Film Theory @crrbrckngflmthry - Tumblr Blog

“Light Is Calling” (2004) by Bill Morrison uses a scene from James Young’s The Bells (1926) as a way to create a tactile experience. The deteriorating film stock Morrison uses looks like melted caramel and makes the viewer very aware of the end stages of celluloid’s life. The subject matter is...

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Overall, your blog is very fluid, and is organized well. You don’t just list the films and make comments; you link them with each other and the time that they were made. You did a great job of connecting all of the week’s films under the general movement or theme we were studying. You did not just make observations about the film’s context, but accurately described technique, form, and meaning, all while giving a hint of your own opinion. You linked more recent films with films we had watched weeks ago which shows your understanding and perspective of the material as a whole, not just insight on individual films. Job well done.

One particular point that you made about Stan Brakhage’s “Commingled Containers” really resonated with me. I agree with your comments on how Brakhage was genuinely able to capture the real experience of seeing water through your own eyes and how organic he made that feel. “He was able to show the natural feel of putting water in your eye and peeling your eyelashes apart while looking into washes of light and liquid.” That was a great point that I failed to touch on myself, and you were able to find the exact words to describe that sensation that I also felt while watching Commingled Containers. You have a great voice that is present throughout your blog and an ability to put exactly what you’re feeling into words, which is something a lot of people, myself included, have trouble with.

As someone who is a Business major with no previous knowledge of most of the material we learned throughout the semester, I really appreciated your insight, as someone with a background in visual studies, on these films, and I gained a lot from reviewing your blog.

Ralph Steiner “H2O”

The film first shows running water in various different contexts and then focuses in closer at more tranquil water. The closeups of this water make the water somewhat unrecognizable because you are viewing a more haptic image that does not provide you with enough information and detail to deduct that it is the motion of water rather than abstract movement of black and white. Water has a way of effecting our perception because of its ability to distort our vision and alter all of our senses. This film explores water in its many forms.

Ann Marie Fleming “Waving”

The film focuses on a single image of a girl in water while a soundtrack of Fleming talking about her relationship with her grandmother is overlaid. The film uses water to display overcoming grief and the water acts as a metaphor of the origin of human life. I think it was very powerful to have a soundtrack speaking about a sudden death while images of water allude to the fact that water is the source of all life forms.

Carolee Schneeman “Infinity Kisses”

Although I don’t see myself ever watching this film again, I can appreciate the display of haptics vs. optics. The split screen shows intimate images of the filmmaker kissing her cat over a period of several years next to extreme closeups of those same images. On one side you are able to have an optical view of Schneeman and her cat and are able to identify the image completely because of all the detail presented to the viewer. On the other side, an extreme closeup of the image disorients the viewer because they are not provided with enough information to distinguish the image on its own.

Stan Brakhage “Commingled Containers”

This piece made me feel as if I were underwater with my eyes open looking up above. It felt as if light was being passed through water into my eyes and gave me a sense of soothing. Being able to walk to the beach from my house at home, I have grown up always in the water. Water being where I feel most calm, peaceful, and happy, this film really gave me a sense that I was in that zen-place I go to when I’m in water. Brakhage did an amazing job of using light and animation to give the illusion that the camera was submerged in water and such an authentic feel.

Bill Viola “Reflecting Pool”

Reflecting Pool was made with analog video techniques such as freeze frame and fading. This film was a beautiful foreshadowing of what was to come in the future with the digital era, as Viola was able to freeze half of the shot while the water was still moving. Viola was also able to emphasize liquid perception by using the liquid as a reflective surface. At the end, a man emerges from the pool without ever being seen entering the pool, which I think shows how the reflection of water can play on our perception of reality because of its distortive quality. The sound of flowing water, nature, and even a plane flying above in the background adds a very authentic flow to the piece.

Bill Morrison “Light Is Calling”

Light Is Calling uses old footage and reassembles it in a way so that it follows a narrative of a man and a woman meeting. I found this film to be poetic, maybe because of the romantic images overlaid with a vintage effect. Distortions of the images are made purposely to look as if they were decaying from natural wear. The dissolving of the images into one another along with the sepia-colored wear and tear effect gives the film a haunting, ethereal feel. I found this film enchanting and the music score fit perfectly with the images.

Stan Vanderbeek, “Science Friction”

Science Friction is an example of the software machine and how computer generations have allowed there to be an archive of images already created to be used again in new contexts. Vanderbeek uses collage of redistributed images in this film to create a message of anti-war during this time. The contrast of the collage images creates comical situations that I think satirize the Cold War. Although at times it does resemble collages I would make as a child from magazine cut outs, I do think Vanderbeek was successful is making an artistic and entertaining collage with a message behind it.

John Whitney, “Permutations”

Whitney’s films seem to be the perfect transition into computer films and computer generated visual music. He uses small dots, which resemble pixels, to create images. These small dots all move in their own direction and at their own speed yet create whole images. Whitney’s computer animation revolutionized how films could be advanced using new technologies. It was his experimentations that contributed to the world of computer animation that we know of today. Almost everything we experience today is digital and computer generated and we have Whitney to thank for introducing some of that in the 60’s. Some people this that computers are not able to produce art but I think Whitney proves them wrong in this respect.

David Rokeby, “Cheap Imitation”

Cheap Imitation is homage to Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase. Rokeby tried to explore the motion that Duchamp explored in his painting, and did so by using computer animation to cut up the image into multiple facets and have then unfold in front of the viewer. Through this piece it is evident how computer animation has revolutionized our ability to bring paintings and artwork to life through movement, however artificial it may be. Rokeby was able to bring Duchamp’s painting to a level that he only wished he could have when it was created in 1912.

The Quay Brothers’ “Street of Crocodiles”

This film was absolutely brilliant and definitely one of my favorite films we watched this semester. The Quay Brothers do such an amazing job at intricately putting together an array of live action and stop motion animation. Based on a short novel by Bruno Schulz, Street of Crocodiles follows a nonsensical narrative that incorporates mechanical animation that displays dusty, grimy, rusty objects to create an eerie atmosphere. The film plays on space using unconventional camera angles and creates a fantasy-like world for the viewer to escape to.

Woody Vasulka & Brian O’Reilly “Scan Processor Studies”

Vasulka and O’Reilly Used a Rutt-Etra Scan Processor from the 70’s to create electronic images that formed bizarre shapes and patterns. I actually found this film quite extraordinary mainly because it reminded me of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures album artwork. The warped lines and images seemed to follow the sound, which accompanied it and on numerous occasions created a pattern, which resembled a human face. The movement of the lines also reminded me a bit of water and how water is moved by sound waves as well. Sound being the binding force of all energy that connects all matter at an atomic level, can be very powerful and I thought this film depicted that.

David Rokeby “Watch”

Rokeby splits the screen in two allowing the viewer to differentiate between the presence and absence. The computer generation in this film allows us to alter our perceptions of what we view on a normal street intersection. Because Rokeby was able to separate the stillness and the movement, he provides insight into what humans focus their attention on and how we perceive that motion when it is blatantly pointed out to us.

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Peter Greenway’s Intervals

Looking back at the history of avant-garde/experimental filmmaking, you can see a trend of films which act more like a moving painting rather than a film itself. However, with the inclusion of sound, these “filmic paintings” become more powerful, evoking more...

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I can see where you are coming from regarding Jarman’s Blue when you say that just because there is some kind of visual aspect of the film doesn’t make it a film, but I happen to disagree. I’ve thought a lot about “films” that don’t necessarily have a visual image, only a soundtrack, and I do think that the blue light of this film allows me to connect more with the audio content. Although it is just a blue screen, I felt as if I could relate more to Jarman if I could see what he only sees.

Bruce Conner, “A Movie”

Conner uses montage as an art as he believes montage is the basis of film; how separate images are intercut and put together to convey certain sensations through film. A Movie is completely comprised of already archived images in which Conner uses associative techniques to recontextualize the images. This technique kind of reminded me of a stream of consciousness and how the human mind can associate images that otherwise have no relation with other images through very minute similarities.

Peter Greenaway, “Intervals”

This montage consists of repeated fixed-camera shots of people walking in the streets of Venice. The soundtrack is compromised of an almost metronome-like beat, which I think is very important in this film in displaying the tediousness of every day life. The images are repeated with different audio, which drives the images more than the other way around. The alphabet is being recited by a man, while more natural city sounds are also being introduced, and then leading into more musical audio. This shows how the same images can be perceived in different ways based on the audio accompaniment.

Su Friedrich, “Scar Tissue”

Scar Tissue takes a look at gender roles from a feminist perspective. This film acts as a commentary on the body language of men and women and that of between them. Friedrich shows close up images of women’s heels and the midsections of men, generally with their hands in their pockets. The juxtaposition of the femininity of women’s feet in heels and men with smug demeanors and cigars in their hands displays the difference in gender roles in this time. This can also be a commentary of sexual desire as the camera focuses on women’s legs and men midsections. The title does not only have to do with the scars that women have living in a male dominated society, but also attributed to the form of the film when there are clean breaks between the images.

Derek Jarman, “Blue”

Blue was made when Jarman was dying of AIDS and his vision was taken over by hues of blue. The film is completely compromised of a never-changing blue screen with audio of Jarman and other vocal contributions explaining what was happening to him. During the film, I found myself completely immersed in the narration, which allowed me to feel as if I was completely surrounded by the color blue even though it was just on a small screen in front of me. As he shares the intimate detailing of his life, I found myself unconsciously trying to see what he sees and feel what he feels.

Michael Snow “Wavelength For Those Who Don’t Have the Time” (2003)

Wavelength For Those Who Don’t Have Time is Snow’s rendition of one of his original works from 1967, Wavelength. Snow cuts down the original film into about one third of the time using superimposition to put not only the original images on top of each other, but the original audio as well. Although we are introduced to a few characters during the viewing experience, this film does not accentuate content, but form. Snow uses wide shots and zoom shots to emphasize the relation to space in a singular room in an apartment.

Tony Conrad “The Flicker” (1966)

During this 15 minute film, Conrad uses flicker, as it suggests in the title, to mainline short bursts of light to the viewer. Flicker is one of the four characteristics that P. Adams Sitney uses to describe structuralist films; along with fixed camera, repetition, and rephotography. Conrad uses black and white images that rapidly alternate to produce a strobe-like effect. Conrad uses somewhat of a narrative by having these flickers go from 24 frames per second to 4 frames per second back up to 24 frames per second. Conrad’s interest in the study of neurophysiology influenced the film, as it was meant to be perceived by the brain before the eyes.

Hollis Frampton “Maxwell’s Demon” (1968)

Frampton intercuts clips of an exercise video with solid color images and tinted images of ocean waves. Like other structuralist films, Maxwell’s Demon did not follow a narrative and its content was not important. As the film progresses, the physical movement of the man become more frequent and the physical movement of the ocean waves become more violent. The two images also are intercut more frequently towards the end, and I think this comments on the momentum of moving objects on a molecular level.

Paul Sharits “Tails” (1976)

Sharits uses the “tail” ends of film stock with sometimes-recognizable images on them. He uses of light flares and fast-paced moving film stock to experiment with the flicker movement. Throughout the film, the stock changes speed constantly which makes the viewers perception change along with it. When the images are moving more rapidly, your brain is working harder to try and familiarize itself with the images being presented even if most of them are unrecognizable.

Paul Sharits “Word Movie” (1966)

I found this film to be very interesting and entertaining. I felt very engaged, trying to read the words that were being presented at such a fast pace. Although I do not think that it was Sharits’ intention for the viewer to be able to read the words, I still found myself attempting to do so. Instead of focusing the flicker technique on strobe-like images of color, Sharits focuses the flicker technique on words, which is something that had never been done before.

George Maciunas “Artype” (1966)

This cameraless film starts off with a simple circular shape and progresses to moving graphic patterns as if an event is unfolding. As one of the founders of the fluxus movement, Maciunas uses mundane images and unfolds their motion for the viewer. I found myself almost experiencing an optical illusion as the black and white shapes were rapidly moving in strobe-like effects. My brain was trying to convince itself that there were gray images as well that were created by the rapid movement of the black and white images.

George Brecht “Entrance to Exit” (1965)

As a pioneer of the fluxus movement, Brecht successfully shows an event from start to finish throughout this film. Although I found this to be a complete waste of six minutes of my life, I can appreciate the fluxus nature of this film and it’s ability to slowly unfold the event of fading from white to black, ending with an image of an exit sign.

Maya Deren, “Meshes of the Afternoon”

This happened to be one of my favorite films of the semester. Deren brought us into a dream-like state, where repetition of objects, such as a knife and a key, is used to convey suppressed desires. This experimental film uses unconventional camera angles to disorient the viewer and makes the narrative unfamiliar. A particular scene that was very striking was when a duplicate of the woman, played by Deren herself, was standing over her sleeping body with a knife pointed at her. When she awoke, it was a man, played by her husband, standing over her and he had the same flower in his hand as the cloaked figure. This comments on the male dominated society that females endure. One thing that I can’t make my mind up about is the chase aspect of this film. Although Deren brings us into this dream successfully, in part by having us chase a face-less cloaked figure that we can never quite catch up with, mirroring dreams that I’m sure we can all relate to, I think having something so typical to film as a chase was an uninventive way of taking us to this dream state.

Kenneth Anger, “Fireworks”

In this controversial film, Anger uses a dream-like state and surrealist tactics to comment on homosexuality and America youth of that time. Anger takes us through the male’s unconscious starting with a trance-like state that begins with walking through a door labeled ‘Gents’ perhaps indicating the exploration of male desire, which continues with the group of sailors that confront Anger.

Stan Brakhage, “Reflections on Black”

Reflections on Black is very different from most of Brakhage’s films in that it is more of a narrative psychological before he moved into more abstract work. In this film, Brakhage uses light, or lack there of, to display emotionally charged couples through visuals. Although the narrative was quite simple, Brakhage wanted to use visuals to create intense emotion through the use of low-key lighting, high contrast, shadow, and an emphasis on black, much like that of film noir.

Stan Brakhage, “Black Ice”

Unlike Brakhage’s Reflections on Black, Black Ice was completely abstract and was centered on bursts of color moving towards the viewer. At the same time, the images are moving in all sorts of directions pulling the viewer into a vortex. The film was inspired by a fall Brakhage had on black ice, hence the name, and uses film as a means of showing what the eyes would see in this instance. I found this film to be completely captivating and a real treat for the eyes.

Harry Smith, “Film No. 3: Interwoven”

This film was a jubilant piece of artwork in which geometric shapes danced across the screen. I found myself reminded of Norman McLaren’s Synchromie but with the use of Len Lye’s technique of direct animation. The music was perfectly paired with the visuals and rendered a sense of joy and unpredictability. The shapes seem to be guided by the music and show a certain codependence of visuals and sound.

Stephanie Maxwell, “Terra Incognita”

Maxwell uses hand painted images on 35mm film, which she then edited and experimented on digitally. She creates moving color images to coincide with a musical score that was intertwined digitally. These painted images sometimes give off a kaleidoscope effect along with a granulated effect that resembles a television screen’s static, but with vibrant colors. It was brilliant how Maxwell mixes the hand painted images on film stock with digitally mastered techniques that gives a sort of homage to works before hers like Brakhage’s.

Tusalava, Len Lye (1928)

The film opens with abstract animations that appear to be a blood stream with cells floating through, and transform into different cellular forms throughout the duration of the film. The film is centered on biological activities and is focused on organics. The screen was split, half of it being black and the other half being white, paralleling life and death and exchanges between the two. The cellular forms are continuously interacting with each other between the two halves of the screen, perhaps hinting at the ever-changing transformation of life.

Colour Box, Len Lye

Lye uses the technique of “direct animation” which involves painting directly onto film to form patterns of different shapes and colors. These abstract shapes paired with music, become a representation of mental visualizers. While watching this film I felt a sense of nostalgia because the way Lye painted directly onto the film resembled sponge painting to me. The use of such vibrant colors and designs was very unconventional at the time and Lye’s films were considered novelty.

Free Radicals, Len Lye

Many of Lye’s films have been influenced by dance and movement. Free Radicals’ power to represent dance ritual and music was extremely interesting. Lye breaks his work down to the simplest form of artwork: lines. The films began with what I thought resembled heart rate monitor lines which I think slightly comments on bringing abstract lines to life by bringing movement to them. The movement of the vertical lines is reminiscent of dance and synchronizes with the music perfectly. The abstract lines in this film are more feminine in that they form curves reminiscent of women, and sway along with the music as if a woman was dancing. I found this particularly interesting and felt as if I were in the presence of an African tribe during a ritual. This film was another example of visual music and how abstract images can represent sound.

Tarantella, Mary Ellen Bute

Tarantella is a classic example of visual music through abstract film. Bute uses lines and other abstract shapes that dance in synchronization with a modern composition. The music guides the visual experience and is equally as important in this film. The visuals are used as an optical representation of the music, using jagged lines and shapes when the music was harsher and circles and curves when the music was softer. The rhythm of the movement of the images was also used to depict the movement of music. Because of this, I found Bute’s work similar to that of Oskar Fischinger.

Pas de Deux, Norman McLaren

Pas de Deux was by far my favorite film screened this week; it was graceful, delicate, and intimate. Abstract film is more about time and space, and movement through that time and space, specially though music and dance. Although the film is abstract, McLaren uses a more realistic approach rather than geometric shapes and images. McLaren uses hard lighting and high contrast to illuminate ballet dancers in this film, which created outlines of the dancers’ bodies. This was contrasted against a completely black background, making the space look and feel infinite. McLaren uses multiple exposure to create multiple images of the dancer that creates a detachment. The images of the dancer become suspended in time until she trails back around and the images become one again, playing into the theme of synchronization. Regarding the emphasis on dance, the male and female dancers moved as one, also playing into the theme of synchronization. The images were matched to music that controls the rhythm and the dancing captivated the eye of the viewer.

Synchromy No. 4: Escape, Mary Ellen Bute (1938)

The film is presented as a “seeing sound film,” which is exactly what itis. It is set to Bach’s Toccata in Fugue in D Minor. The film allows you to not only hear, but also see music through the imagery Bute presents. The grid trapped other images behind it, which limits freedom and perhaps hint at a suppressed desire. The music becomes more powerful towards the end of the film, which reflects the escape. The blue background resembled smoke and I found that to be a wise choice of Bute because it represents the flow of music and sound much better than a solid color background would.

Synchromie, Norman McLaren (1971)

McLaren uses electronic music to narrate the rectangular images he presents. In the beginning sequence, I noticed that when the squares became fewer but larger, the tone of the “beep” was lower than when the squares were smaller and plentiful. McLaren achieved what visual artists had been trying to do for so long, and that is to ultimately synchronize music and image. He was trying to portray what the human mind would conceptualize these sounds as and capture that on screen. In a sense, the film was mesmerizing because you could actually watch the sound move. Although I think McLaren was brilliant in his time for creating a synergy of sight and sound, the extremely rapid movement of the images was too much for me to enjoy visually, and the electronic music was rather annoying.

intaglioandcallograph

Dealing heavily with form over content, early films that were labeled abstractions were trying to grasp onto ideas involving rhythm, composition and timing. Some films that land in this category make sense with their abstract label, which ultimately means a reduced representation of the...

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I completely agree with your last comment about Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and how it reminds you of a dream and is a lot closer to a mood visualizer than the other films with simple shapes. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor uses live action and animation that we recognize as actual things we see in daily life and therefore makes the film's ideas about visual images relating to sound much more real. Out of the films we screened that comment on the relation between visual images and sound, this one is the only one I truly related with and could affirm that while hearing music, similar images are being mentally visualized in my head.

Rhythmus 21, Hans Richter (1921)

The film pairs simple squares/rectangles that grow and change direction with the sharp contrast of black and white. While the film uses such simple shapes and movement, it explores the idea of how visuals connect with audio in its most simple form. Richter explored the ideas of rhythm and tempo in his abstract films by very meek movements.

Symphonie Diagonale, Viking Eggeling (1924)

Unlike Rhythmus, Symponie Diagonale shares extremely abstract shapes with curved likes and having them slowly recede or appear. This film seemed more complex than Rhythmus and whereas they both are commenting on the relation of visual images and sound, Symphonie Diagonale expresses a more symphonic nature, as its title suggests. Eggeling uses a variety of curves, perpendicular and parallel lines that interconnect to create more complex shapes that mirror human emotions and the abstraction of mental images more accurately than the simple shapes used in Rhythmus.

Vormittagsspuk, Hans Richter (1928)

Vormittagsspuk is unlike the other films in that it mainly has live subjects. Slow motion, negative effects, and stop-motion were actively used to create the illusion of a ghost, as the title suggests. Although the focus in this film was on people rather than abstract shapes, rhythm was still an important aspect to Richter. Rhythm was kept throughout the film whether it was in the movement of people, hats, beards, clocks, etc. The film combines Dadaist features of having no narrative with abstract ideas and images. The positioning of the camera was ever changing, which I found was keeping the viewer interested and made the film unpredictable. I found this film quite enjoyable due to its absurdity, such as flying hats and beards skipping from man to man.

Lichtspiel: Opus 1, Walter Ruttmann (1921)

Opus 1 is recognized as the first abstract animation film and experimentation with different shapes, colors and movement. The film uses shapes that move across the screen and then appear and disappear in random areas of the screen, mirroring how abstract human thoughts can be. The abstract colors and shapes were meant to evoke different emotions. The more abstract and curved shapes moved more gracefully whereas the triangular/sharper shapes moved more jaggedly and mechanically, paralleling similar human emotions when corresponding ‘abstract’ occurrences or ‘jagged’ occurrences happen in life.

Optical Poem, Oskar Fischinger (1938)

Every shape that appears and its movement coincide with a particular sound. The rhythm and tempo of the abstract shapes gives your mind the illusion of sound even if there was no accompanying sound. The way in which these shapes are presented lets your mind construct a rhythm and form a visual sound, even if the film were silent. Although I think this accurately depicts how movement and sound are connected, I do not think that it depicts how humans visualize mental images from sound. I think the human mind is far too complex to visualize just simple shapes and their movement in regards to music and sound.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, J. S. Bach, from Fantasia, (visual design: Oskar Fischinger) (1940)

The ability to convey music and audio through abstract shapes, colors and movements is most evident in this film. The film starts with a live action conductor and silhouetted orchestra that then leads into an array of different shapes and backgrounds. The use of light, especially colored light, plays an important role in the beginning and end of this film. Not only was the lighting used at specific angles to create silhouettes, but the different colors coincided with the music to evoke complimenting emotions. The animations in this film were far more advanced than that of most of the other abstract films we have screened. Many of the animations were of objects familiar to us, such as bridges, violin bows, etc. and backgrounds of the sky, which I thought was much more realistic in regards to what mental images we have when trying to construct visual sound.

La Coquille et le Clergyman, Germaine Dulac

This film is said to be the first surrealist film and I think it's very interesting that the film was made by a female and had a large emphasis on lust or obsession with women. The film combines many aesthetic techniques such as slow motion and distorted images, with a narrative following a priest’s lust for a general’s wife. Specifically, in shots where the camera is portraying the priest's point of view, the images are warped which comments on his frantic affection for the woman. The Dadaist works were meant to question our vision of what the truth is and question our perception through illogical sequences of images.

La Retour a la Raison, Man Ray

This film demonstrates the cinema of attractions and the power of aesthetics rather than emphasis on narrative. The upbeat tempo of the edits allows for good transitions through abstract animations and geometric shapes. At the end, the film slows down a bit and focuses on these artificial abstract shapes being projected onto a woman’s body through shadow. There is no rational movement through these images making this film an example of the Dada movement. This film does a good job of putting your mind in frenzy.

L'Etoile de Mer, Man Ray

I noticed in this film that during scenes that involve characters, there appears to be a filter over the camera lens that slightly distorts the image as if you were looking out of glass. This is not evident during shots of just the outdoors and so I think this alludes to some type of privacy and/or questions our perception of what is happening between people. I think this parallels the starfish in the glass and shows what the starfish would see looking outwards.

Ballet Mecanique, Fernand Leger and Dudley Murphy

Like the other films in the surrealist movement, there is little consciousness in the combination of the images displayed in this film. Repetition of images is a powerful technique used in this film and I think help the mind try to make sense of the images bombarding you. Leger and Murphy use images such as a woman's face, which is then turned upside down, to distort the viewer’s perception. This film is focused mainly on motion and the perception of motion through space and time. Not only kinetic motion but motion of still images that are shown using a kaleidoscope-like feature.

Entr'acte, Rene Clair

During this time in cinema, Dadaists were attempting to defy the normal narrative and everything associated with it. Clair excelled at using artistic direction and expressionism to combine incoherent sequences with repeated thematic images. The use of peculiar angles, including the upside down city and the images where a ballerina is being shown from below as if she were standing on the camera lens, demonstrates surrealist ideas. I also found a similarity in style with that of Man with a Movie Camera, specifically the stop motion and apparent movement of inanimate objects, which shows the evolution of surrealist films from that of earlier avant-garde films. This film also incorporates absurdities that would appear in dreams, like a boat being superimposed onto the cityscape as well as rushing water flowing through the streets. The magician at the end of the film correlates, I think, with the “magic” of surrealist film.

Un Chien Andalou, Louis Bunuel and Salvador Dali

This film could be the pinnacle of surrealist film, having the ability to make the viewer squirm in their seats while watching shocking and unconventional images such as ants emerging from a man’s palm and a crowd of people observing a severed hand on the ground. The Dadaist movement is depicted perfectly here when such absurd images as a thin cloud slices the moon are paralleled by the image of a knife slicing a woman’s eye is shown. This film follows a sort of stream of consciousness or dream-like sequence where consecutive images do not make cognitive sense next to each other but all have such strange and disturbing attributes.

Man with a Movie Camera

After World War I, much of the film stock in the Soviet Union was destroyed and filmmakers were forced to use scrap pieces of film which led to short pieces of film and montage. Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera distinctly demonstrates the importance of editing in film. Vertov wanted show that film did not necessarily need to have a subject to focus on or any feasible plot, but the editing and visuals alone could tell a story. Vertov documents everyday life in the city and focuses on the people as a whole and how they make up the city through their interactions. He displays the distinction between work and play with the juxtaposition of factory images and recreational/leisure images. He uses split screen, double exposure, and montage in this film which was very unconventional for the time and I think this makes this film so unique. He also demonstrates the importance of perspective when he touches on the film within a film. One of the shots that really resonated with me was the use of double exposure to superimpose a human eye onto the lens of a camera showing that the camera lens is just an extension of human vision, exhibiting the use of kino-eye. Overall, I think Vertov succeeded in displaying that film itself is its own language and does not need words, actors, or even any specific subject to portray feeling.

Manhatta

The use of text mixed in with the footage of Manhattan in 1921 added a softness to this film that I think it needed. The film demonstrated what Manhattan is very popular for: its architecture. The buildings and urban infrastructure was the main focus of the film and I think excerpts from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" was a rather creative way to break apart the images in a softer manner. Just like Man with the Movie Camera, this film focused on the city and people as a whole rather than individuals and gave mainly a birds-eye view of the city which I think put into perspective just how large and grand of a city Manhattan is.

Berlin: A Symphony of a Great CIty

While I found this film very similar to Manhatta and Man with a Movie Camera, with images of city life, I also found myself noticing that it was more focused on the people than the actual buildings and not as focused on machinery, which I found refreshing. The beginning sequence of trains moving rapidly gave the feel of travel and the start of the day. Similarly, Walter Ruttman ends with shots of people in their leisure time and a spinning sequence with fireworks, which portrayed the day coming to an end. I think the way he documented a day in the city of Berlin was brilliant. Although the main focus was on the city as a whole, in some instances, such as shots of the children with the baby carriages, I felt as though the camera was more intimate with the people of the city and brought a little more human emotion to the montage.

Weekend

I found this piece of audio very stimulating for the senses. Having seen Man with a Movie Camera, Manhatta, and Berlin: A Symphony of a Great City before listening to Walter Ruttman's piece, I found myself trying to construct images that matched the audio of Weekend based on these films. The sounds of machinery and people reminded me of the visuals that I had seen in these three previous films and I thought it was a very innovative way to have the audience engaging with their senses, along with deep thought. Similar to the previous films, Ruttman uses the technique of montage but in an unconventional way.

Reconstructing the Truth

I admire Mattias Breuer for this piece because having edited many short films, I can imagine how long it probably took to edit together all those fragmented clips of other films. Having said that, I also found that 21 minutes of seeing several clips that were, more often than not, too short for the brain to even make sense of was a little overwhelming. Having never seen either of the two films (The Matrix and World on a Wire) these frames were taken from, it was even more difficult for me to keep up, although I did see certain patterns in which he edited them.

Twinning Towns

The way in which Sofia Dona fused together two moments in time that were happening thousands of miles apart was mesmerizing. As the two trombone players were performing, the separate sounds kind of blended together and I felt as if it was uniting two completely separate realities. Even though they were happening at completely different times, I really felt as if the trombone players were connected. I also found it interesting that before I knew which pool was from Leipzig or Detroit, I could tell just by the architecture. The pool from Leipzig had arched windows and a more European, sophisticated, and clean feel than the Detroit pool and I think that slightly commented on the different cultures and how they were brought together.

Dynamism of a Dog in a Wheelchair

I enjoyed Timothy Scaffidi's tribute to the original painting "Dyanmism of a Dog on a Leash" and thought it was very clever to have the film take apart the image into a sort of 3D map. The original painting was trying to depict motion over time, and I felt that this film was trying to comment similarly by stopping time and separating the images of a dog in a wheelchair. This rotation around the separated images comments on our perceptions of time and space and movement through such.

wash choose peel chop rinse

Gabriel Shalom's film was by far my favorite of the Time Mutations screening. This film was such an interesting take on such a dull experience as preparing vegetables. I thought it was so unique that all of the sounds were not altered and were just edited in a manner that transformed vegetables into instruments of their own. I feel like this film really livened the senses and kept me captivated by such a creative take on such an ordinary activity.

In the scenes of Sweetgrass, a documentary by Lucian Castaing-Taylor, that we had seen, there is no narration and no real storyline, just pure observed reality. Visually, the shots were stunning, mixing wide shots of the beautiful landscape in its entirety with close ups of the animals. The film was very raw and the camera almost acted as a participatory ethnographer making the viewer rely on their audiovisual senses to understand the film.

The film was more of an experience than anything, making me feel engaged every second. The camera made me feel as if I were there watching the herdsmen and interacting with the sheep firsthand. It was evident that the sheep would act slightly different when the cameras were around, as they were trying to understand the camera's intrusion to their environment.

Some of the scenes in this film had me engrossed in my senses, making me feel as if I were in the camera’s place. Because of the lack of illumination in the night shots, you had to rely on your other senses to construct an understanding of what was going on. This dependence on the senses left me captivated in the world of sheep farming during the screening, which I think was the filmmaker's intention for the viewer.

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