1. Sitney argues this because in Reflections of Black we see the film through one man's "eyes" and or mind. Brakhage works to represent both the images existing before the man and the images the man imagines, simultaneously. Brakhage also "affirms" the physical nature of the film by directly manipulating it.
2. The filmmaker plays the role of the protagonist and the audience is prespented with what he or she sees as well as their reactions. The camera movements resemble the movement of the eyes of a person as they look around. These films bring attention to their "flatness" as well as the whiteness of the screen, which make the viewers recognize that they are watching a movie, thus moving them away from illusion.
3. Marie Menken's film style was mixing the world she saw before her, which she would lightly manipulate to suite her purpose, with stylized camera movements and technical manipulations of the equipment, to express this world on film.
4. I'm confused on this one. Is soft montage when a super imposed image is slightly seen in a shot and works as a preview to the next shot in the montage?
5. He believes that people do not consciously realize everything they see and everything involved in the act of seeing. Vision is a collective experience of everything one's actual eyes see, the movements of the inner parts of those eyes, and the shifts in focus, added with what the "mind's" eye see in memories and dreams and the moving colorful shapes behind the eyelids and on the eye's surface.
6. Because of his use of fast camera movements, quick editing, and direct film manipulation and his use of depth of focus as a tool of expression, at times almost eliminating the "deep space," (z-axis?)
7. The archetypes of innocence, experience, rationalism, and imagination are significant motifs in "Dog Star Man" and are associated with writers such as Blake and Northdrop of the Romantics movement.
8. The filmmaker distorted his lenses, used circular and other creative camera movements, and inter cutting; through these techniques he would often distort space. He managed to create a relationship between space and perspective, this was a new concept for "subjectivist" filmmakers and inspired others after him.
9. Some similarities between the two films are the use of camera tricks and the chase sequence. The films differ since Entr'acte was more focused on comedy, mocking the audience, and playing on taboos, while The Cage had a more aesthetic focus, did not use comedic relief, and did not make fun of its audience.
10. His students wrote a thesis that argued that the meaning of ballads over time becomes distorted and irrational. Peterson used this idea in the film by combining and interlacing two old ballads. He also used the props his students gave him, the scuba suite and the hamsters. In one of the ballads he replaced the knights armor with the scuba suite.
11. I understood the mother son relationship and the symbolic death of the son. I didn't comprehend the concept of the mother having to divide her love equally between two sons, and am still confused on where this is represented in the film, aside from the hopscotch game. The knife and bread sequence which Parker describes as a symbol of the castration rite, i interpreted as other people benefiting from the protagonists death. I was also convinced that the score to this piece was carefully thought out, while in the book it states that it might have been created subconsciously.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Lead Shoes
This film was jarring. There were intriguing lens effects throughout it that made me wonder how to recreate them. I also enjoyed watching the varying ways in which the artist presented space. The score helped me form an idea of what the concept behind the movie was. The song was hard to understand at times but certain words stuck with me, especially "mother." At times I could hear marching drums in the background which reminded me of war. To me this film was about a man going off to war, represented by the giant scuba guy, and then returning to his mother either dead or in really bad shape. The sequence where the black stuff is spreading on many people's feet I think could have represented the concept of how a lot of people were affected by this loss and what had caused it. The scuba guy was so large in the beginning maybe because he was leaving home as a hero, but his grandness diminished upon his tragic return.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Reading Response 1
1. Some of the characteristics of the psychodrama in the 40s are, the theme of the quest for sexual identity and that the two filmmakers of the film are the characters who are on this quest.
2. This film had less focus on narrative and themes, but concentrated on single actions to which more and more visual elements were added every time, this brought attention to the images as images.
3. architectonic film
4. Sitney's ability to describe the three interchanging roles/ identities of the three women really helped me find a pseudo-structure to the film. I had speculated that the "the invoker" character was symbolically relieving the "the widow" of her sadness, represented by the weaving of the wool. The "guide" figure Sidney writes about was compatible to my understanding. Her role was the most clear out of the three. I was confused by the ending, Sitney's interpretation makes more sense of it. After reading this I started to wonder if the three characters could be three different manifestations of one woman's subconscious.
5. The model for Fireworks and many other avant garde films in the 40s is as follows. The camera attempts to recreate what the character's mind sees and how it perceives those images, through the use of the frame and depth of field. Such dream sequences allow the filmmaker to work as an actor in front of the camera, and as a director, behind it. In this way the films are self-reflective. Adding photos and objects of significant meaning show this as well.
6.According to Sitney, the result at the end of the film is that Shiva completes the semi circular hand gesture he had been making throughout the climax, all the main deities are reunited and all the actors are subdued to Shivas power and glory.
7. One of the main goals of Cinema 16s programming was variety. Along with the avant garde and documentary films the theatre played educational and scientific films. This cinema made films available to the public that established theaters would not play. Premieres were held as often as possible. Many screenings were organized so that the arrangement of each individual film into a specific order created new ideas and inspired thoughts about film as a medium as well as about the social and political issues associated with its creation.
8.Universities, Colleges, Theaters, Society for Cinema arts, the U.S. Naval Hospital...
9. Cinema 16 became a major part of the NYC cultural life. The theatre created a sense of community of artists. This inspired filmmakers to create more unconventional film, i.e. avant garde, because they had a place where they could showcase their work. The films played at Cinema 16 educated many about film and world in general; Voyel theorized that around 2 million people had seen films at his venue. This cinema also created a "canon of independent cinema," a model for other venues to learn from in the future.
10. The terrible conditions of post war Europe, unrest and lack of any financial future created and ground and or tolerance for new ideas. The trend of filmmakers to try and get away from the "norm" of film production. Cine clubs, which later came to known as Playhouses were created to show films. The strong influence of Abstract Art and Cubism, styles which were prevalent in Europe during this time. The receptiveness of new art and new styles of creating it, by the public.
11. Nature dissected into individual pieces and then re conceptualized as whole.
2. This film had less focus on narrative and themes, but concentrated on single actions to which more and more visual elements were added every time, this brought attention to the images as images.
3. architectonic film
4. Sitney's ability to describe the three interchanging roles/ identities of the three women really helped me find a pseudo-structure to the film. I had speculated that the "the invoker" character was symbolically relieving the "the widow" of her sadness, represented by the weaving of the wool. The "guide" figure Sidney writes about was compatible to my understanding. Her role was the most clear out of the three. I was confused by the ending, Sitney's interpretation makes more sense of it. After reading this I started to wonder if the three characters could be three different manifestations of one woman's subconscious.
5. The model for Fireworks and many other avant garde films in the 40s is as follows. The camera attempts to recreate what the character's mind sees and how it perceives those images, through the use of the frame and depth of field. Such dream sequences allow the filmmaker to work as an actor in front of the camera, and as a director, behind it. In this way the films are self-reflective. Adding photos and objects of significant meaning show this as well.
6.According to Sitney, the result at the end of the film is that Shiva completes the semi circular hand gesture he had been making throughout the climax, all the main deities are reunited and all the actors are subdued to Shivas power and glory.
7. One of the main goals of Cinema 16s programming was variety. Along with the avant garde and documentary films the theatre played educational and scientific films. This cinema made films available to the public that established theaters would not play. Premieres were held as often as possible. Many screenings were organized so that the arrangement of each individual film into a specific order created new ideas and inspired thoughts about film as a medium as well as about the social and political issues associated with its creation.
8.Universities, Colleges, Theaters, Society for Cinema arts, the U.S. Naval Hospital...
9. Cinema 16 became a major part of the NYC cultural life. The theatre created a sense of community of artists. This inspired filmmakers to create more unconventional film, i.e. avant garde, because they had a place where they could showcase their work. The films played at Cinema 16 educated many about film and world in general; Voyel theorized that around 2 million people had seen films at his venue. This cinema also created a "canon of independent cinema," a model for other venues to learn from in the future.
10. The terrible conditions of post war Europe, unrest and lack of any financial future created and ground and or tolerance for new ideas. The trend of filmmakers to try and get away from the "norm" of film production. Cine clubs, which later came to known as Playhouses were created to show films. The strong influence of Abstract Art and Cubism, styles which were prevalent in Europe during this time. The receptiveness of new art and new styles of creating it, by the public.
11. Nature dissected into individual pieces and then re conceptualized as whole.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
Anastasia Dubenko
I must say right off hand that I was very impressed with this film. I have been a make up artist for a few years now and the elaborate and beautiful work that was done on the actors in this film was amazing. There really was no need for a solid narrative because the movie was so visually stimulating that it kept my attention for its entire duration. Along with the make up the costume and set designs were also spectacular. I could only hope to be able to create something that elaborate in my personal work. While watching this I noticed that the film was very detailed. In the first scene, in the bedroom, there are so many different trinkets and decorations lying around, but i had a feeling that each and every one of those items had a specific meaning in the movie. Another thing I enjoyed was the sporadic use of superimposition. One image that stuck with me was the lady in the white dress burning on fire. A theme that stood out for me while watching this was androgyny, it felt as if gender identification at times disappeared completely, to the point where I couldn't even tell if I was looking at a male or female character. The progression seemed to be vertical and horizontal, the action was progressing towards some sort of finale, but the loops and repeats of actions created a vertical progression as well.
I must say right off hand that I was very impressed with this film. I have been a make up artist for a few years now and the elaborate and beautiful work that was done on the actors in this film was amazing. There really was no need for a solid narrative because the movie was so visually stimulating that it kept my attention for its entire duration. Along with the make up the costume and set designs were also spectacular. I could only hope to be able to create something that elaborate in my personal work. While watching this I noticed that the film was very detailed. In the first scene, in the bedroom, there are so many different trinkets and decorations lying around, but i had a feeling that each and every one of those items had a specific meaning in the movie. Another thing I enjoyed was the sporadic use of superimposition. One image that stuck with me was the lady in the white dress burning on fire. A theme that stood out for me while watching this was androgyny, it felt as if gender identification at times disappeared completely, to the point where I couldn't even tell if I was looking at a male or female character. The progression seemed to be vertical and horizontal, the action was progressing towards some sort of finale, but the loops and repeats of actions created a vertical progression as well.
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