Avant Garde Film

7/31/2019 Avant Garde Film

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Avant-Garde &Experimental Film


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Phases of the avant-garde / experimental

phase 1: German "graphic" cinema of theearly twenties (Expressionism).

phase 2: the rise of French Cubist, Dada,cinma pur and Surrealist filmmakingthrough into the 1930s.

phase 3: U.S. American experimental cinemafrom the "trance" to the "mythopoeic" filminto 1950s-60s.

phase 4: With "structural film" of the lateSixties, avant-garde filmmaking againbecame more broadly international


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Definitions of avant-gardeand experimental film

It is created by one person, or occasionally a

small group collectively, working on a minuscule

It eschews the production-line model by whichthe various functions of filmmaker are divided

among different individuals and groups

It does not try offer a linear story that unfolds in

the theatrical space of mainstream narrative


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Definitions of avant-gardeand experimental film

It makes conscious use of the materials of cinemain a way that calls attention to the medium, anddoes not do so in scenes bracketed by others in amore realistic mode that would isolate the

"experimental" scenes as dream or fantasysequences

It has an oppositional relationship to both thestylistic characteristics of mass media and thevalue systems of mainstream culture

It doesn't offer a clear, univalent "message.


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European Avant-Garde

a situation in which polemics about film and itsmodernist context thrived. This produced

Impressionist, DaDaist, Cubist, and Surrealistexperiments, all of of which conceived of film as anart whose specific nature was visual, and all of whichtook various positions in relation to the narrative,

fictional component of the art. This led to an emphasison the visual image, on mise-en-scene, on montage,and on technical devices of lighting and cameraworkas opposed to what was conceived of as the narrative

linearity of the literary or theatrical commercialcinema.

from Flitterman-Lewis, To Desire DifferentlyFeminism and the French Cinema, pg 81


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European avant-garde

1. primarily an attack on the status ofart in bourgeois society;

2. not a negation of past art or style, but a

negation of art as an autonomousinstitution unassociated with life;

3. to this end it rejects the rationality of

the present

4. attempts to join art + life, providing afoundation for life in the creative act.


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Duchamp readymades


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"Surrealism is based on the belief in the

superior reality of certain forms ofpreviously neglected associations, in theomnipotence of dream, in the

disinterested play of thought. It tends toruin once and for all other psychicmechanisms and to substitute itself for

them in solving all the principal problemsof life."


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Un Chien Andalou


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Buuel and Dali

NOTHING in the film, SYMBOLIZESANYTHING. The only method ofinvestigation of the symbols would be,

perhaps, psychoanalysis.


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American Avant-Garde

Where does the film go against yourexpectations?

How does it use experimentalcinematographic techniques ?

How are symbols used --objects that seem tohave an importance beyond their everydayfunction in the world or in this film?


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Maya Deren


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Avant-Garde film today

http://vimeo.com/21779327 (TheseHammers dont hurt us. MichaelRobinson, 2010)

http://youtu.be/HwcF6ea2PMQ (MightyBoosh)

http://youtu.be/KER_IcHQYcA(Melancholia)
http://vimeo.com/21779327http://youtu.be/HwcF6ea2PMQhttp://youtu.be/KER_IcHQYcAhttp://youtu.be/KER_IcHQYcAhttp://youtu.be/HwcF6ea2PMQhttp://vimeo.com/21779327


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http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&

q&f=false
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0vgAWhasEncC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0

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Avant Garde Film