The Experimental Film List Project

[therewillbeblus]

I'd be curious how many of the experimental filmmakers who clearly do fit the bill reject the term "experimental." I feel like I've read quite a few responding to it negatively, and embracing the term "avant-garde" instead (which Lynch would probably care less about and probably identify with if only to continue his reserved approach of rejecting genre in general and stressing his overall style as broadly 'something different'). Either way, seems like a risky metric to use, especially if not everyone sees "experimental" and "avant-garde" as interchangeable. Plus I thought we already decided it was ineligible for other, more sound reasons. I'm not trying to be difficult - I agree none of these should count - but I'm concerned that it'll only invite a slippery slope of more confusion to look for whether or not a filmmaker wants their work to be included in the signifiers of the list project.

So obviously we can't vote for a section of an episode of a long series, but what about Deadwood for its radical experimenting with the revisionist western genre

[zedz]

La Jetee, on the other hand, is a film that arrived in a completely different context. Marker was an essay / documentary filmmaker, and the film was formally unlike anything he or anybody else had made before. It's also a film that - quite apart from its narrative hook - is fundamentally engaged in exploring the intrinsic physical characteristics of the medium (in this case, stillness and movement), which is a founding trait of experimental film. If the film did not have its single instance of motion, I don't think the case for it being an experimental film would be anywhere near as strong.

It strikes me that this could be clarified as "what makes an experimental film experimental is generally its form rather than its content", particularly when you're looking at narrative examples. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is a normal narrative feature; Douglas Gordon's 24 Hour Psycho, despite having identical content, is an experimental film. Likewise, if I came up with a version of Psycho that ran the image forwards while the soundtrack ran backwards, that would be an experimental film (albeit a lousy one), or a version that cut out every alternate scene and replaced it with a subliminal single frame of Leigh's dead eye.

[zedz]

Re: Inland Empire. Nobody seems to want to include it in this project, and yet so far there are more posts about it than any other actual experimental film. It's out. It's over.

[therewillbeblus]

La Jetee, on the other hand, is a film that arrived in a completely different context. Marker was an essay / documentary filmmaker, and the film was formally unlike anything he or anybody else had made before. It's also a film that - quite apart from its narrative hook - is fundamentally engaged in exploring the intrinsic physical characteristics of the medium (in this case, stillness and movement), which is a founding trait of experimental film. If the film did not have its single instance of motion, I don't think the case for it being an experimental film would be anywhere near as strong.

It strikes me that this could be clarified as "what makes an experimental film experimental is generally its form rather than its content", particularly when you're looking at narrative examples. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is a normal narrative feature; Douglas Gordon's 24 Hour Psycho, despite having identical content, is an experimental film. Likewise, if I came up with a version of Psycho that ran the image forwards while the soundtrack ran backwards, that would be an experimental film (albeit a lousy one), or a version that cut out every alternate scene and replaced it with a subliminal single frame of Leigh's dead eye.

Yeah I really loved your quoted explanation there, which is why I thought that was the decided criterion - so adding if the filmmaker feels like classifying their film that way just opens up more doors when (I think?) we're working on trying to close them for a clean, simple working definition.

Re: Inland Empire. Nobody seems to want to include it in this project, and yet so far there are more posts about it than any other actual experimental film. It's out. It's over.

zedz, I've been using Inland Empire solely as a go-to offhand example in my attempts to get clarity on a genre I want to engage with and am struggling to understand. I've gone out of my way to actively clarify that I don't think it qualifies in every post I've included it in, and I've been very transparent about why I'm using it in order to get to a working definition. We got there - with your quoted post, that you yourself are stressing as the working definition - because of questioning using that example. I apologize if mixed signals were sent for not 'switching it up', but I don't know how to underscore any more obviously that I'm not interested in making Lynch films eligible. I only commented on this last post because it seemed like we arrived at an answer, and then another qualifier was given and I felt confused again. I'll just shut up and stop asking questions to the experts I'm genuinely seeking guidance from if they're not welcome, but this is a more complex-than-usual list project and I think using stock counter-examples is helpful in gaining insight so I can participate to the best of my abilities. Shutting down the mentioning of films-as-examples that helped get to the working definition you're happy with seems contradictory though

[zedz]

If someone scares up a quotation of Stan Brakhage claiming that Window Water Baby Moving is a Disney cartoon, I'm obviously not going to believe him, but this is a case of an established maker of commercial narrative features, who has made overtly experimental films in the past, claiming that a film we all already seem to be uncomfortable classifying as experimental is not experimental. Let's let him have the last word on the subject so we can move on.

Other queries are welcome, but this one just doesn't seem productive. The best advice I can give on getting a grip on what is and isn't experimental is to watch as many core examples as you can and build up your own sense of the margins, rather than working from the margins in.

There are filmmakers that are clearly established within the realm of experimental film that I'd have trouble arguing for on the basis of any of the definitions that are floating around, and it will be interesting to see if we come across them and what people think when we do.

[therewillbeblus]

I apologize if my response was confusing. I never said he shouldn't have the last word, I was asking if this could be extrapolated to other filmmakers because that was how your ruling came across to me. You just answered that - thank you. I can't imagine how exhausting it is to run a monstrous list project like this where people are struggling to understand what features constitute a qualifying film, so I sympathize with your position and I'm grateful for your service and leadership here, but it would be cool to not misinterpret the utility of examples and assume that questions are being asked in good faith. You've said yourself that these are difficult parameters and encouraged proactive discussion upthread, so I'd hope that patience would be afforded to people having a hard time and earnestly attempting to do this project correctly. We have the same goal. I still don't get how it's unproductive, since its juxtaposition literally helped produce the most helpful definition, but I'll come up with different counter-examples going forward if I have more questions.

[zedz]

Yeah, it's all good. Lynch's self-categorization was more like the thing that tipped the scales rather than the only evidence available, but it's useful to be able to place that call at his door. But, as I said, once you plunge into the ocean and start swimming with the sea monsters, the shoreline and its high-tide / low-tide demarcations should become less important.

[denti alligator]

Should The Ossuary be added to the Svankmajer exceptions?

[zedz]

Should The Ossuary be added to the Svankmajer exceptions?

Probably. It's a documentary short subject, but its editing strategy is so radical I think it hurls itself over the edge into the avant-garde. Does anybody else want to pitch in with their Svankmajer picks?

A Quiet Week in the House has an absurdist narrative framing device, but it could be seen as only a pretext for a series of strange non-narrative animations. I'm such a big fan of the film, though, that I don't want to rule it in.

[therewillbeblus]

It's great but I agree with you that it doesn't fit the bill. I prefer The Flat, but that's another example that seems like it could be surreal narrative

[zedz]

Agreed. A lot of Svankmajer shorts are just really weird narrative films.

[Red Screamer]

Let me start with one of my favorite experimental films that, sadly, will never make it to home video, but is absolutely worth traveling to see, if you can. This would be Christian Marclay‘s Video Quartet from 2002. Like his earlier video montage piece Telephones (which can be viewed here), Marclay cuts together pieces from various films that show related actions. With Video Quartet there are four projected screens running simultaneously. The film is about 14 minutes and consists of a montage of musical scenes from various older and some newer films. Marclay‘s timing is stunning, so that he manages to suggest a coherent musical performance of sorts, even if it is a rather noisy one. Fans of musique concrete will be delighted! Most of the clusters of shots show the same instrument from difference films on each of the four screens: pianos, upright basses, accordions, trumpets, saxophones, banjos, singers, etc. etc. There are some concert performances: I spied Monk and Mingus and Charlie Parker, for instance. But most are from non-musical films in which a character sits down at the piano for a few bars, or picks up a musical saw, or whistles, etc. He‘s basically doing with films what he used to do with records, as an experimental DJ. It‘s virtuosic and fun—and funny! Anyone else had the chance to see this?

I caught a Marclay retrospective this winter and I had a lot of fun with his work, which sits at the crossroads of music, comedy, and conceptual art. I also liked Video Quartet and part of what’s interesting about it, as you mention, is that it’s primarily an impressive sound collage while the images serve as either a gallery of marionette performers or as footnotes revealing the sources of the sounds and how they’re put together. Sometimes the images add their own mood or extra detail that change how you perceive the sounds too.

But my favorite Marclays were Record Players (1984, 4’) and Gestures (1999, 9’). Record Players is a Moullet-esque short documenting all the ways you can “play” vinyl records with your hands and feet: shaking them for a wobble sound, rubbing them together for a squeaky rustle, and so on, escalating both sonically and in comedic absurdity. Similar to Video Quartet, Gestures is a four-way split screen of, well, the gestures Marclay makes in DJing his live sound pieces, and the soundtracks of the four videos layer together to create an incredible noise music composition. And like the musicians of Record Players, Marclay plays the role of a DJ from hell, doing everything wrong: punching the record, dropping the needle so it bounces, putting tape on the records to they skip and hiss. As the title suggests, part of what’s intoxicating about this short is the choreography of his DJ performance and its bizarre intersection of live performance and recorded sound. I think these two films stood out for me because of the human tactility they mix in with Marclay’s usual project. I might vote for Gestures. (Sadly, the retrospective didn't include The Clock!)

I only sampled it, but Doors, the new Marclay video, didn’t impress me much. It edits together clips from various films, linking them at the moment people close/open doors. I don't think it's a strong enough, creative enough, or malleable enough concept to hold together at near feature length. It isn't as restrictive and rigorous as something like Telephones and I think that leads to a pretty slack compilation rather than the surreal, trancey erasure poem he’s going for. Telephones tells us something about how telephone conversations are filmed in Hollywood movies. From the section I saw, Doors doesn't have the same type of insight; it mostly just uses doors to link together disparate bits of footage. I would like to see the whole piece though since it probably plays better at length.

[denti alligator]

Just watched Record Players on Youtube. Thanks, that was fun. I also saw Gestures, which I enjoyed, but not nearly as much as Video Quartet. And I also managed to see all of Doors, which I liked well enough, especially the use of empty time before and after doors open and close. Unfortunately, I have yet to see The Clock.

[zedz]

Record Players immediately reminded me of the early Shriekback track 'In: Amongst':
In: Amongst

You can see ten minutes of extracts from The Clock on this stolen video, which will give you an idea of how it plays (and why it's a dip-in / dip-out kind of film):
one one-hundred-and-forty-fourth of The Clock

[zedz]

You can see ten minutes of extracts from The Clock on this stolen video, which will give you an idea of how it plays (and why it's a dip-in / dip-out kind of film):
one one-hundred-and-forty-fourth of The Clock

As you can see, Marclay draws on a vast range of sources, but his montage remains limited by his source options, so the pace of the film can vary quite drastically from section to section. As I recall, there was a fast-paced cross-cutting "suspense" sequence leading up to 12 noon, as he had access to so much footage counting down to twelve. I imagine the end of the film at midnight would be even more dramatic / frenetic.

[swo17]

Should The Ossuary be added to the Svankmajer exceptions?

Probably. It's a documentary short subject, but its editing strategy is so radical I think it hurls itself over the edge into the avant-garde. Does anybody else want to pitch in with their Svankmajer picks?

I might want to vote for The Ossuary. Not sure how "experimental" I consider any of his other films (or many other animated films unless they're abstract). Maybe ones with the least discernible meaning/story like Virile Games?

[Red Screamer]

Not sure what to say about a film as purely abstract as this, but I loved Christian Lebrat’s Holon when I caught a screening of it last week. It does some amazing things with shape and texture despite being almost nothing but a gauzy cloud of flashing colors. Some other things I’ve enjoyed recently: Teo Hernández’ Souvenirs/Rouen, Anger’s Mouse Heaven, Tomonari Nishikawa‘s Sketch Film #1, Joe Jones’ Smoking.

[zedz]

Rose Lowder.



ROSE LOWDER!

Lowder is one of cinema's greatest minimalists, making short - often very short - films on local subjects (lots of flowers and trees) that have the quivering, compressed hyperactivity of, say, Jonas Mekas, but borne of a completely different technique. She works frame by frame, but leaves some frames blank / black so she can rewind the film and fill in the gaps on subsequent passes. The 'second take' that's shuffled into the first (and the third, and the fourth, and so on) may be of different material, thus creating the illusion of complex superimpositions within your visual cortex, but it's often of exactly the same subject, but in different light, different weather conditions, or different focal lengths. As minimalism goes, it's pretty maximalist.

The remarkable Champ Provencal (1979) takes the latter approach, shooting the leaves and branches of a tree, and the landscape beyond, with the focus changing radically from frame to frame. The effect is a bit like a perpetual fall through space which never actually happens (there's no zoom at work, just the artifacts of shifting focus), but more striking is the sense that every plane of the complex image is simultaneously in sharp focus and blurred.

In Impromptu (1989), where trees are shot at a distance, her technique yields an astounding spectacle of rapturous animism: still landscapes vibrationg with energy. it's like she's photographing the soul of a tree.

Her series of Bouquets, commenced in 1994 and still going strong, is a major work comprised of tiny, extremely complex films (running about a minute or so) celebrating water, flowers, sunshine. Bouquet No. 5 is my favourite of the ones I've seen, and is a perfect summation of what's special about this unique artist.


Trailer for her Re:Voir collection Bouquet d'Images:
possible seizure trigger warning?

[therewillbeblus]

Her series of Bouquets, commenced in 1994 and still going strong, is a major work comprised of tiny, extremely complex films (running about a minute or so) celebrating water, flowers, sunshine. Bouquet No. 5 is my favourite of the ones I've seen, and is a perfect summation of what's special about this unique artist.

I've only ever seen these films lumped into three groups of ten: Bouquets 1-10, Bouquets 11-20, and Bouquets 21-30 - I believe that's the way they come up on the discs and also Letterboxd (there's no option to choose single bouquets-as-films, unlike Brakhage's Prelude series, for example, or the splitting of the parts of early serials like Judex and Les Vampires.. we know they love to do that). So I always assumed she intended these films to be composed into those three groups. Is there any indication of the contrary? I want to make sure we're not vote-splitting - which would probably be crazy if we just picked our favorite bouquet to begin with! - but if those groups were imposed upon Lowder then I understand splitting them up.

For my money, Bouquets 21-30 destroy me in ways the other two entries don't quite reach, and would place in a top ten if asked to produce one right now. If we're going to pick an individual bouquet, I'll have to go through my discs with a piece of paper in hand to mark each one in the film of ten and rank reactions to it in real time, which sounds exhausting (and risky for miscounting), but I'll go with wherever the ruling lands

[zedz]

Light Cone has the films available for rental in groups of ten, groups of two or three or four, and in some cases individually. They all have their own opening and closing titles, so I think it's fine to consider them individually.
Light Cone Lowder Catalogue

[denti alligator]

Thanks, zedz. Never seen Lowder’s films. Will dive in soon. I got my first case of Covid last week and spent the first day (before I knew it was Covid) watching Joseph Cornell films. I’ll comment on these soon.

[therewillbeblus]

Okay, so are we voting for each of Lowder’s 30 bouquets individually or can we vote for the banded chunks of ten if we prefer? I’d rather hold onto a few extra votes and go by the popular clusters if allowed

[zedz]

Okay, so are we voting for each of Lowder’s 30 bouquets individually or can we vote for the banded chunks of ten if we prefer? I’d rather hold onto a few extra votes and go by the popular clusters if allowed

That's fine with me. Closer to the time we can make a determination for how to accumulate and count these votes (e.g. should any vote for an individual film be counted towards its cluster?) We're probably going to have a lot more of these kind of whimsical boundary calls with this list than with others we've run!

Oh, and it seems like she's up to 40 bouquets as of last year. Maybe we need to lobby Re:Voir for a BluRay.

[swo17]

For what it's worth, for the decades projects, I intend to allow people to vote for either the individual bouquets or any of the groupings of 10, with each vote competing against all others. I get the sense that 40 might end up being the last one (see this interesting description of 31-40) in which case perhaps "Bouquets 1-40" will eventually become a regularly cited grouping. I haven't seen that as a thing yet, but it might be too soon to say.

The films generally each begin with the bouquet number and end with the year, so it's hard to argue they're not individual films. But the groupings of 10 also make sense because Lowder seems to think of them that way. Note that 11-20 were actually made after 21-30, "delayed by the weather" apparently. 21-30 are also referred to as "Bouquets écologiques." And when you watch them, I think there are certain similarities between the groupings of 10 that are not necessarily shared with the other groupings

[therewillbeblus]

And when you watch them, I think there are certain similarities between the groupings of 10 that are not necessarily shared with the other groupings

That’s definitely how I feel about them, and I get the sense Lowder feels the same, but I’ll just do my thing so I can vote for 99 other experimental films and make my life easier. If bouquet five was far and away my favorite and I thought 1-4 and 6-10 paled in comparison and didn’t feel connected to its power, I’d probably vote for it solo too