The Last Screening(s)

It's hard to believe, but it looks like the semester is at its end. And for the last day of film screenings, we crammed in 4 independent films. I think that counts as a marathon! We started off watching Tiny Katrina. This documentary film was about a small girl who lived with her family in the Russian wilderness. She was only a toddler during the filming of this movie, but it was incredible to see how much she had learned through living with her family. She was already helping the family accomplish daily tasks. I loved how nothing the family said was subtitled. I didn't understand a word of what was said, and yet I understood exactly what was going on. Since the film focused mostly on Katrina, we rarely saw anything that went on outside of the small encampment, but there was plenty of interest in Katrina's story. At the end of the film, we see that an oil tower has been built in the distance and can be seen on the horizon. This is a very foreboding tower, as it means they mean to drill for oil in the area. This probably means that Katrina and her family's tribe are in trouble.

Another film we watched was Choreography for a Copy Machine. The concept behind this film was almost as awesome as the film itself. Almost. Using a copy Machine, Chel White took what must have been hundreds of images and put them together for a stop motion animation. The final result was absolutely incredible and I can't imagine having to do that. I can tell just from this that White is a very talented animator.

Another film we watched was Martin Arnold's Alone, Life Wasted. Arnold's style was similar to that of Bruce Conner's. He took clips from old TV shows and movies and spliced them together differently to tell a different story than the one that was really going on. I enjoyed this film at first. I really got the point of it, and thought it was very interesting how slowing down parts of a film and replaying it over could change the feeling of it. Towards the end however, I felt it got a little excessive, and some parts were replayed way too many times. I appreciate it for what it was, but it could probably have been half the length it actually was and still have been effective.

Ah...and save the best for last. The last film we watched was an animation called Ryan. This film was absolutely incredible and left me breathless. It was directed by Chris Landreth and it was about his encounter with Ryan Larkin, who was a very influential animator from the past. Ryan had stopped animation and was currently an alcoholic living day by day. The truly incredible part about this animation was that it depicted its characters mental disabilities through physical damage. For example, in the first shot, Chris is explaining scars he has on his face and head as mental impairments he had come across in life. The film goes on to cover many different issues that were going on in not only Ryan's mind, but also in Chris'. I feel like Ryan took on a very strong issue that many artists have, and nailed it.

Grey Gardens

Today we watched the single greatest thing that has ever been caught on film. That may be an exaggeration, but that's alright. It was wonderful! The relationship that the Maysles established with the Beales was incredible. There were parts where the Beales acted so natural that I found it hard to believe there was a camera in the room at all. The Beales were definitely two very interesting characters, and ones that held my interest. It was interesting to watch their endeavors and arguments throughout the film, and to see how they lived. I wouldn't have been able to imagine that anyone would be able to live like they did. And not only was it shocking that they had that lifestyle, but they actually embraced it! They fed the raccoons that were infesting their house! It was surprising to me to see that the documentary took place after the Beales had cleaned up the house, since it still seemed to be in such awful condition. I guess that the Beales have their way of living, and nothing can change that. I have to admit that this documentary held my interest the entire time I was watching it.

The Roots of CGI

Ah CGI...an art form that plagues every movie theater in the country. An art form that can be used correctly or horribly horribly wrong, but rarely in between. And this was the birth of it all. Today we focused on the first computer generated animations. Essentially, just dots and small light shows that were digitally created. To think that this would be the start of half of the films we see released in theaters today. But while it is easy to look back on these simple animations now and blow them off, it really was an incredible feat for the time they were introduced. To be able to create an animation digitally was a very large step forward, and as we can now see, was a step that was led to something huge. It's interesting to look back to see where it all started, and then look at how quickly its progressed. I can only imagine what kind of CGI animations will be created 20 or 30 years from now. Hell, I could hardly keep up with it all from the past 5 years!

Bruce Conner

Bruce Connor used a unique style of taking footage that had been previously shot by someone else, and painstakingly editing it together with unrelated footage in order to create a comparison or even story between the two. This is a technique that probably takes hours and hours of hard work and concentration, and that I would never be able to do ever! The first of these films we watched was titled A Movie. Now between the title, and the opening of this film, it wasn't hard to figure out that Conner was playing with and altering what you expected to happen. For example, it started off with a countdown that went down from ten. When it got to three or so, it cut to a shot of a shirtless woman taking off her stockings. After a couple seconds of that, it finished the countdown, only to show the words, "The End". The film itself had many different images with a few common factors, but that were unrelated for the most part. I noticed a theme of crashing or destruction in many of the clips, and the small similarities like that helped connect the clips to give a meaning.

The second film we watched was rightfully titled Cosmic Ray. It used a Ray Charles song as the background music, and went very well with the stylistically edited footage. The film was a great example of what Conner was trying to accomplish with his filmmaking style, and also another great example of how important music can be to a film. The last film we watched was called Report, and used clips from newsreel that was shot around the JFK assassination. Reporters voices over the radio were heard in the background of this footage, and the footage was often repeated for effect. For example, the shot where JFK was driving by in his car was played several times over to emphasize what was going on. There were also many ironic plays on the audio/video combination. For example, there is a part where an announcer is talking about how beautiful the weather is, and suddenly it cuts to an atom bomb exploding. This proved to be a very interesting commentary on the JFK assassination as well as an impressively put together film.

Bruce Baillie

The first film we watched by Bruce Baillie was To Parcifal. This film started out with very calm images that almost looked like they were tinted blue. We saw images of the ocean and shots that were taken from a boat. Then, suddenly, there was a flash of unsettling red. It was a very quick cut, but it was enough to throw off any presumptions you were able to muster up until that point. Then it continued with calm blue seas until the camera cut again to dozens of fish being gutted by fishermen on the boat. It was this first impression that really made me appreciate To Parcifal. It was surprising to see how easily it was for Baillie to make me feel unsettled, almost disturbed, with such a short flash of red. It also held a powerful message that could be deciphered if looked at closely. After the scene on the boat, the film went on to show a calm forest which was interrupted by a train in the same way the calm sea was interrupted by the dead fish. Almost as if to show how something so peaceful and beautiful can be destroyed by man. Very effective filmmaking.

The second film we watched was Castro Street, which was another very well made film. It had many moving images of trains overlapped on top of one another. This use of double exposure was very impressive, because effectively double exposing film is no easy task. Baillie did a wonderful job of making several different images flow smoothly with each other. The way he emphasized the mechanics of the train reminded me of Ballet Mechanique, which also emphasized mechanical parts. Another part of Castro Street that stuck out in my mind was the use of the color red. He inter-spliced certain shots with shots of a smokestack tinted red. The red tint went against the natural blue color scheme the rest of the film followed, and therefore made for a very powerful image. Overall, it was a very well filmed and edited piece.

Stan Brakhage

I found the videos of Stan Brakhage to be very interesting, both in regards to the concept and the material. I've always been interested in watching the result of tampering with film itself, so naturally a style devoted entirely to that is something I would enjoy. The first one we watched was Mothlight, where Brakhage took wings from moths and put them on top of actual strips of film. He then ran the film through another camera, and photographed the result, creating an animation from the design. I don't even know how to describe how awesome that is! This is such a simple, yet incredible concept that I enjoyed watching. It's definitely something that I would be interested in trying myself, maybe as an homage to Brakhage.

The second film we watched by Stan was The Garden of Earthly Delights. The Garden of Earthly Delights had the same concept that photographed things on top of film, but went much more in depth. This animation had many more things like leaves, flower petals, branches, etc., which alone made the finished product nothing short of incredible. While this style may go unnoticed, I feel like that it has great potential, especially if used correctly.

ANGER!

We started off class watching films by Kennith Anger, the first of which being Fireworks(1948). Fireworks had a style that reminded me of Maya Deren, but its message seemed to be a lot more straightforward. From the very first scene, one could make the assumption that it would be a commentary on homosexuality. The entire film was filled with very strong images and symbolism. For example, the images of the Navy sailors were strong representations of the main character's homosexual feelings. I feel like the incorporation of such symbols made Anger's message a lot more powerful than if he had just conveyed them in a straightforward story.

The second film we watch by Kennith Anger was ironically titled Eaux D'Artifice, or Waterworks. While the title would make it seem as though it were a sequel to Anger's first film, Eaux D'Artifice was a completely separate film from Fireworks. This film was absolutely incredible in my opinion. The music went along perfectly with the movement, and the eerily natural blue tint to the film made many images stand out in my mind. All that being said, the subject matter in the film was extremely simple. It's funny actually how interesting Anger was able to make a woman running through a garden and past fountains. It just goes to show that music can, in some cases, be the most important aspect of a film.