The First Features List

[zedz]

I realized yesterday that The Hart of London is eligible for this list, as Jack Chambers' only feature, so I'll cue that up for a rewatch.

I'm trying to think of other experimental filmmakers that could be considered, and a lot of their careers are so eccentric that "first feature" ends up being an arbitrary category. Pat O'Neill is a good example. Water and Power (1989) would technically be his first feature, but because it comes more than a quarter of a century into a very impressive filmmaking career it's not really comparing like with like in terms of the other films I'm looking at, so I don't feel it's really in the spirit of this project.

James Benning's 11 x 14 (1977) is a strong contender, however. For a filmmaker that worked so intensely with duration, a first feature is a big step into artistic maturity.

Su Friedrich's The Ties That Bind (1985) is a great film (though not as great as its other half, Sink or Swim). I doubt it will make my list, but I'll (re)check it out to make sure.

It turns out that the qualifying film for Ben Rivers is Slow Action (2011), which I could definitely get behind. (Looks like the whole thing is, sub-optimally, on YouTube: here).

Any other experimental recommendations?

[therewillbeblus]

Jodie Mack's Dusty Stacks of Mom: The Poster Project is well-worth checking out, though it won't make my own list personally

[swo17]

Water and Power does feel like a "first big work," and it's one of O'Neill's best so...

Is there an English subbed edition of Hark’s The Butterfly Murders around?

Yes, I believe, either on backchannels or OOP DVD.

In a similar vein, I just watched Eureka's recently announced Duel to the Death and noticed that it happens to be Ching Siu-tung's debut. It's pretty great, with loads of inventive visuals, people flying around for no reason, mystical ninjas, etc. It beat Tsui's Zu Warriors to theaters by a month and has a bit more bloodletting if that's your thing

[zedz]

I consider 7362 Pat O'Neill's first "big work", even if it's only ten minutes long. But anyway. . .

The Hart of London (Jack Chambers, 1970) - We're experiencing an Antarctic blast down here at the moment (2 degrees when I got to work this morning - I can't recall it being colder in Auckland), so it was a good night to watch this chilly film.

The movie starts out as an account of a hart on the loose in London, Ontario. Chambers uses documentary footage, but he repeats and layers it in such a way that it feels like a police procedural viewed by ghosts that are having great difficulty tuning in to the present. The soundtrack is like an approaching and receding squall of Artic wind (and, later on, of gurgling water) and the bleached, scrambled images come and go, eventually being overwhelmed by historical footage of the area, sometimes circling back to footage that evokes that initial sequence (e.g. the spoils of a hunt, which we see being unloaded several times).

When I first watched this film, I had a solid sense of its rhythm, but not its structure, which becomes more evident on subsequent viewings. We move through thematic / associational groupings of imagery, and the visual squalling gradually dies down as the images become more intense, more decipherable, and more confrontational. The first shift into colour is a moment of genuine visceral shock, and it's doubly shocking because it's a shock we thought we'd already had. This is not a film for the faint-hearted, as its climax features, among other things:

SpoilerShow

graphic scenes of animal slaughter, childbirth, and aborted fetuses, animal and human.

The film's coda finally brings us representational sound, and human voices, while returning us to similar material as the opening sequence. It's our first real touchdown into contemporary normalcy, though damned if I don't find it the creepiest part of the film.

[swo17]

Hey, I love 7362 as well--by "big" I didn't mean "great" or "significant." But Water & Power is a fair deal longer than anything that preceded it, and more importantly, it has bold and grand thematic aims--it's basically the experimental world's Chinatown. And it's not like Dog Star Man is Brakhage's first great film either

[therewillbeblus]

Well at the very least, this back and forth debate has given each title enough publicity to prompt me to write down 7362 and Water & Power as priority viewings

[knives]

The former is on the American Treasures IV set.

[therewillbeblus]

So even though Jarman's In the Shadow of the Sun was technically released as a full work in the 80s, is anybody counting it as his first feature since it was comprised of shorts all shot (and released?) prior to Sebastiane? It certainly seems like his first feature to me, but curious how others are treating this technicality

[swo17]

Good question. If it counted I would definitely vote for it

[knives]

I actually bothered to watch something for this list. What am I? A competent participant?

Coming into Aida Lupino’s credited debut, Never Fear I feel like I’ve seen a million of these life after disability films and this one hits all of the expected beats from the loss of a valued trait, this time the occupation of dance, to be a jerk to those helping, and the kind hearted family member. This one is perhaps most similar to The Men which it preceded by a few months and is comically superior to that mess. That’s not to say this is special, just that it’s baseline competence naturally breeds a better experience then whatever Zinnemann was attempting to do.

The one unique aspect of the film is how it doesn’t fit into the two categories this story had built for itself by this point. The first order that it is narratively closer to is the soldier after the war film such as Bright Victory and Pride of the Marines which realistically deals with the emotional realities of the post war experience figuratively representing the loss of life and psychological toll as a physical disability. The second is the moralistic dramas dealing with forgiveness such as Magnificent Obsession. This completely avoids the moralizing of the later and the metaphors of the former leaving the forward thinking novelty of a disability just being a disability. That aspect I absolutely adore even as I am not terribly enthused about the whole project.

While rough around the edges Christopher Landon’s, of Happy Death Day, Burning Palms won me over with its dedicated Landonish. This is a group of cool talking characters whose vapid exterior reveals a deeper psychology especially as it deals with empathy and fun for its heroine’s psychology. The premise to this anthology seems to be taking stereotypes and meeting them halfway by legitimizing their pain. I saw elsewhere this compared to Solondz and while that was probably intended to highlight the cruelty with which the film handles its characters, I think that also is a good point of comparison for the film’s sense of empathy. While it took me some time to warm up to it on account of some on the nose dialogue, this really suffers in the area of characterization on account of the anthology format, the second segment is the highlight of Landon’s form of empathy seeing a women go down the road of self destruction on account of her own pettiness, it that pettiness is real and is respected as such. The cruelty is more powerful on account of the kindness the film plays with.

[zedz]

So even though Jarman's In the Shadow of the Sun was technically released as a full work in the 80s, is anybody counting it as his first feature since it was comprised of shorts all shot (and released?) prior to Sebastiane? It certainly seems like his first feature to me, but curious how others are treating this technicality

Sebastiane was released as a feature long before In the Shadow of the Sun was ever conceived. The footage was shot earlier, but that doesn't matter. It's an assemblage of footage set to a score by Throbbing Gristle, and it was assembled and scored in 1981. The film did not exist before then. Glitterbug's footage was all shot earlier too, but it's a 1994 film. Just as Decasia is a 21st century film regardless of when its found footage was originally shot.

Even "just vote for it" has to have one foot in reality, surely?

[therewillbeblus]

I've seen the film listed as 1974 and 1981, so I thought there might have been an assembled product with a different score prior to Sebastiane. I realize that my previous post is a bit ambiguous, but I meant that it would have only been a technicality if conceived and released in some form together. The backstory you provided is exactly what I was looking for, so yes, my question was an earnest one about conception and now that you've shed a light on the reality, I will not vote for it.

It's totally a horror movie tho

[swo17]

Much as I love it, I was just thinking I couldn't count it because the components that marked it as some of the director's first work were all shorts, so it doesn't even really fit the spirit of this list. I'm totally voting for it in the next '80s project though

[knives]

I’m pretty sure Sebastiane is ineligible as well since Jarman co-directed it. I think that makes Jubilee Jarman’s eligible film.

[therewillbeblus]

That reminder helps me eliminate On the Town at least, which I was going to vote for since Donen and Kelly went on to direct a few more masterpieces together, but of course Donen had an extensive career outside of those pairings so it feels like a disqualification

[swo17]

One film that feels like a natural exception to that rule though: Władysław Starewicz's only feature film, Le Roman de Renard, for which he shared the directing credit with his daughter

[zedz]

One film that feels like a natural exception to that rule though: Władysław Starewicz's only feature film, Le Roman de Renard, for which he shared the directing credit with his daughter

I don't know the production history of that one. Did she not actually co-direct the film?

[zedz]

I’m pretty sure Sebastiane is ineligible as well since Jarman co-directed it. I think that makes Jubilee Jarman’s eligible film.

That's correct. I always forget about Humfress' credit on that film.

[swo17]

One film that feels like a natural exception to that rule though: Władysław Starewicz's only feature film, Le Roman de Renard, for which he shared the directing credit with his daughter

I don't know the production history of that one. Did she not actually co-direct the film?

I don't know much other than what you can glean from IMDb, but she only had three directing credits, all co-directing with her father over a 3-year period. I suppose it's a gray area, but I think there's something to it being a family affair. I doubt it's just a token credit, but nor should this disqualify the film as being one of the director's proper works. If we were doing a list of final features, it might be like saying that Béla Tarr's was Sátántangó, since all the subsequent features were co-directed with his wife

[knives]

The opening montage of Lina Wertmuller’s The Basilisks taking up about a tenth of the runtime by itself would make this one of the greatest debuts of all time. This has recently been restored and is streaming most places, and deserves the absolute best home video release, so should be easy viewing for most member.

In that opening Wertmuller fuses image, sound, and words in such a way as to give us everything we need to know. In simple terms she presents an emotional reality of nostalgia and hate. How beautiful the things that crucify the heart are.

From here we get a superior youth film that hints at some future themes of hers such as her blunt sexuality and even blunter politics. Religion plays a major role here, only the second time I’ve seen Wertmuller tackle that topic, though tellingly it is used more to aid with characterization rather than being a topic in itself.

Benignly these lizards live in our reality rather than the metaphors and signs of her normal Peircian symbology. This has the bizarre effect of a milder cinema that feels harsher. Only the music suggests the satirical humor she possesses while her camera is only afforded to occasionally abstract reality, there’s a beautiful stalking scene taken from a bird’s eye view, so that the quiet parts are whispered directly to us.

That is what The Basilisks is on its edges, a harbinger of future successes, but what it is in total is the explanation of a community as seen and experienced by those who view themselves outside it. Much like Italian cinema in 1963 these young men are at a crossroads for life where they can see with eyes tinted only by a feeling of not being what everyone else is too involved with to notice. Wertmuller was already in her late 30s with this debut, but she is able to absolutely absorb herself into this perspective perhaps because of her semi-foreign status from her Swiss descent. There’s nothing really left to do and playing pretend has sort of lost its fun. This is what I think separates her not only from the French New Wave, but also her clearest peer in Felini with I Vitellonni. That’s another realistic portrait of youth from an artist soon to abandon that kind of realism, yet that has a hopeful nostalgia whereas Wertmuller’s is without definition. It makes me wonder what she though of Frankl.

While Wertmuller stands as the primary artist Morricone’s gorgeous score is as important a player to the film’s success as her or or DP Di Venanzo. He had only been scoring for three years at this point, but the traits that would make him a legend were already there. This is a score with or perhaps even as a character almost commenting on the action. He isn’t really trying to communicate the mood of the film. Rather he’s functioning like a third person narrator sighing and sometimes even laughing at the situations. Morricone is a bit of a spectator and deliberately doesn’t seem to coincide with Wertmuller’s point of view.

I’ve always liked Wertmuller, but this took me by surprise as such a unique accomplishment. It’s the work of an artist who happily had not found her niche, but clearly knew what it was not and sought a third wave of post war Italian cinema, in a lot of ways I suppose this connects her to Pasolini, where in politics and sex weren’t just a convenient commodity as in the first wave nor life a relaxed wonderment as with the second wave. Body next to body was the only meaning they have left.

[lzx]

Distant Voices, Still Lives 1988

Unless the current rules change I don't think this qualifies sadly since Davies' Children (1976) is over forty minutes long!

Thanks for that! No doubt there are more corrections to be made for my post (I'm unsure about Nanook, for example). Davies didn't feel like a shoe-in to begin with, the Trilogy coming before Distant Voices.

Fair point--I'm not sure if Davies would make my list either, sadly--but that brings up an interesting question: do features that comprise of previously-released shorts count? My personal inclination is to say no, as I don't consider those to be "new" films, but that would disqualify someone like Don Hertzfeldt from participating in the list....

[swo17]

As I was suggesting about Jarman, I think the spirit of the list for directors who started out making shorts is to identify when they first said "here's me trying something bigger." That being said, there's probably a difference between a string of random Chaplin shorts that have been cobbled together to sell tickets vs. the planned out, multi-part compilations that Hertzfeldt has been producing lately

[knives]

So you’re saying I shouldn’t be voting for the Bugs Bunny Movie?

[Pavel]

Since Walkabout is the eligible Roeg, Demon Seed is the eligible Cammell, right? Poor Performance...

[zedz]

Reconstruction (Angelopoulos, 1970): I remember being impressed by this when I first saw it, but the main impression it left was of its stark, graphic, stony setting. The isolated village really does look magnificent in high contrast black and white, like a sharp woodcut, but this is also a hugely impressive film in terms of its narrative construction. It's a combination of 60s arthouse, neo-realism and film noir, and Angelopoulos presents his tale of murder and detection in a layered, complex flashback structure, in which the dramatic events are interleaved with their cover-up, investigation and media coverage. Because the critical event is never actually depicted in the film, we have to approach it through various proxies: conflicting confessions, police reenactments, village gossip. One of the more interesting aspects of Angelopoulos's approach is that the temporal jumbling is not used in a conventional way: it's not there to conceal a motive or a culprit, just as there's no suspense associated with the crime or the investigation and there's little to be revealed in terms of character. Instead, these genre elements act rather as a matrix that allows Angelopoulos to explore the social and political context of the characters and events, and engage in formal play.

Reconstruction is an interesting case of a filmmaker arriving in his first feature with a fully-formed, mature aesthetic that isn't the one for which he became famous. There are indications of some features of his later style in terms of open-air mise en scene, but not much in the way of extended, intricately choreographed tracking shots (although the camera is stationary, the brilliantly conceived final shot of the film might come closest). There's also more of a documentary edge here, as in a sequence roaming the provincial city streets at night, or the decision to shoot handheld inside Eleni's house (whereas almost all exterior shots are locked down).

I was going to do a double-bill with another masterpiece of the same name, Lucian Pintilie's absurdist gem from 1968, but I'd forgotten that Sunday at Six came first and it wasn't, after all, his first feature. Go see it anyway, it's amazing.