slowly, slowly, slow slowly. ly. My film filmss have hav e a function funct ion (this goes for the th e African Afric an film film)) - I play with the emotions and try to tear the emotions loose from the people, so that they would would gain distance to their th eir emotions, their thei r own feelin feelings. gs. Thi is on my main tasks: task s: to get distance to the whole existence, you se I have a lot distance. I always had it, I have much, so I feel very lonely an I want to communicate. You see, you have this whole range emotions an these mechanisms, how the emotions are created. When you see certain images hear certain sounds you have certain emotions. So I must always cry when I see moving scenes, when I see the hero getting the first prize for the biggest round and they play the national anthem I have to cry when they bury somebody, I have to cry. cry. the same time, I am angry at myself, because I know that it's jus t the emotion emot ion al mechanism. So, with the Africa n fil fil , I do a lo this, I trigger a lot those mechanisms the same time create a lot at the the same time - comic fee feeli ling ngs, s, sa feelings. Kubelka:
The Multiple Meanings
Image and Sound
in
Unsere Afrikareise
Jonas: Like Like the lion's lion' s deat h scene, scene, when they ar dragging him
on the truck I thin think k t the saddest scenes I have ever seen. death th is on gi e - they they ar both very sad. They are pulling this poor dead lion an it's difficult to pull him it is a very sad shot. An the giraffe dies, falling on his side, and we hear this laugh, like sides splitting from laughing, 'm dying these multi-level feelings. This is achieved through the perfect synchronization the music, did you notice that? Jonas: Yes. Kubelka: They move all in rhythm. There are many things that ar ot noticeable on first few viewings at all. Jonas: Or the eye, when the dying lion lifts his eye and looks directly into the camera accusingly and forgivingly and then dies. there is a great moment cinema. this is one. Economy
in
Cinema: Frame
Frame Film-making
Did you hear the music? When the lion looks the camera, the music says (he sings): 'You look me, I watch thee .' s co es together, then. And this brings up the question economy. When you have the public sitting there, you have a very short time that they re looking at you,
you must consider that the senses the people now are the senses senses th stone age: age: hunte rs gatherers. They just have the th e senses survive. Human beings are not in a position to sit be interested. All their senses have survival reasons. reasons. So you mus count on the audience, audie nce, which sits there and il only be attentive things that they are vitally vitally interested in they will give you just a certain amount time. time. So, when you really really want to commun icate, you mu st be very very economical with every part, and with every second. me film is the projection still still frames. frames. My economy econo my is one single frame every part the screen. I feel that every frame that is projected much makes the whole thing less less articulate. I always work in frames. Even the African film, which doesn't seem be like that, because it's very natural, is worked frame by frame. I have twenty-four communication possibilities per second, don't want to waste one. This is the economy. An the same is with the sound. soun d. Because Because one th major field fieldss where cinema cinem a wor ks is when when soun image meet. So, the meeting every frame with the sound is very important. That means, you must have the same economy with sound as you have with the image. suppos e, on reasons this way: Ifwe accept the proposition that Jonas: Let us suppose, are still still in the stone age, if we now say something these stone-age people in a sentence that is so concentrated distilled, that every sound, every word, every letter in it means something you think they will understand it? Isn't it better to divide the message that you want to put across into in to five five sentences? So that they would wou ld get it, in the th e long run? Because Because you say, say, you wal}t to communicate; you don't want to waste a single frame? see, I don't make any distinction between myself others. I Kubelka: others ar e in the ston e age, age, don't say, not.' am in the stone age as well as the others. So, if it works for me, it should work for everybody. I see. That places everything in the proper perspective. Even Unsere Afrikareise is a stone-age product. Kubelka: Yes, I try get myself an everybody else away from the stone age. But you see, when you say that perhaps I should giv givee more time time to to people people this through repetition. I want my film to be viewed many many times. (A note in the Film-Makers Cooperative Catalogue says that, when when rented, eac Kubelka Kub elka 's film filmss should sh ould be projected twice. twice. reels, there are two prints each film spliced side by b y side - to help help the proje projectio ctionist nist.. - Jonas.)As Jonas.)As I work work a ot like many other long time on my films, I don't want to lose them, I don't artists who say, Oh I made this long ago, I have overcome it, an like it anymore. I ca still see all my films, even the very first one. Everything that ry an must be so clear an
When
is
a Film Completed?
Jonas: Yes, we find this in cinema very often. Film-makers dislike
ar indifferent their early work. But find this in poetry, for instance. A don't find poet ca write a poem, it somewhere, come back it ten years later, after four volumes volumes his his poems have come out, an say, Isn't it fantastic? Did
comma I write it? It's so perfect. he may change a wor two. But no in cinema. Th cinema doesn't yet have its working t radition is still ful that all kinds inhibitions nd paranoias: You can't this, you can't The tradition in poetry is that the poet perfects his poem before he lets it go, even if it takes his lifetime - bu in cinema. In cinema, the release time is dictated more by festivals than perfection. I think there is something more to your concentrated messages than th wish to communicate. I think always have two kinds artists: the emotion the intellect, reason. You are on the side intellect reason; Jack Smith is on the side emotion. In your art, everything has to have a 'reason able' meaning, otherwise yo don't it in. Jack, he may it in, even if he doesn't see the meaning, he may feel ther is something it anyway because it's beautiful. Even Brakhage is more emotion than intellect, despite his Irritings, Irhich are dominated intellect although am so sure about that either. Kubelka: I have been in this sense, always very naive. I consider myself a naive artist. primitives? Jonas: So what are the others? Th others What di we talk about? What would they like Kubelka: Yes know? Jonas: don't know. My trouble is that don't want know much about anything. I prefer to make things look things. But to some people it's helpful. I guess, I also a garbage collector. Kubelka: You think there is something in the African film that could talk about? Jonas: I have seen it only four times, so Kubelka: Twelve times is the beginning Whenever I say something about my own work, I am always taken very seriously, because I the person who says it. And I don't want that at all. I mean, what I say must be taken as a sort chattering in the evening ut as a statem ent go with my films. I want my films to be just alone. course, I very happy if someone else says something. I have so many layers meanings in my films that, course, when I talk about on two meanings, they may thi nk that all the others are not important, an less don't want to give more weight to one layer the other.
On Editing and o
HOI\'
The Frames 'Hit the Screen' on Metric Rhythm
Jonas: It's interesting that the films that yo
brought back from the West
coast are going into the same direction as yours. Like Bruce Lane's fi is no doubt, still very naive, ut its language has already a degree condensation crispness that stands out. Another similarity: It' edited film. You have noticed, probably, that the West coas t film-maker in general, are more interested in post-shooting editing than those the East coast. They edit their films. There was a discussion, the New York Film Festival, Annette Michelson said that Brakhage's cinema way making films is like an
extension abstract expressionism, like De Kooning; that his art is ot structured, etc.; it's action filming. An I said, at that time, that Brakhage's structuring his films takes place inside him he has worked on it for many many years o now his camera like an extension his body and governed by the inner structuring really, emotion, mind, an intuition blend together, an th hard work is ot always the editing structuring tableSongs were structured in the camera. Brakhage did ot begin his life as an artist the moment he pushed that 8m button e has b n working on himself for years an years. Don't you think his method is a complete opposite your method? Kubelka: I esteem Brakhage's work very highly. And, for him, that 's enough. But, for the imitators, it's no enough. It may not even be always enough for him. Jonas: But then, Dog Star Man is an 'edited' il Kubelka: I think Brakhage is very concerned with construction. He edits. I hope I have inspired him toward this, I would very much like to see what comes out. He has inspired me very much in what concerns his EYES, his EYES what comes through the lens, how he leads his lens. Really, it's something. He's an eye-opener, so to say. This is a very interesting problem. Because even if you don't edit the film, the precision an the economy might be there. It might be I mean the person who makes it has really the power to be articulate. ll the same, I feel ca more when I compress my material. I like these concentrates. You e, there is a very essential point for me: I always want t o enjoy what I do. I look thousands times at what I do. I want to give to myself these very very rich seconds, an I enjoy these minutes very much. There must be a lot essential pleasure just in the f lms when they hit the screen - I heard this expression yesterday, hit the screen,' that's fantastic, in English. Hit the screen - thi is really what the frames do. Th projected frames hit the screen. example, when you let the projector ru empty, you hear the rhythm. There is a basic rhythm in cinema. I thin k ver few film-makers - if there ever was one, don't wthe basic rhythm, these ve departed ma king films from this feeling twenty-four impulses the screen - brrhumm it's a very metric rhythm thought, the other day, that I am the only one wh ever made metric films, lI'ith metric elements. These three films, A debar, Schwechater, an Rainer, ar metric films. You know what I mean by metric? It's the German expression 'Metrisches System'. Th e classic music, for instance, has whole notes an half notes, and quarter notes. frames as notes, the time sections that I have seventeenths no thirteenths, but I have in my films. I mean, I have sixteen frames, eight frames, nd four frames, nd ix frames - it's a metric rhythm. example, people always feel that my films are very even an have no edge and do no break apart are equally heavy the beginning an at the end. This is because the harmony spreads the unit the frame, th the second, depart from this ground rhythm, from the twentyfour frames, which you feel, which you always feel. Even when you see film by DeMille, you feel it prrrrr as it goes the screen.
On the Essence
Cinema
Jonas: Some people say, Cinema is Movement; some others say, Cinema is Light. you have anything to say on the 'essence' cinema? Kubelka: Cinema is not movement. This is the first thing. Cinema is ot movement. Cinem is a projection stills - which means images whic do ot move in a very quick rhythm. And you can give the illusion movement, course, but this is a special case, an the film was invented originally for this special case. But, as often happens, people invent something, and, then, they create quite a different thing. They have created something else Cinema is not movement. It can give the illusion movement. Cinema is the quick projection light impulses. These light impulses can be shaped when you the film before the lamp - on the screen you can shape it. talking now about silent film. You have the possibility to give light a dimension in time. This is the first time since mankind exists that you can really do that. talk about the essence cinema, it's a very complex thing. course, when you ask what's the essence music, you ca say one thing, an another, an another - he are many things in cinema. On is this great fascination that light has on man. course, cinema is still very flimsy, a pale thing, it passes quickly, and so on - but still, as weak as it is, i is a very strong thing, an it has a great fascination just because you can do something with the light. Then: It's in time. It can be conserved, preserved. You can work for years and years and rodu e s I do e m a concentrate in time, and, ever since mankind existed, you never could do such a thing. And then - sound. Th meeting sound an image. And we come to this problem: Where doe film become articulate? When does a language become articulate? Language becomes articulation when you one word and another word. One word alone is one word alone, but, when you pu two words, it's between the two words, so to speak, that is your articulation. And, when you three words, it's between one two, between two three, and then there is also relation between one and three, bu two in between. Jonas: For Eisenstein it was collision, to you it's It's Be/ll'een Frames Where Cinema Speaks
Yes, it can be a collision. it could be a very weak succession. There are many many possibilities. It's just that Eisenstein wanted to have collision that's what he liked. But what I wanted to say is: Where i , then, the articulation cinema? Eisenstein, for example, said it's the collision two shots. But it's very strange that nobody ever said that it's not between shots but between frames. It's between frames where cinema speaks. And then, when you have a roll very weak collisions between frames - this is what I would call a shot, when one frame is very similar to the next frame, an the next frame, the next frame, the next frame, the next frame the result that you get when you have just a natural scen you film it this would be a shot. But, in reality, you can work with every frame. Jonas: In Afrikareise, you ha this shot, you see a river behind the trees, the Kubelka:
trees, and whatever animal there is, in the river, slowly rising, a small action spot behind the trees, and nothing else really happe ns - it was the longest shot in the film, it went for something like ten seconds. Almost a Warhol shot Kubelka: Yes, the crocodile shot. But this was on purpose. You see, I broke up this thing with Schwechater. Th Schwechater was the first film that worked with the event the frame. Schwechater film is very strong, strong, very strong optical event. And what is it? Just people drinking beer. Jonas: Have you seen Len Lye's fifty-second automobile commercial? Nothing happens there either, except that it's filled with some kind secret action cinema. Kubelka: Yes, I saw it in 1958 Schwechater was finished already by then. And then, this feeling, I never lost this frame-by-frame film-making. Also in the Rainer, I did it. And in the Afrikareise. But what I wanted in Afrikareise was to create a world th at had the greatest fascination on the specta tor possible. This world ha d to be very naturalistic, so that you could really identify and enter it It's, therefore, that I want a big screen for it, so you can see the blood and the elephants and the wome the Negro flesh and all the landscapes. This was one thing. And the other thing was that I wanted to have it so controlled as if made myself an I achieved that through this immense, ad painted it immense, long work thousands of hours of cataloguing the whole material practically frame by frame. So there is this continuous correspondence between sound and image. After you see the film twelve twenty times, then you notice that practically every optical event corresponds to the acoustic event. The Sound in Unsere Afrikareise Jonas: Even that ten-second shot where we have
how many frames do we have? Almost 500 frames after the fifth and sixth time, I may be noticing the sound, what it does, because as it was now, the first four times, I was watching most the time the image the At least, I have no memory sounds in that scene. Kubelka: Yes, there is sound. You hear the shot, and it makes a 'pulf' and misses the crocodile. But a bird flies. And then the man says: 'Geh!' He is disappointed an amazed, you see. Then it makes again PUFF and hen h hits, you see the crocodile is hit, he says also!' that is, 'Oh, finally!' also,' which could mean, if translated, 'Finally, you did it.' 'Nun also,' And he says it in a very it could be meant for a completely different event. Like, for example, the zebra is hit mortally, an you hea r a woma n's voice who says 'Auu!' as if a mosquito had just given her a little bite. Jonas: Yes, I noticed that. I think it was during the third viewing that I really noticed that, it was very funny, an sad. Kubelka: But there are many hun dreds such things. I never want to make a funny scene, a sad scene I always ve these I want them very complex, never one single feeling many many feelings always. So, course, it's funny, and, then, it's no t funny all, because, for the zebra, it's a tragedy, and you pity her. Then you have that other scene. Before the zebra appears, you
ha ve this mysterious, my miracle shot the moon where you see first this long fruit, brown, an it has a very phallic form, then it dissolves (but it's not a dissolve, it's just changing focus) into the moo n, this beautiful white moon, and then you hear this voice the everything-knowing German professor something that says 'Die Erde', 'The earth'. But it's ot the earth, it's the moon! And then b oth say, in cho rus 'Die Erde ist terra,' ("Earth means terra y bring in their Latin then, when you hear 'terra', t you e the terra, you see the dying zeb ra lying on the terra. Yo see then the real terra, then. It's black and grey an burned. nd they shoot the zebra for the sixth time, because zebras die, you have to shoot them many times, because they have such a hard life, you see. An then she (zebra) says: 'Auu.' And the man says: 'Aufstehen!' 'get up!' this is a reminiscence th Bible, I often have such references Jonas: Lazarus? Kubelka: Yes. It's exactly that. I have something like that in my first film also. The voice says, 'Ste geh!' meaning 'Rise an walk'. And then he says something about Jesus, he says, 'Ich bin auch nu ein Beamter,' which means 'I am also nothing but an employee'. I don't know, it's very difficult to talk about that, but it has to do with my childhood, my Bible reading, Jesus, what he did, an so on, I always imagined him as an employee his Fathe r, an so he says so in this film. Also, in the African film, there are some things that relate to the Bible in image meaning. On is this 'Aufstehen'. The Control
the Colour, and the Moments
Standstill
Jonas: The brown, clay colour the m - was this the colour the actual footage, or did you do something to it? Kubelka: Yes. I wanted a sort monochrome through the whole thing. Sometimes I break it up. I make this very yellow grass when you see the Negroes walk, where the Negroes walk Jonas: Yes, that beautiful yellow. You made it that way? Kubelka: Yes. This is like another world, then. In my films, there are moments when everything st ands still. This is a very important thing for me. This is in all films. Some films as a whole ar e like that. These ar moments escape, from the burden existence, so to say moments where you are ot human, nor something e - not an angl something, but just Out, out of it, an when nothing happens, an nothing leads to this, an this leads to nothing, and there is no tension, so on. This is the scene in the African ilm where just the Negroes walk. First, you have the Negroes walk, arid you have the Austrians laughing, prod ucing this incredible laught er, the Negroes don't notice them, they just walk an walk in this yellow grass. nd then, overpowered something by this thing, the laughter ceases, and, then, you hear nothing anymore,just few birds quacking the Negroes continu walking, and, then, it's silent, an they walk on walk, one from the left, one from the right so this is on those moments. ou remember that? Jonas: Yes.
Kubelka: It has reason - you understand does nothing for the story; it doesn't say anything; I cannot sa what I really mean with that, but these moments are the biggest achievements for me these are the moments that fascinate me always when I watch the films. In my first film, the moment is love scene where this rather heavy guy with a cigar says, wirst mir schon noch verfallen' ('Yo u'll fall for me'), the girl watches him. And, then, later in the film, you see them agai n, an the voice says, 'Verfallen.' And then there he says again: 'Verfallen!' Th other such moment is is another shot, where this mannequin turns around, an this fat ma comes in, they watch each other. And, for example, this, I can't speak all, but these moments you can only create when you have this huge thing around them. But, for example, films such as Schwechater are such moments as a whole. When you watch the Schwechater. I mean, it has absolutely classical tension that goes up down. Then, it doesn't say anything, it say nothingbecause what you see are people drinking beer something like that really, what is th Schwechater film? yet, it fills you very don't know. much. Since I work on my films for such a long time, I always make my films ho you say 'Geru est'? the thing that holds the house maybe sort 'skeleton' somethin which I can hang onto something sustaining life-keeping. Th Rainer is very much like that. it was fantastic in Los Angeles; you should have seen this, really. Because they ha very powerful loudspeakers. Jonas: Was this the Cinema Theatre? Kubelka: Yes. They ha a screen as large as a house, they had these powerful loudspeakers. Th sound was like Niagara Falls, so loud incredible, it was fantastic - an the lights, so strong this was really the event be. with this element Here it comes, this fascination that I wanted it sound An light have this element and, then, be able to create a rhythmic const ructi on with sound image, which is so precise, frames a second - this gives me an incredible feeling. By the way, for Schll'echater. my model, so to say, was running water, a tree with thousands leaves when the wind goes through I was very concerned with these forms. Jonas: When I was watching the Rainer film, I closed my eyes, moments, I could watch it with my eyes closed, as the light rhythms pulsated an through the eyelids. On could say that th Rainer film is the only film ever made that ca be seen with your eyes closed. Kubelka: Yes, Brakhage noticed that, too. HoII' Many Films You Have to Make to he an Artist?
ow long is your total wo rk now, how many minutes? one; an six Kubelka: Twelve an a half; an a half; ne an thirteen makes thirty-four an half minutes. Jonas: That makes about two minutes a year, no?
Jonas:
a half;
Kubelka: the last fifteen years, I have been totally concentrating on cinema. I began in 1952. Yes, two minutes a year. Jonas: How many frames? 2,880 frames per year.
Kubelka: This means, less than eight frames a day. Jonas: That's plenty. Kubelka: is enough. When you really speak out, it must be enough. Eggeling spok out, an he made only five minutes in his whole life Anyhow, what I now plan is a very big thing. All your films ar 35mm? Jonas: Fifteen minutes?
Sixteell Millimetre Films Kubelka: Yes. But Afrikareise is 16mm. I convinced no that can do something in 16mm. I wasn't before. I so happy about it. th Cinema Theatre, on a large Jonas: Yo saw the Afrikareise projected theatre screen, it was good? Kubelka: Yes. the colours were much better than on 35mm. colours the negative reversal ar so much better than the negative colour, and, in 35mm, you have only negative positive. I don't think could have these colours in 35mm. Therefore, I starting my next film in 16mm. I feel now that I can some things which I always thought bu which I couldn't do. After the African film, now, it comforted me very much. I have no th whole gamut I can use. Jonas: You have really covered some ground, in your four films, from pure light, to live drama. Unsere Afrikareise conta ins, really, the dramatic cinema, novelistic cinema. could be looked as short story a f short story, because there ar characters, people they come through, each one comes Joyce's short stories. One could look it that way. through it's on On could look at it also in many other ways. Kubelka: Whatever I learned from my films is in Unsere Afrikareise. I mean, my aim has always been to get articulate with f m - because ho really is articulate? This is just the beginning. I take time my films. nd really, you don't lose time. They say, if the film isn't finished in two years, it's to late, something. I mean, when you work your whole life, and, then, you bring something that speaks it's time enough. depends on what ou is the whole thing. But, when you really want to see feel communicate, it, as long as you work , it's all right; and, when you nd when you can really it, when you finished it, it's really finished - then everything cannot is lost. thought that the African film would be finished in three months, when it began. nd then, it was five years. course, I didn't work every day, then the couldn't work ever da because I had no money - many things; founding the Film Museum came in between. But what's really tru is that, these five years, I lived always with these images. I was always concentrated this film, every day. There wasn't da when I wasn't I always lived in this film for five years. I told you already that I learned it all by hea rt, all the sound I transcribed it fi (I ha fourteen hours sounds recorded in Africa three hours film) - I stil know this whole
Learning the Film by Heart Jonas: Every sound that is in film, you kn ow it by heart - with what image it
goes Kubelka: Oh yes, course. But I know much more I know l what it was before sound nd Jonas: whatever you omitted, the whole fourteen hou rs Images Kubelka: Yes course Before I made this film, I learned it for a long time scribbled every word - so I knew every word - ut I also know the Schwechater film by heart, an everybody can know it by heart, this is something where Jonas: Like a poem Kubelka: Yes, an this is interesting thing because to learn by heart something is a very interesting thing. Th easiest thing to learn by heart are those languages that you can pro duce with your body. I mean, you can sing song, so you learn it by heart, you can hear it. can dance by heart. you an learn a poem by heart. nd you can beat the rhythm the drum by heart. An so on. But when it comes to, say, architecture thi is the interesting thi ng: can know architectu re by heart; you can know a church a skyscraper really by heart, an you can know the dimensions you don't mean the history I mean the have means transcribing it. An dimensions, you know the dimensions by heart. Jonas: your eye would have the power recreation, you could almost recreate it. As a matter fact, Mme. Blavatsky talks about it. can create anything he wants, if he knows it with his mind's eye Like they could recreate this beer ca like the actors, how they train their memory, in the Stanislavsky school you throw a f w objects from your pocket th table, for a second, then ut them back into the pocket now, describe each them Kubelka: So, the same way with my films. example, Schwechater, it's absolutely indescribable, all them are indescribable you can know them know exactly what will follow now, you see the forms. I really by heart. feel that, with cinema, are really able to make a step forward. Film is the first the synthetic arts this is like the'first automobil e it's the first art that course, the violin is also a machine, ut is made with machines. I have begun establishing a language, an tradition, an so on, and, course, I want to transmit all this to others. But what I really want other filmmakers to have is the economy, nd then the metric rhythms I would like see more film-makers working like that. Nobody really uses these rhythmic akin-to-music qualitie that the film has. example, the Schll'echater film, I might myself make other films now in this technique. It's a pity. No it's a pity. I mean, the films are there. Imitations are good. I really feel that my films, especially from A debar on, bring on step further on everything that has been done l now - because it has a greater control the materials. I don't want to say 'editi ng' more. I say 'cons truct ion'. here I think my substance is thinning October 1966. New York.
PETER GIDAL
Room Film 1973 Deke Dusinberre
ot many
the fifty-two minutes Gidal's Room Film 1973 must pass before one becomes aware a dilemma posed by the film. The film begins with an indistinct light, a light tinged blue-green. The focus sharpens, that indistinct light one recognises rumpled bed-sheets. An unsteady camera hovers briefly, then moves to examine the base a lamp an other not quite identifiable objects in varying degrees close-up in what one assumes to be the room the title. The camera movement is erratic, might almost be said to be aggravating; one gets a sense repetition, constant movement, but little direction development. Th objects remain hard to identify, an sometimes the screen offers no coherent image all. Th inability to grasp those images is the result several techniques: the extreme close-up many shots, the instability the images (due the instability the camera), the poor illumination an the los the edge the frame (both due to manipulation in the printing process), the grainines the images, the ubiquitous green tinge, and, ultimately, the loss a sense gravity (due to the combined effects extreme close-up shakiness). The inability to grasp those images also becomes the basis the aesthetic issues raised by the film The fil is almost relentless in its denial tangible images (that is, images which are easily identifiable spatially locatable). appears, instead, as periods green grey pun ctuat ed by instance light -light no only as the camera studies the ceiling light (a about 8 minutes into the film) an lamp on the mantel (at 44 minutes), also light from the pro jector during the flare-outs (roughly) 200-foot intervals throughout the film. The camer constantly moves around the room not so much, one feels, by moving through space, as by moving across surfaces. The feeling surface is evoked throughout: surface object, film, screen. The sense surface remains primary even in the one section the film which count ers th constant motion most the film; a short sequence the film was printed so that a single image (frame) is held still for several seconds, then jumps to another image which is similarly held. (This short sequence is thus stretched into one the six 200-foot sections the film.) Th overall impression is on stasis. Significantly, the images (o a desk an paraphernalia) become only a little
more coherent in this section despite the extended look each object and in spite the fact that up to this point the fundamental technique for assuring the insubstantiality the images had been the erratic moti on an erratic focu the film. But in the static sequence the extreme graininess. the los the edge the frame, the tinting (orange, rather than blue-green, in (his section), all tend to emphasize the surface the screen. So that even though the images gain a measure recognizability, they gain no substantiality. it is The play surface an substance becomes crucial to the film. no merely a film about light the absence light (the white-out ending arrives after several extended periods blackness) but about how insubstantial light can evoke substantiality. Roughly halfway through the film the image a potted plant is seen, in a close-up concentrating on the leaves. The image is recognizable and , as such, bears some (illusory) substance. But as extreme close-up alternates with one less close, the viewer loses the ability to discriminate between the plant the shadow it casts on the wall behind it: the shadow has as much visual substance as the image the object itself. This ploy is amplified when, toward the end the film, the plant is seen again close-up, with its shadow again playing an important visual role. This time. the cainera zooms into a rare medium shot to reveal a mirror. The object that object an the reflection the shadow both are situated on the same level image-substantiality within the film. Thus Room Film attempts to exploit the representational proclivitie cinematography while continually denying representation by exposing the illusion on which that representation rests. As described above, then, the film deals with the issue cinematic rather literal level; despite its concern with light as a representation primary element in that representation, Room Film 1973 is not comfortably receptive to an analysis which presents it as a neo-platonic consideration of the nature light. That critical tactic, in fact, would be typical the American critical practice which has accompanied the North American structural films. Those films are o pen to analyses which involve an ana logic principle, a principle which assumes that the structure the film serves not only to elabora te the cinematic syste representation, but also serves as an analogue for other systems meaning. Thus crucial structural films are seen as, say, an analogue for the rejuvenation vision (Tom Tom the Piper's SOil) as an analogue for a gnostic epistemology (Zorns Lemma) as a metaph or for the intentionality consciousness (Wavelength). would seem, too, that the larger traditi on American avant-garde film-making has exploited such an lo ic techniques primaril that the metaphor, in which the formal concerns film-making conflated with another perceptual epistemological philosophical problem. But what has made structural fi eminently receptive to this tradition is that their dominant shape structure automatically suggests modes organisation meaning other than purely filmic ones. This analogic strategy has enabled North American structural films to neatly supersede the dilemma posed by Room Film 1973. That dilemma
concerns the formalist aspect modernism ('formalist' is being used here in a casual, non-pejorative context to refer to films which privilege the formal concerns the medium over any content; historically, the filmic avant-garde has been generally formalist, it has become a specific concern since the ascendance the structural film). Formalism strives to render visible those formal postulates which are used 'transparently' by the dominant practice the medium. Obviously, the formal devices dominant cinema are not always completely transparent - hence 'stylization' a stylized form is ultimately subordinated to the demands the dominant practice. he formalist project formal practices which subtend the is to challenge the coherent system dominant practice and thereby challenge the organisation meaning and, ultimately, the entire system signification established by the dominant practice. It does this by separating the formal postulates from their conventional context an revealing the way in which they oper ate, the way in which they determine representation. he putative rationale for this activity is not merely to regenerate a variety representational forms, but to challenge the very ideology which founds its representation reality on that syste significa tion The dilemma which eventually arises with a rigorous formalist practice is that by making the processe representation progressively arbitrary (s that those processes become, as it were, underdetermined rather than overdetermined) it runs the risk lapsing into meaninglessness. any system meaning-making demands a differentiation - if not hierarchicisation signifiers, so that when formalism assaults that system without suggesting an alternative system, it approaches a state entropy an becomes n terms communication theory 'meaningless'. When Paul Sharits writes that such a state 'meaningless syntax' would be welcome,· it would seem to indicate a shared attitude with the axiom that the process perceiving has supplanted content. Both these propositions are suggestive; both could easily limit film to an aesthetic tautology: a film is a film. mayor may not be a strip celluloid with without images which mayor may not be ut in a projector which mayor may not be turned on, etc., etc. But to yield any insight into those· processes perception which determine cinematic presentation an representation, the formalist film must suggest another order signification in addition to the one, 'film is'. he dilemma, therefore, is that the formalist film must remain fundamentally reflexive, consistently challenging not only the dominant representational practice, ut also its own practice as that very representation is presented, nd it must represent itself in a way which is continually 'meaningful'. North American structural films thus engage in the formalist project and simultaneously assure another level meaning through the analogic approach. But recent English structural film-making is involved in an asceticising strategy which makes the formalist dilemma more urgent. That is ·Sharits, 'Words Per Pa ge:
no. 4 (Autumn 1972)
it denies the analogic tactic
attempts to literalize the levels meaning the films Th 'ascetic structural' films tend to minimize
available to analvsis both content analogic comparison by effacing without completely abandoning the representational image. They are also fundamentally 'shapeless'; the end the fil cannot be predicted, there is no 'g oal' achieved, there is no overall shape which could be metaphorically exploited to engage other issues. This trend, which has increasingly informed Gidal's mature work (notably Clouds (1969]. Bedroom (1971]. Upside Down Feature (1967--72). and Film Print [1974 ) reached its own maturation with Room Film 1973. It has already been seen how the film continually effaces the representational image. The images become tactile without really becoming sensual. Co lour, for instance, the tinting (in the later Film Print. is de-emphasized by the uniformity colour is almost eliminated through the technique using colour stock to fi black an white photographs). does Room Film 1973 have a proper beginning end, title credits; Upside DOli'll Feature signalled this shapelessness by having the title/credit placed rather arbitrarily in the body th film rather than the beginning end. Duration becomes a crucial issue in Gidal's films; by eliminating any overall shape which could provide reference points, the viewe each moment onto the film. Th emphasis on duration has is thrust back given rise, in other English films, to a valuing 'real' time - that is. maintainin g a I : I relationship between shooting tim nd projection time in an effort eliminate any possibility 'illusionist' representation time. What is interesting about Room Film 1973 is the way it has literalized viewing experience without demanding I correspondence. Gidal's specific 'structural' tactic is to the film into two-foot lengths (five seconds long, 16 fps), with splice bars clearly visible as a rhythmic device. Each five-second sequence is repeated once, so that the progression is two steps forward, one back: after the first shot, A, comes A then B, then B then C. then D (The timelessness potentially infinite repetition was presaged, again in Upside DOll'n Feature. in a sequence which showed the second -han a clock sweep over the same six seconds innumerable times.) This progression. however, is visually indistinct, an requires several viewings before it becomes apparent. This is due, again, the erratic camera movement which masks the precise repetition while suggesting a great repetitiveness as a whole. Despite the other tactics in the film which contribute to its visual impact graininess, tinting, under-illumination, loss edge frame, etc. - it is th camera- work which remains most central in determining that impact. (Similar camera-work will become even more important in Film Print as the other tactics used in Room Film 1973 become less important.) Th camera in Room Film 1973 only contributes the incoherence the imagery, but also to the incoherence space. It never constructs a discrete space; that it was shot in on room remains assumption th part the viewer. This is in steadier camera contrast to the earlier Bedroom. in which the wider shots presented a discrete space which was easily identifiable as a single room. Room
a unity space just as it Film 1973 undermines the establishment undermines (in editing) the unity time, yet it struggles to maintain th literalness the recording an viewing experience. often unfocused use th camera effectively yields a he erratic camera uninterested (or, least, disinterested) in the objects it scans. camera movement is no mechanical, as is the editing procedure, but appears almost random or arbitrary. So that the film privileges the very process configuration the image th part the recording apparatus an on th the viewer; by making the perception image the screen difficul part by rendering those images banal an almost 'meaningless', the film an rigorously reduces the semantic element forces the spectator back onto her/his own capacities for meaning-mak ing. But this very shift in the responsibility for meaning-making allows alterna te analysi the role th omnipresent camera in the film. This would suggest that the hand-held quality th camera elicits anthropomorphized analysis, that the camera opera tes as subjective eye rather than objective lens. Thus th camera could be said 'looking' in perform the function fascination rather than 'seeing' in disinterest. This questio n devolve th spectator granting either intentionality arbitrariness to the camera movement, but a more important issue centres whether no the objects viewed are intensified, ironically, through the very denial an complacent recognition them. he objects re no as neu tral as might first appear; Gidal has concentrated much his image-ma king spaces objects personal interest to him. preciousness those objects ma be understated it is never completely absent; in Room Fil 1973 the object ar mainly indistinctas opposed to Bedroom where they quite distinct a few recognizable personal possessions emerge (such as the rather esoteric Beautiful Book by Jack Smith). Simon Field has poin ted to me that Gidal's seemingly banal images would thus function pointed ly specifically; would, in fact, situate the film in conne ction with the acknowledg ed influence (on Gidal) ofthe work Beckett, in which banalized ac tion ironically intensifies the per sona drama. An elaboration this type analysis Room Film 1973 would probably posit a specific subject (Gidal) performmg a phenomenological reduction on the objects in the real world. As already noted, I remain unco nvinced that Room Fil 1973 sustain analysis like that, analysis, ultimately, the analogic order. camera movement, it has been argued, indicates arbitrariness rather than intentionality. What is interesting is that the question remains unresolved. Room Film 1973 has reformulated the initial dilemma into another order dilemma: when does the continual effacement content to reach the literal confrontation with the formalist dilemma level demanded forc an that absence analysis in which the observation content constitutes a presence by virtue the history repres entati on which prefigures it must be concluded that the dilemma, course, remains unresolvable; Room Film 1973. striving toward a new level didacticism, has perfor med the service bringing that into focus. September
1975
BIRGIT and WILHELM HEIN
On
Structural Studies
Birgit Hein artist needs write explanations about his work, there is something it possibly true to wrong with the work. This opinion is widely spread certai n extent in the area the f ne arts, where a lon g traditi on professional criticism exists. In the area m th he experimental avant-garde situation is different, as there exist no comparable tradition. Here the artists themselves have to work categories judge their work. Therefore it is necessary write about the film to help in their understanding. Since the beginning, the medium. work in film was concentrated was the first film where this concern was obviously expressed, its although in a way emotional explosion against the film-system expression. It was also effort overcome the influence narrow limits the aesthetic th Ne American Cinema, Brakhage, whose work was the main influence in the beginning. Most important fo further development were the Fluxus-Films as a colIection very short films, each concentrated only one subject nd each simplicity the films, the renunciation an statement about film. creative transformation the material, was essential step tow ards a ne aesthetic. course credit also goes to Warhol. But at that time his films existed only in literature ; there was possibility seeing them. first step to more controlIed work in this sense was in six single films 10 minutes length Teil A, 1969, which wa composed Each film was made separately, dealing with ne special problem: I. Commercial film, Printing process, 3. Illusion perception, 4. Reality, movement. films were together not as a 5. Time, 6. Illusion as reactions each other. Then th 'Portraits' were continuous statement, as planned series; it grew paralIel to th other work. started (1970), also It is stilI continued as statement about film technique as a basis for film aesthetic. Another approach to this problem wa Work in Progress Teil C. 1971, which is constructed only with pieces found films: HolIywood, historical, home movies, news. It shows Documentary contemporary the different appearance film, also as a counterpart to own work. first series oftwo-screen films, 1971, is concentrated the interaction
between two parallel images, on movement by change light inside the images from one image the other. A new series two-screen films, which is n production, deals with the angles. Here the two images explain each other by their difference. a certain extent Structural Studies is a condensation the work done so far. It includes the experience the earlier work, nd demonstrates this by combining old and new films in a new statement about structure: which is seen as an individual constructing system a film, bu in the technical perceptional laws that are basic for the functioning film. These are singled out and visualized. The theme the film is the analysis the phenomena the perception movement. The short single films each deal with one problem. What is new in the film is the confrontation abstract demonstration material an real image material each shot in the same technique. Here the possibilities and the limits technique are shown, the importance the image material becomes obvious. get control over the expression the image is major interest in all the work to come. Like all the earlier films mentioned here Structural Studies is an open construction. It can be continued changed without any danger losing its essence.
Succession of films in Structural Studies
Description
Explanation
Illusion movement. I.
. Black square on white ground 50"
Blank-film 23" 3. Black-film 42" 4. Two fixed points with different position in the image are presented one after the other in short distances. a. 10 frames each interru pted by 3 black frames b. 5 frames each inte rrup ted by 3 white frames c. 5 frames each d. I frame each e. one black point, one white point 10 frames each, interrupted by 3 black frames f. on white point on black, one black point on white ground 5 frames ea ch g. like! bu 10 frames each
natural movemen an
deceptive
After-image: in the blank-film appears the after-image black square. In the followiJlg black leader ap pears the afte rimage the b lank film
Phi-phenomenon: 'The second characteristic ul)derlying the perception of apparent movement is the so-called phi-phenomenon. This was studied experimentally an reported by Wertheimer studied the Wenheimer 1912 effects presenting fixe short lines light, separa ted in space, the second being presented some time a fter the first. he interval between the two exposures is short (-h sec.) the two stimuli wil appear as two an as simultaneous; he line and if the interval is relatively long are again seen as two ut successive. At some interval whose duration is between those two
intervals, an appearance movement is seen. the optimal value being around To sec." (The Focal Encyclopedia Film an Television Techniques, London an New York 1969. is th basis for filmic animation an therefore treated here so comprehensively. 5. White pieces of paper are laid subsequently on a grey paper an shot with single-fram 2.5" b&w The same with black pieces on white paper 2" b&w
Variation of 4: Illusion movement.
6. Abstract forms are painted on blank-film differing frame by frame 7" b&w 6a. A piece film-leader with numbers handwritten notes 8" colour
same as 5.
same as 5.
7. Animated drawing: a m an walks to a house 1.5" b&w
same as 5.
a documentary a trotting 8. Tw pieces race, showing two different trotters with one after the other 18" b&w
Persistence wheels.
9. Ventilator at different speed 19"
same as 8.
black leader
b&w
vision demonstrated in the
15
part II 10. Flicker One and a half min. from Work in Progress Teil A.1969. On image is shown, interrupted by 3 black frames in the continuous sequence 3 frames image, 3 frames black 80" b&w
Illusion light.
movement only by intermittent
II. 'Kurt Schwitters
from Portraits, 1972: two different portrait photos of Schwitters are presented one after the other: a. I frame each b. 2 frames each c. 3 frames each . I frame each interrupte d by I black frame e. 2 frames each interru pted by 2 black frame f. 3 frames each inter rupted by 3 black frames 73" b&w
Demonstration 4 with chosen real image material: in a sequence 3 images, 3 black frames, a continu ous movement of the heads is achieved.
12. 'Kurt Schwitters II from Portraits. 1972: Th two photos an the black frames are presented in a variation from to 4 frames per
same as II Here two different kinds artificial movement are seen at the same time.
image. At the same time the fingers the one shooting the film an arranging the fotos on the table are seen over the images, changing their position at different intervals from those the images 161" b&w 13.
A Japanese postcard a girl who twinkles with her eye, if the postcard is turned certain angle 31" b&w
The effect is based on the phenomenon
14.
about 2 minutes part VI 'Walk-Film' of Work in Progress Teil A. 1969. Each frame of a short film-strip (33 frames long), showing a walking man, is reproduced as still photo. These still photos are shot in single-frame as reanimation and variation the original movement. Even if the single images are interrupted by 10 black white frames frame per image, 10 frames per black/white shot), the movement is seen as continuou b&w 145"
Illusion
Several short pieces a colour documentary of a riding competition colour 16"
Th
Black leader
II. Filmic movement by shootin an ing.
15.
15"
Two arrows pointing each other (the left is filmed first, then the film rewound, then the right one is shot) 25" b&w 16.
17.
6"
Blank-film. The frame line
is
moved in b&w
Professional leader. A white line on black is seen. Its movement only becomes apparent by the numbers which appea at a certain distance instead the line b&w 0' 18.
19.
95"
A refilmed still photo
b&w
natural movement.
perfect illusion reality as contrast and supplement to the statements made by the films from 1-14.
Frame stability test
project-
the camera.
Frame stability in the projector.
Movement
projector.
Frame-stability
th
film-strip through th
the projector.
Black leader
III. Filmic movement by camera-operations (focus variation, light variation, distance variation).
Black square on white. The focus is gradually moved to an fro in its total range 77" b&w
The sq uare seem to move from back to front.
20.
21. Like 20, bu shot with single frame at different focus positions 77" b&w
Very strong movement because changing the size of the square.
22. The same as 21, but with real images (photos landscapes) 110"
The kind movement, created by the change focus, which is demonstrated in 20 an 21, remains basically the same for the following films: 22 to 25. But the expression the films differs according to even the slightest difference in the technique used: e.g., the number frames taken each shot, or whether the focus range changes is steady. But the most important difference between the films is caused by the chosen image material. This makes it obvious that a pure structural fi m - a fil on structure - ca only be the test film.
23. same as 20, the same phot os as 22 44"
with real images (also b&w
24. The same as 21, bu a real life view in colour. Artificial movement an real movement combine 100" colour ScharflUnscharf. 25. About one minute 1972, which consists loop prints slightly different landscape views, shot in single frame: I frame in focus, one frame ou focus. In contrast to 24, the out of focus position remains always the same. The resul is an image, moving in itself 67" b&w
Black leader
the quick
15"
26. Black square on white, shot with a zoom moved th roug h the total r ange from wide angle to tele. The zooming speed differs from very slow to very fast 39"
The movement is much stronger than in the change focus. creates even the illusion of deep space in the image from back to front. Th two films, 26 an 27, together are another example what has been said above.
27. A static real life view (park avenue with trees on both sides) is taken in the same technique 45" b&w Black leader
15
28. One minute Doppe/projeklion I. 1972 showing a view a window from inside a room, which is lighted by lamps. a. left side the two-screen film, fading-in automatically with changing apertur 30" b& the two-screen film, fading ollt b. right side automatically with changing ap erture 30" b&w
Movement by change light. Also the light movement in these films creates a space illusion: the image itself seems to move from back to front an back because the outsid e has different light from the inside. By fading in out, different areas the picture come out in the right exposure while other parts are overor under-exposed. Th changing aperture brings about a change depth space: the space is extremely narrow, if the aperture is nearly closed.
29.
One minute Doppe/projektion 1I, 1972, which shows a static view a wide meadow, shot with open ape rture (2.5). a. left side the two-screen film, fading-in automatically 30" b&w right side the two-screen film fading-out automatically 30" b&w
Here the image remains flat. As the aperture remains open, the image builds only for a very short time. Th movement remains on the surface, coming from the sides to the centre the image.
Doppe/projektion 1I1, 1972, One minute showing auto matic fades pure light. the two-screen film fading-in a. left side 30" b&w the two-screen film fading b. right side 30" b&w
Movement without any direction. 28-30 is another example what is said under 22-25.
30.
Black leader
15"
Multi-exposure: two levels with different colour photos faded in ou different speeds, an two levels faded in and out with pure light in different speed 114" colour
Another example
32. Work in Progress Teil B, 1970. A sequence of picture postcards each in colour an black an white. Each b&w postcard is super-
The same as 31. The change colour brings about a movement inside the image.
31.
variation.
movement
by light
imposed on the respective postcard in colour 170' colour
80"
Test-reel for Stills, 1973
colo ur
Demonstrates that Stills is also developed from the same basic questions about the medium, although it looks different first glance.
course, the abov is no everything that can be said about the films. Much is omitted, for example an discussion the length the films, their difference their appearance the original an the new context, which is particularly important for the two-screen films Th description does ot take the place the film; it is only initial aid for getting i nto the film Cologne
1975
GILL
Notes
on
Film
Gill Eatherley
Things started with a definite movement away from painting to some mini trials with a stills camera an its time exposure device. Produced static recordings light bulb traces in a black space: with two results - one, unsatisfactory; two, began working with film. he attit udes behind the early popcorn movies ca explain themselves - a travelling difference, trajectory, film concern, up to the making Meanwhile. my film nd light film, as part ' Light Occupations '. first dealings on film involved preoccupations with processes editing, recorded rhythms energies, nd subsequent relationships between elements, plus some colour printing - Hand Grenade. Then, in Deck. the basic format alights from re-filming, breaking down the screen size, pulse, shape transformation. Pan Film Shot Spread ar derived more directly from s traight camera/eye observations, topology film its limitations - Shot Spread has a strict cutting score between the three screens, shifting the 'image' from left to right. No ...... basic concerns with film syntax have been interrelated with the audience/film presentation/situation. although the word 'expanded' cinema has also been used for the open/gallery size/multi screen presentation film, this 'expansion' (could still but) has no ye proved satisfactory for my own work anyway. Whethe you are dealing with a single postcard size screen six ten-foot screens, the problems are basically the same tr establish a more positively dialectical relationship with the audience. I concerned (like m any others) with this balance between the audience an the film the noetic problems involved. There have been many struggles with projection ideas, which are impossible realize, due to lack situati ons outsid e the conventional cinema in London I would lik to be able do. a little more than just cinematically squatting while the fi s disappea r, be shown in someone's film club the other end th country an reaction from audience, an the film's physical reality is projected miles away from me he film-makers' own direct awareness the presentation the work the audience are equally as important to the film as its own emulsion. Like sometimes feel 'the axeman has a foot in the door to heads', the viewer might think, 'The film-maker has a film in the gate his head.' 1973
London Avant-Garde Film Festival catalogue
GEORGE LANDOW
Notes
on Films
George Landow What's Wrong With This Picture? What's Wrong With This Picture? at present consists of: Part 1 : An exercise in combining a documented segment a real occurrence with structural elements. The film becomes a study speech patterns. There is, on several levels, a play on the difference between film mechanics video electronics. Part 2: An exercise in I) making a facsimile a 1930's Coronet instructional film entitled Are You A Good Citizen? an 2) combining it with structural elements. was made as close to the original as possible, using the original soundtrack dialogue which was re-synched an slightly edited. Stills from th original film were used to determine the composition each shot. The printing techniques used produce the illusion reverse figure-ground relationships . the bac kground appe ars to be closer than the figures Remedial Reading Comprehension Remedial Reading Comprehension: Th important thing to se is that the film contains visual metaphors. The first image is a female head, horizontal nd more less suggestive of three-dimensional space. Th next to last image is the same head which becomes a white silhouette in a shallow white (not black) space. Compare the two grains ice whole grain (brown) processed (white). The white rice grain has lost its 'essence' (the germ), just as the silhouette has lost its three-dimensionality. On thing this suggests is the process removing substance, which is done to food, art, environment, that becomes personal removes some religion, etc. An the substance to get a 'purer' product. Th film-maker himself appe ars in the film, yet he tells us 'not about its maker'. Certain images the ric 'Madge's' it is about us friend - are impersonal. They might be images fro commercials industrial promotional fi . Th ere is a relationship between the personal an non-personal images which is roughly the same as the relationship between the first image an the next to last image. Before the female becomes a silhouette there is a transition period in which a struggle seems to take place between the three-dimensional form the flat one. Th rhythm the sound
track is the rhythm this alteration. When the struggle is over, the threedimensional form disappears and a new rhythm is heard - the rhythm the abstract symbols words which have been moving across the struggle.
Remedial Reading Comprehension Fred Camper Landow's films are structural rather than sensual, which is to sa that their meanings are contained within th isolated qualities the images rather in the way those images combine interrelate within th entire edited form. On the ways that Remedial Reading Comprehension works is in th degree filmic distance which each image ha in th film. Distance here refers to the degree awareness th part the viewer that the image he is tr watching is a film image, rather than 'reality'. Landow's film does combine the images together with th kind build up an illusion reality, rhythmic continuity that would suggest that on is watching 'real' spatial make on aware people objects. works rather toward the opposite end, th unreality, the created mechanical nature, film. th images is determined partly by their positions degree distance partly by the quality th in the film the way they are introduced, opening 'establishing' shot images themselves. the girl lying is introduced abruptly, she is framed closely squarely; these things give he physical real presence greater than most the rest the film. In th dark background this frame appears, in th distance, a square shaped (although tilted obliquely with respect th camera) frame, inside whic is contained image students sitting aimlessly in a classroom. This image moves forward th exclusion through space toward th camera, until it fills th whole frame the girl. A specific relationship is thus established: extent, on sees the primary image, the students as a filmic occurrence, girl as a real dream. (Although if ne were to take it as he perhap s even as her thought dream one should be aware the filmic wa in which Landow insists them th physical, 'dream' reality they representing dreams students ar actually have. showing them only in terms film form.) them as being actua lly enclosed distanced from us initial perceptio within a film frame. But as Landow holds this image, no filling th screen, it begins to take a reality its own, despite memory. Someone shouts 'lights' the lights are dimmed. he people ad apparently asssembled to running towards the camera; th watch a film. next shot shows a words 'This is a film about you' ar printed th frame. might think that theoretically this is doubly-endistanced image: since it is contained within a filmic image, yet is itself a film which th students so contained are
watching. But the shot itself has a strong physical immediacy, because the rich blue colour and the length for which it is held due to its closely-framed representation continuous running. This immediacy places it on a primary level similar to the image the girl. We then cut to the section in which a woman talks about rice, after which the image the man running (Landow himself) returns. The obvious ridiculousness an irrelevancy what the woman says, her enclosure by the two running images, give her a degree distance. Yet its sudden in troduc tion, which thru sts it directly the viewer, an th close, even 'physical' framing, works here a in earlier shots to give the section with the woman a degree primary reality lack distance. This ambiguity, distance in on respect but not in another, is the sort playing with the illusion/reality film that is so crucial to Landow. It is also, paradoxically, a learning scene, in that the woman is trying to 'teach' us something about rice, an Landow does show her demonstration. And, if one is persist with the interpretation that the images following the word 'lights' are the film the students are seeing, this would appear to be its main content. Which only points up its ridiculousness; the fact that by establishing its own context it causes us to forget the students. Th next image after the ma running is the woman sleeping again. This film's circular form has now m ade itself appar ent. proceeds from image to image with a process which makes each image seem more distanced unreal than the last: from film image to film that the people in the film image are watching rice commercial within this 'film about you'. But it is a form which is constantly self-renewing: this is what makes it circular rathe than a series linear enclosures. Th enclosed images each become primary in themselves. No superimposed over the woman's head appear pages text, with single phrases made visible (the rest out-of-focus) in rapid succession, a kind enforced speed reading. This was preceded by rapid flashes the woman's face, on off, with a static rhythm anticipat ing that the reading. In a way, this is another learning scene, like the woman with the rice. The important thing is that while both scenes deal with the question knowledge, they deal with it an describe it only in formal filmic terms. Th final image is th running again, now with words 'not about its maker' superimposed, compl eting the sentence begun earlier. Ther is a kind enmeshing two sep arate film subjects here. might imagine that all the images following the word 'lights' are in the fi m the student s s the screen; in this case we conclude that while the girl lying thinks about the students, perh aps the film they see, yet she apparen tly also appe ars within this fi . Or, if on takes the film the students see to end with the second shot the man running, then the third shot th running - 'not about its maker' appears in the context the primary film. Th film's form offers no clear answer this duality. Consequent ly, on cannot say that Remedial Reading Comprehension is strictly organizing different forms enumerating filmic distance, since the degree an type distance each image is ambiguous. Rather, the film is about that ambiguity. By distancing the
images, Landow denies them primary reality; by making that distance ambiguous, he prevents the distance itself from having any primary reality either. That is to say, if it was clear that th bulk Remedial Reading this Comprehension was a 'film within a film', then, although aware distance, we might be encouraged to settle bac enjoy the 'reality' this film, since its nature degree distance were clearly fixed. Films-withinfilms in conventio nal nar rative films have a clearly defined an fixed degree distance which, since it is visible the outset, moves to the back consciousness allows the viewer to feel the film-within-the-film events almost as a primary reality. Landow, by having each frame represent not one but the possibility several degrees nd types distance, keeps us constantly questioning the nature each image. 'This is a film about yo no about its maker.' Landow seeks to describe his own psychological being reality, bu rather to describe the structural interrelationships between different forms filmic perception knowledge. This is a subject which does not appear to be directly connecte with 'individuality'. various forms distance ar established in entirely structural ways. nd thus in a certain way the film's effect can be said to depend more on the audience's reaction to these forms endistancing than on the personal vagaries course the entire form the fil Landow himself. reflects on Landow; but the way the film operates is to make us aware of, to force us to relate to, its abstract structure. Landow does not admit any psychological associative-symbolic meanings his images; they can be perceived only in terms structure. Thus we cannot attribute an associative reactions we may have anything except the structure to Landow, we must attribute them to ourselves. An yet the film seems designed to encourage purely formal reactions it. section about the rice cannot conceivably involve us 'emotio nally ', can the speed-reading section; we never identify with become the action the screen. is rather distance from it the way that we perceive the form that action, that is important. reactions proceed no from psychological empathy but from awareness form. Thus 'in a sense we ar more aware wn reactions than we re the film itself. so Landow's forms reveal as much to us about our reactions to those forms as they about Landow himself. Film Culture. Spring
1971
WILLIAM RABAN
Raban: View Peter Gidal
William Raban's film is five minutes long. The view is water (stream), an embankment, some trees. The view is into the clear, deep distance. Wind moves the vegetation. The tide finds various heights. The fi m was made partially as time-lapse sequences (one frame shot every so-and-so many seconds, rather than the usual 24 frames per second). The film cuts back and forth (side to side?) from one time-reality to the other, from 'normal' 24 fps time (or is it slow motion?) to the single-frame time lapse sequences (time compression). Th shape one sens time is poised against the shape anot her sens time. A model sense time is not set up. The viewer never receives one vision objective reality; it is cinema. Movement one shape (i.e. water) in time relates in a dialectic against movement another shape (i.e. trees) in time. sky-tone versus tide-height. There no simplistic 'day to night' narrative. We are dealing with 'p ure', not social, times Structural relationships are organised by the film-maker in the contextual relativities and in his in-camera editing choices. The viewer is forced to make (existential) decisions (consciously not) in relating to the pace one shape's speed as normal, the other as relative variant. The film is also a 'documentar y' the the camera copes with time (and this mechanistic process is more im portant than the specific image content: for me, possibly not for Raban). The frame's rigidity (static viewpoint) disillusionizes further the vision, exposes it as selective space. And the two given sets time disillusionize and expose each other as selective time entities. They are arbitrary in their specifically chosen speeds; they are the opposite arbitrary (i e. they are pre-structured) in their connection(s) to one another, and to the viewer's demystified (attempted) awareness the film-making process, complex though it may be. Vicarious hypnosis is not encouraged. The part; it's a beautiful film on film demands a dialectic aesthetic ac on Raban's part. NOles on Film.
London College of Printing, December
1971
Raban's River Yar John Du Cane
William Raban's twin screen River Yar. made with Chris Welsby is one the richest and most beautiful films to have been made by an English film-maker. a dramatic experience, the key elements which are time the way perceive it normally in relation to the way the camera records it and the way it can be re-presented on the screen; an space the way in which we perceive it normally in relation to how the camera modifies that perception, preselectin the space and bringing ut transitions and transformations in that space that would normally be imperceptible. The code for reading these timespace relations is on seasonal changes: three weeks Autumn and thre weeks Spring are presented adjacently, photographed one frame every minute, day and night. The Spring screen begins with a normal speed fourteen minute sunrise sequence, while the Autumn leaps on a day a minute. There is then a seven minute section when Autumn and Spring are bot h in time-lapse before the Autumn switches into a fourteen minute period real time for a sunset into darkness. The image is always the same wide-angle sho a tidal estuary landscape. Raban talked about what he was doing in the film: 'I wanted to disorient people's time senses, but by a very direct experience rather than by them thinking about how the film is made. not trying to change attitudes, but how certain things will tur out on film. instance, 'm curious to find the vision on the screen is only confined to camera reality, because the human ye makes adjustments all the time for exposure and you're never really aware this loss light into sunset, it's so gradual, you can't catch it. 1 was using the same speed as normal time, but because the natur the camera, I lost the image. And again, with the fade in sunrise, which is a record emulsion slowly gaining light, it's even more interesting because, although there must be a precise poin which the image appears on the screen, that precise point will each person's relative attention; the in fact vary immensely, depending relation between the real and the illusory, between objective and subjective reality gets fairly complex. selecting a specific image 'I'm also interested in the whole business quality. When we arrived this mill, it was getting dark and we were due to start filming sunrise the next morning. We bolted the camera down to this window sill without seeing the landscape; we decided to point the camera
south because we wanted all the shadows to be apparent an there was a decision to include some sky in the frame, bu otherwise we made no aesthetic, romantic decisions in terms composition nd so on. I'd hate people to see my films as romantic in that way; dealing with specific quantities the films aren't just pretty colours, optical effects, precise investigations.' Time OUI.
14July
1972
Notes on Films William Raban
I started making films in 1970. the same time, my work in painting was moving towards making physical documentation specific changes occurring within landscape situations. Th images which I was dealing with were the self-formed paint marks on canvas, being the product a direct organic time process. nature before makin I made a number day-to-night time-lapse views River Yar with Chris Welsby. This is a two screen colour concentration on nature taking its course, in time, over six weeks, one screen Spring one Autumn, utilizing different (and clearly exposed) time elements (film speeds). two footpaths in Colours this Time. Th camera frames the intersection ne frame is exposed every twenty seconds. Th film is Kensington Gardens study relative speeds set to the scale walking pace. Against an opaque an slow changing parkscape, people pass towards/away crossways on the screen. All fast movements are reduced to a transparent blur. (The camera shutter was held open for the duration between exposures.) Th time exposures exaggerate natural light. So changes in colour that as a progression from sunrise to sunset the film marks imperceptible changes light by strong shifts colour bias in the film emulsion itself. near perfect camera time Unlike previous time-lapse studies, this is recording. Film is exposed for the whole the 'real time' period. he scale screen speed is controlled by the intermittency frames. Within this framework which reduces the whole daylight period to minutes the film studies a more specific minor scale speed changes occurring inside the twenty-second frame interval. Each frame reduces movement multiple images. Movement is equated with transparency. A telephoto view looking northwards up the Broadwalk in Broadll'alk Regent's Park, distancing the camera from film subject. Th film opens nd closes with a 30 second recording 'real time' (24 fps). he in-between 24 hour period (9.00 a.m. - 9.00 a.m.) is condensed by single framing. Again, the shutter is held open all the time between exposures. People are recorded in speeded-up time their images are held on the film by the condensed perspective field telephoto vision. This impression expanded distance, which opposes the experience compressed time, only becomes
'real time'. apparent when the film switches Both these films have been 'stretched' so that th
total original footage
which occupied five minutes 'screen time' was refilmed high speed to film which produce a projection copy which is twenty-five minutes long. the audience sees is balanced between the experience compressed time (as in the time-lapse original) and protracted time (occurring in the refilming stage) slow enough to show the build multiple images individual frames. A Survey
the Avant-Garde in Britain. Vol. 3. Gallery House. 1972
Time Stepping (1974) time element film, its relationship to th acuallime filming, has been a central concern in my work. More recently, I have been finding ways to time perception incorporate the space that is filmed too; space perception being shown be absolutely interrelated in film. Time stepping is an exploration this aspect film takes th form a rhyt hmic space-time game which is played by two cameras. They shoot alternately, in opposite directions down a street, from the same central point, two doorways th front a row derelict houses film from both cameras is edited duration its shooting, gaps between the together in th sequence takes being represented by black spacing, overlap resulting in superimposition. A second section the film maintains the parallel projection duration to shooting duration whilst exploring single-frame samples both cameras. taken projected in the normal one-twentyon camera, single frames fourth the other, time exposures lasting several moment a second, re stretched occupy the screen for their exposure duration. Catalogue notes, 5th Knokke Experimental Film Festival
ROGER H A M M O N D
Notes on Hammond Peter Gidal
the small masterpiece Window (b&w, 3 mins.), Hammond sets situation which is mystifying in its presentation and at the same time demands (and allows) the viewer to demystify the given (visual) impulses. situation presented thus includes within its own premises the objective factors which determine the possibility (and probability) successful analytical clarification. Th criteria on uses evaluate, interpret, ar secondary to this conceptually determined process working what is In this film we are presented with image consisting a medium-shot room an a large window; n the distance another window belonging the building oppositethe light is on image is filmed, slow zoom out and in back out, very very slowly giving a wider range image whil the same time specifying the exact dimensions in space the ·subject'. film is shot negative stock, projected reshot on negative stock so that the result, after the significant material-transformations, is a positive image (which ha all the whites blacks washed night. Light du to the neg-stock). he film was shot areas immediately signify daytime it is only through dealing with the information given in a precise manner that come to realize the exact positioning this specific segment reality in correct time space. he processes can be clarified, i.e. negative anti-theses be exposed as such, colour on film (in this case within a black-and-white tonal range) becomes the basis only apparently inversable universe, interchangeable in terms abstraction but no in terms physical materia l actuality. responsibility the film makes this apparent. We is with the viewer to determine what is are taken into a post-logical empiricism which realizes the sensual strength illusion while at the same time using precisely that to refer to precision information. he opposite Cartesian in its in-built negation aspect outside the given system. Hammond is non-atomistic, non-referential, within a specific, set-up an defined closed system. Thus a pure, consequent attitude. There is also the basis symmetrical Hammond's concern a notion relation positive to negative, as with his notion in Erlanger Programme opposi ng (and equal) forces speed. Directionality speed becomes speedIn
in-time, becomes the given (premise), an the opposing directions cancel each other so that there is no climactic orientation, and no resolution. Each moment is thus no relevant as statement but as cancellation previous notation (concurrent with clarification). Thi is the experience nothingness (not meaninglessness): a philosophical 'rather than' a psychological position, a conceptual rather than a contentual obligation to film. In an earlier film his orientation was already towards speed-as-time, image arrestation, mental activation with and against the given (which is take and retake circular, left right right left in particular order, within a room). Hammond here though used a 'beautiful' environment and dealt with this 'reality' in a manner incorporating the heavy consequentiality Mike Snow the coloristic glow the Siennese Iconists. This work was not as attenuated as his later two discussed important films. Hammond is purifying the conceptual an non-psychological aspect his work to the point where i increasingly represents his calculable mental system: the non-referential structural obligation. But he does not create a whole system (a system wholeness); rather, he deciphers one. Programme notes, National Film Theatre. London,
FRED D R U M M O N D
Notes
on
Drummond
Fred Drummond has made a series short single double screen film that explore visual rhythms the potentials the printing process. They are non-narrative, careful orchestrat ions repeated loop footage Shower Proof. an early film, is built a sequence ma woman in a bathroom, he brushing his teeth, she tying her hair, stepping into the shower, stepping drying herself, then the ma again brushin g his teeth, an so in various sequences. he film is printed increasingly high contrast negative. Th image grows from the abstr act, yet plainly anthropomorphic, steadily through the personal yet non-specific see neither the man's th woman's face in detail - an back. Th film explores he relation between form movement. Shower Plus Loop uses the same footage, plays a loop film, presents it once more personally s abstractly - the ma woman are individuals, it occurs us to wonder who they are, about their relationship to each other the same to the camera, yet the movements as in the previous film. Th visual rhythm in both filmsis so strong that in spite the films being silent the viewer has a strong aural impression. Maja Replicate (1971, 15 mins., 2 screen colour) uses fades, freeze frames, slipping film and loop reprinting; Drummond describes its 'ingredients' as sickly female, found bleach loop bogus chemical overseers, Marianne in the woods Phun City'. Green Cut Gate (15 mins. colour ) uses black-and-white material printed onto colour stock through green filters simultaneously with a superimposed flicker loop which gives the film a continuous pulse. Verina Glaessner, Cinema Rising.
1972
Green Cut Gate This film (1971, IO mins., colour) is the colour printing continuation process begun with Maja Replicate using less reactive material. All material was originally black an white an is printed onto colour stock through green filters simultaneously with a flicker loop superimposed as a ow prefer cont inuous pulse. Originally conceived as a double screen movie; it to be projected single screen as a lengthy green meditation. Basically the result a present time printing process (the manipulation the images took place while the film was being printed although editing has been totally eliminated), which investigates some per ceptual illusion, e.g., after-images. good film experience with eyes closed. Fred Drummond.
1971
MIKE LEGGETT
Notes
on
Shepherd's Bush
th new films, was a revelation. wa both true Shepherd's Bush, th first film motion and demonstrated ingenious associat ion with th film-process. is the procedure conclusion a piece film logic using a brilliantly th light source in th Film Co-op printer simple device: th manipulation loop such that a series film material. transformations re effected From th start Mike Leggett adopts a relational perspective according to which it is neither th elements th emergent whole the relations between th elemental (transformations) that become primary through the use logical p rocedur e. Roger Hammond. LMFC Catalogue
purest structural film made in England to Leggett's Shepherd's Bush is date. he screen starts as a mid-grey field - there's soundtrack a rhythmic falling cadence (a note slowing down, heartbeat-like noise); slowly, minute tone occur variations strengthen rippling fingers light. the looped image becomes clear the camera is gliding contrast increases over a mottled surface, through ajungle hard-edged bars oflight and shade. Then the white begins dominate, until th whole screen becomes blank agaIn. David Curtis. Cinema Rising.
1972
TONY CONRAD
The Flicker Malcolm LeG rice
Cinema , as a mechanism, is designed to project one separate picture ever -h second. If the perio during which the projection shutter is closed is taken into accoun t, each image occupies the scree for approximately half that time, about in second, while the rate image ch ang e in film is deliberately located discern flicker. This factor is economic just beyond the point where the eye using the smallest number create smooth separate images necessary movement. However, film's 'location' this optical threshold makes it ideally suitable for ex amining the threshold itself by expos ure optical events change which move progressivel into the region where flicker is nd rates discerned, by increasing the ratio dark to light frames in increments second. show this perceptual possibility in extreme form Th first film Kubelka's Arnulf Rainer. However much its retinal bombardment alternating short black-and-white sequences ma initiate optical effects, like that colour after-image, the film is constructed in such a way that no stroboscopic rates re mai nta ine d in a sufficientl unbroken sequence to allow it to be described as concerned with the optical factors. first such film is conceived Tony Conrad's The Flicker, made six years later, in 1966, entirely in terms retinal response. explores different strobos copic system first, then systematic interact ions between them. he result is a film which enables awareness changing modes response recognizably different strobe conditions awarenes ho th autonomic response begins to shade off into pattern recognition as the black-and-white units increase in length; how the different systems interact; ho the difference in colour after-image relates to different strobe rates; an possibly becoming aware other physiological changes as t/le retinal activity affects the rhythm other areas the nervous system. n the same year, Paul Shar its made ay Gun Virus, a fourteen-minute film with no images, which explores the optical inte ractio single-colour frames. Also in 1966 he completed two other films which rely heavily the optical Piece Mandala (End interaction colour, but both these, Word Movie War) also contain associative material, in the first instance rap idly changin
words, in the second single-frame images himself an a couple. It is only in Ra N:O:T:H:I:N:G; (1968) that the optical experience is un Virus uninterrupted by associative semantic issues which also encroach on his longer optical colou r works 1968, Razor Blades an T,O,V,C,H.l,N,G. In his work as a whole see a pull in three directions. The first is the obvious factor colour interactions in time, which affect the retina; the second is a confusing romanticism which results in unintegrated images inappropriate interpretation the material aspect the experience; the third is a systemic intention in the overall form his films. The interesting interaction is between the first last. is in the nature the autonomic experience that it should be localized in the immediate clusters perception, counteracting awareness his overall systemic concept. In Conrad's Th gradually changing Flicker, the overall experience is due to awareness modes perception. From
Studio Vista/M .I.T. Press.
1977
JOHN DU CANE
Notes on Films John Du Cane
films explore dialectical relations between th viewer's cognitive systems the systems established within the film. effort locate emphasis is generates virtual transformations th actual structure. toward establishing a self-reflective consciousness that is aware not only perceptual response film elements' manipulation also the effect this future response. In Frame, fo awareness has as a transforming agent instance, every image in th e fil is window. I th first section tw images two different windo ws appear fo half second, followed by half a second black. This structure repeats numerous times, each time with fresh windowimages. In the next section, three window-images appear in half a second the black spacing is slightly reduced. By th final section the film there is different window-image every frame (14 second) the black spacing is reduced completely. he viewer experiences th spatio-temporal context the film image modifies that image, ho that modification is changed by change in the spatio-temporal context finally ho his ow perceptual limitations effectuall transform recognition that spatiotemporal context, to state where the perceptual disti nctio n between a specific image an its context is broken down. In the ea rlier film A.speers th camera view a passageway space changes gradually slow motion fast. A number lense-angle changes, alternately nd expanding the space, draw attention to the th subjective perception relation between film-speed, lense-angle their that given space. Disruption the continuumobjective representation illusion is strongly emphasized by bursts rapid cutting that break down th both real grasp film time. As its title implies Lenseless was filmed without a lense th camera, except for very brief bursts that serve to locate camera movemen the filming context. Different speeds film (A S fps), forwards, reverse, upside down, are broken into four separate images 'pure' light. within one frame to produce complex patterning its best I the virtual he actual, a cognitive hope that the dialectical relations system th transformational substantiation that cognitive system into the material, a sensuous play, in other words, function within
the content an experimental dialectic. Cognition culminates in the sensuous recognition itself. Or the content is the reflected experience the systems of cognitive. What is embodied in this conception the negation domination, that is hierarchal structure, established between the artist a nd the experiences. A Survey
the Avant-Garde in Britain. Vol. 3, Gallery House. 1972
JOYCE WIELAND
Wieland's Sailboat and '1933' Regina Cornwell Since 1967, Wieland has centr ed more her artistic energies in more . In considering her work from this period, those short films a more formal nature Sailboat, 1933, Dripping Water Hand Tinting will be examined first. Chronologically, Sailboat (1967-68) is the earliest these. I n a series shots a sailboat is seen moving acros s the screen from left to right. title is superimposed on the screen for the duration the film. Its sound consists waves mixed with airplane engine an occas ional voices None the shots is repeated, bu the same boats recur because Wieland carefully anticipated them with her camera by moving down the shore await their reentry into the frame. A number the shots are animated, as when a boat appears to pop back from the right the centre off right again. Several other small things occur to disrupt expectancies an make the viewer attend to the images more carefully. As the last tw boats begin to fade into the horizon, they seem, the same time, to be absorbed by the more pronounced film grain in these very light shots. This and other instances Sailboat stress film's dual nature, on the one hand, presenting images, while the same time breaking through the illusions to expose the film material itself. And, as a further example, even while attending to the image, on is forced to note the 'presence' the boats somewhere off-frame, thus also to note the frame itself, delimiting the image. nd the flat letters the title contrast sharply with the illusory images over which they ar superimposed. While the superimp osed title in Sailboat literalizes itself through the images, the title 1933 (1967-68) does nothing the kind. Wieland commented that on da after shooting she returned home with about thirty feet film remaining in her camera proceeded to empty it by filming the street scene below. She explains in notes: 'When editing then what I considered the real footage I kept coming across the small piece film the street. Finally I the street. was a beautiful junked the real film for the accidental footage piece blue street So I made the right number prints it plus fogged ends'. street scene with the white streaked nd is loop-printed ten times, the street scene for only the first, fourth, nd 1933 appears systematically seventh, an tenth loops. Wieland says her choice th name: a title
that causes more questions than the film has answers.' An
later, that it "makes "makes you thin film's film's beginning. But, this is the film' film'.. While the meaning the title, 1933. 1933. is enigmatic has no real nd ostensible relationship to th film's film's street stre et scene white streaked stection, in its systematic use as sub-title, it becomes image incorporated into the film. It is no the title a longer work, bu integral part the work. while the title title remains u nexplained, so does the brie loop action th An while street in fast motion, slowing down for a moment then resuming its its speed. speed. and around I is merely a fragment fragm ent incomplete action, moving in and out the frame. frame. Each E ach time something else is perceived. only is the street footage seen over over, ut it is seen in unreal time. its illusory threedimensionality is sharply contrasted with the flatness the white section. Even Even more markedl than in Sailboat. all these factors become, use filmmaker Ken Jacobs' term, "illusion-defeating devices,' which call attention to the strip film as film. the white dominated sections incorporated into the film assert themselves valid images, equal to the street scenes scenes Extract
from
an article
in Art/arum
Afterword The Th e following review 1976/77
Structural Struct ural Fil Film m Anthology Antho logy appeared in Screen, Winter
In '''Ontology'' and "Materialism" in Film' (Screen 17 n I, Spring 1976), Peter Wollen argued that the joint concern North-American film-makers such as Paul Sharits and European ones like Godard with a critique cinematic illusionism diverged in their respective emphases on the machines producing the illusions, the camera, the gate, the celluloid, the printer, the projector, projecto r, the screen, screen, and an d on the signifyin signifying g process den ega ted in those illusions, the discursive processes film films, s, their the ir codes. The first emphasis emph asis tends ten ds to cut film off from its immediate and explicit involvement in ideology into a closed circle self-refe self-reference rence;; the latt l atter er to make that involvement the centre the film-maker's film-ma ker's practice. practice . However, Ho wever, as well well as divergence, Peter Pete r Wollen sees sees tendency towards convergence in the increased interest th North American icanss and their their Euro pean counterpar ts ofthe Co-o Co -op p movement movem ent in significati signification on and a n appar a pparent ent decli decline ne the other European avant-garde. avant-garde. The Avant-Garde Event the [1976] Edinburgh Festival was organised with this possible convergence in view. Film-maker participants largely represented the North-American independents and the European Co-op movement. However, the convergence did did take place, an d the division divisionss did not conform to the material/signification opposition. The first session, on the notion avant-garde, divided divided the Europe ans from the (predominantly (predomin antly New Yorker) North-Americans, who interpreted the criticism offered as different from Wolfe' (Sharits) and resented the implication political irresponsibility. irresponsibility. Subsequently, Sub sequently, the diffe differenc rence, e, which might have been no more than a matter local loyalties, took on a more complex political colour, expressed most clearly in the opposition between Joyce Wieland and Birgit and Wilhelm Hein. In her new film film The Far Shore, Wieland has attempted to make a genuinely Canadian film (as opposed to a US film), made with Canadian money, technicians, actors, story, distribution and for a Canadian mass mass audience audience.. In so doing she has abandone aband oned d the modernism characteristic Sailboat an 1933, but also not only films with similar political preoccupations to The Far Shore such as Solidarity an Pierre Vallieres. is as if the political and an d aesthetic sides her projects were were separable. separable. Sharits' Sh arits'ss aim to is simply the other emulate Remb randt ran dt in making great works film oth er side
the coin. the Heins, on the other hand, the modernism is the political point; information pure any ulterior motive in communication is the definition the aesthetic message message and the purity puri ty represents repres ents the freeing freeing the recipient from ideological imposition. Hence the problems are those dissemination and overcoming the mystification proletarian film-goers. Wieland adapts her aesthetic to a political problem seen fundamentally in terms distribution; the Heins treat distribution as a secondary problem u bordinate bord inate to the fundamental one aesthetic strategy. Much the work done by the film-makers the European Co-ops and that most the North-American film-makers represented at Edinburgh could be argued to fit into the category defined defined in 1969 by P. Adams Sitney to place a new type films after those Brakhage and Warhol, being made predominantly in New York, ut also elsewhere in North America and in Europe: 'Structu 'Str uctural ral film film'. '. In May and June 1976 1976,, the Nati ona l Film Theatre The atre in London held a short season films under this title, organised by Peter Gidal and accompanied by a booklet edited by Gidal containing interviews and criticism criticism the film-makers represented and providing a cross-section view viewss on stru st ruct ctur ural al film film Th season thus presented a wider range this trend film-making the anthology a less polemical set terms for its analysis than had been possible at Edinburgh because the wider scope the notion avant-garde adopt ed there there and the confusion many the discussions. However, it cannot be said that th at the immediate immediat e eff effec ec season anthology is dispel the kind confusions that dominated Edinburgh. One the virtues both season an anthology is the fact fact that tha t Gidal Gid al aimed catholicall catholicall to include representatives most work which has been labelled 'structural' and most kinds discussion such work; he is pains to point out that inclusion in either does ot represent endorsement on his part, and in his introduction, Theory and Definition Structural/Materialist Film', he attempts to define the tendency contemporary film-making he would support, singling it with the qualification 'materialist' and including a much smaller group film-makers and by no means all the work all them. Hence immediately there is a taxonomic problem. Sitney's definition, essentially based on the perception a concern for shape and duration in these films an the use the strategies strategies fixed camera, flicker, loop printing and rephotography, has been outstripped by subsequent developments film-makers an films still classified as 'structuralist'; many the films in the season, for example, make minimal no use his strategies. Annette Michelson, discussing the New York film-makers, notes that their films represent a break with the previous previous concern American 'alternati 'alt ernative' ve' cinema cinema from Maya Deren on to counterpose to the dominance narrative in the Hollywood film a dominance the poetic, reaching its apogee in the hypnagogic imagery Brakhage, and that this break tends to throw filmmakers back on to problems narrative (Anthology. 38-44); 38-44); Sitney's 'goal directed duration' has clear narrative implications in film like Michael Snow's Wavelength. an La Region Centrale. which lacks Wavelength's clear direc-
tional pattern, revolves (literally) around the problem the source, the 'centre' narration, with its unattended mechanised universally mobile camera, visible only in its shadow, its movements accompanied by aural signals, in the midst a wilderness. [ Deke Dusinberre, in a piece on Gidal's own Room Film 1973 in the Anthology an greater length in an article in Afterimage n 6 adds to this that the North-American structural fi makers' work tends to rely on metaphorical allegorical reference and to depend on commentary to that effect such as is often provided in interviews and statements by the artist and criticism emanating from writers in close contact with the New York 'school'; their refusal this strategy marks off the English film-makers linked to the London Film-makers' Co-op, who are, moreover, by no means homogeneous; those superficially.closer to the North Americans, such as Gidal himself, represent an attempt to hew to a strictly 'structural' line, avoiding relapse into narrative metaphor; others concentrate their work more in the projection situation as such (Malcolm LeG rice, Anthony McCall); and still others have developed a variety filmmaking strategies where properties or processes the object photographed, is thus usually a landscape, in some way dictate the structure the film. unclear to what extent 'structural film' still constitutes, if it ever did, a valid category for the classification a group independently made films, and what features might be taken as central to its definition. Peter Gidal's introduction to the Anthology is less concerned with taxonomy and more with defining and arguing for a strategy his own, represented by his own work and that being done by some other film-maker in England, and by some done a few years ago now by North-American 'structuralists'. The introduction has been criticised by Anne Cottringer in Afterimage 6. She attacks Gidal for falling back on the 'material' side Wollen's material/signification opposition, and there are passages where this charge can be justified. However, the essay is complex and open to other readings. In other passages, Gidal insist that 'the assertion film as material merely sets off another leve abstract (or non-abstract) association .... There are myriad possibilities for c%ptation and integration filmic procedures into the repertoire meaning' (pp 2-3). Hence the relapses into narrative and allegory noted by Michelson and Dusinberre, and Gidal himsel adds another danger: emphasis on the pure act making the film, whether documentation it, representation it by marks its absence (leader to represent the time the changing the magazine, etc) marked attempts to suppress personal intervention in the process (as in minimal painting and sculpture), merely re-establish the artist as object identification. Valuable works are those that 'escape' through the gaps left by these traps, instanced by Klee's use the 'nearly empty signifier the image taken does not have a ready associative analogue, is no a given symbol metaphor allegory' (p 7). This may have occurred despite the artist's own notions his her work, but the escape should rather be adequate solution questions correctly posed in terms materialist practice and theoretical embodiment' (p 7). Hence the two q uotations which close Gidal's film Condition Illusion:
