Min's House

[jungminnam]

Blog feedback for Beverly Kaine

When people watch the film, they have an own idea. Your review represents openly your thoughts like this. I do not have a special writing ability and expert knowledge for the film. So if I read your review on your blog, I have helped to write a review of the film.  

However, there are some weak points. One of them is that it is better to clean up your writing. Also, you did not consistently write a review, so I cannot evaluate your blog exactly. And if you made your blog available for comments, you would have given feedback, and helped to write better reviews.

Again, I would like your reviews. I respect your opinions about films. You expressed your thoughts and feelings frankly. I wish that you could keep writing reviews of films.

[jungminnam]

The reflecting pool

Bill Viola directed this film.  He made audiences to fell the flow time of the video by using the high-speed shooting. Also, he expressed the deviation in time and space by intersecting and shifting in outside and inside of the pond. He let audiences feel the time of reality through the unrealistic image.

  H2O

Ralph Steiner directed this film. This work shows the water like the title, H2O, and shows the water in a variety of different locations. The interesting thing is that he showed the close-up of surface of the water in black and white. Therefore, these scenes seem like abstract images and giving the special effects. I think that if these scenes are in color, they will not look like abstract images.

  Commingled Containers

Stan Brakhage directed this film. He used handheld camerawork, and painted directly onto celluloid by scratching on film. By using these techniques, he made a big and various work.  

[jungminnam]

Stan Vanderbeek's Science Friction

Stan Vanderbeek directed this film. He experimented cinematic collage technique. He made a new image by cutting and pasting a large number of images. Also, he satire on the world giving a rocket launch in to space competitively in the 1950s.

  Catalog

John Whitney directed this video. This video is a demo video to show the visual effect, which is created in an analog machine. He shows an optical control technology and slit scat effect. Although this video was not created by digital technology, it is a work that had a major impact on the computer art.

The Street of Crocodiles

The Quay brothers directed this film. This film is based on the novel by Bruno Schulz. Main character experience the mysterious incident at a street of crocodiles, finally his body is dissected. This main character’s life describes the modern society regarding human beings as mass.

  Woody Vasulka & Brian O’Reilly, Scan Processor Studies

Woody Vasulka and Brian O’Reilly directed this film together. They used various shapes and patterns.

  Watch, Cheap Imitation 

David Rokeby directed these videos. He created interactive sound and video installations. He concentrated on interactive pieces. Also, he does not make audiences to be passive. He makes them to keep thinking.

[jungminnam]

A Movie

Bruce Conner directed this film. He made a collage with collect movies, news’ films as well as various images. He shows the tasks sing the existing film to produce a new meaning. He expressed the confusion of the American Society in his film. Also, this film is one of the most influential works in the experimental film industry.

  Intervals

Peter Greenaway directed this film. This film shows the process of posters being pasted and removed constantly by fixed camera on the wall of Liverpool, England, where he loved. Street is constantly pulsating with poster. People who pat the street would be the picture of everyday. Relentless work of black and white give people the fun of beauty in itself.

  Scar Tissue

Su Friedrich directed this film. This film is silent film, and shows the difference between male and female by using close-ups shots and medium shots.   

[jungminnam]

Wavelength For Those Who Don't Have the Time

Michael Snow directed this film. He made effect of the film to maximize thorugh a repetition of a simple shape. He used the zoom on the camera, which is fixed. He showed it continuously. He put the acoustic behavior and short scenes.

  The Flicker

This film is directed by Tony Conrad. This film used only black and white. Also, light and dark sequence keep changing. I think this film give not visual impression but psychological impression.

Maxwell’s Demon

Hollis Frampton directed this film. He focused on the medium of film it self. While showing continuous an object, he made the interaction of perception and recognition.

  Paul Sharits, Word Movie

Paul Sharits directed these films. In film, Word Movie, He used formal contents without the waste scenes. In film, Tails, he used multiple projectors.

  Artype, Entrance to Exit

George Maciunas directed these films.  The film, Artype, looks like visual as well as rhythmic. He used only black and white, and there is not sound. The film, Entrance to Exit, used black and white as well, but this film used sound.

[jungminnam]

Mashes of the Afternoon

Maya Deren represents the inner surface of her new look to the word, overcoming one aspect. In this movie, main character woman has seen the reality, which was a dream. However, even dream was in a dream. She is hard to tell which one is a dream or real life. This film changes from a first-person perspective to third-person perspective. She seems that she forgets herself.

  Fireworks

This film raises an issue about the men’s image who were prescribed or fixed socially at that time. Men are the subject and targets of desire. Also, men are both of victims and perpetrators of violence. This movie is direct and sensitive. This film does not judge about what exactly masculine, but this makes audiences to think about that meanings.

  Reflections on Black

Stan Brakhage is one of the initial directors of deformed slide physically which creats an implicit effect. This method appears in this film. This film shows the process of arriving at the house, walking down and up the stairs in the dream of the blind. This director describes the main character’s darkness by using physical scratches and negative film.

  Mothlight

Stan Brakhage directed this film without a camera. He put moth wings, plants, and grass to transparent films. This film has a paradoxical message that moth, flowers, and plants that are not alive would be alive through his hands on the screen. He provides the audience the illusion that moth is alive.    

  No.3: Interwoven

This film was directed by Harry Smith. This film is colored and hand-painted. The technique he used in this film is that cutting stickers of the type in order to strengthen the holes in 30ring binder paper, and this film looks like a visual music.

  Please Don’t Stop

Stephanie Maxwell directed this film, and she produced it by hand painting. She did not use a camera. She used several techniques such as stenciling, etching, and collage. This film is full of colors and animation. 

[jungminnam]

Tuslava, A Color Box, Free Radicals, Free Radicals

Len Lye directed Tusalava, A Color Box, and Free Radicals. Tusalava is his the first film. This film describe human body’s organ as art. Also, he is very famous as an experimental filmmaker. He invested direct film, which is to draw images on films directly. Color Box and Free Radicals were produced by direct film. In Free Radicals, he scratched on film, and expressed rhythm with music. 

  Tarantella, Synchromy No.4

Mary Ellen Bute is one of the first female experimental directors. She directed Tarantella and Synchromy No. 4. These two films are a sequence of visual music animations. She described music as various of color, shapes, and movement.

Pas de Deux, Synchromie

Norman McLaren directed Tarantella and Synchromie, and these films are one of her experimental films. There is not characters and story. But Norman McLaren put heavy emphasis on color, movement, and music. This director came out of the shaped framework, and directed these experimental and innovative films. 

[jungminnam]

Opus I

Walther Ruttmann directed Opus I in 1921. These days, people can watch abstract video such as TV commercial, or animation. However, this film is the first abstract film. Of course, this film is non-narrative, but there is a different side with other films that were directed at that time. It is that this film used colors, red, yellow, blue, green, and so on. Each color describes different meanings, and express feelings without a narrative.

Optical Poem

Oscar Fischinger directed a lot of experimental films, and Optical Poem is one of those films. This film shows series of various shapes and colors, and it is like a dance of shapes. Moreover, these series make this film to look abstract. Also it uses colors as like Opus I.

Toccata and fugue in D Minor

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor describes an orchestra playing the music. They look like silhouette, and show music’s feeling as abstract light. I think that director made sound to be visual things.

Rhythmus 21

When Hans Richter directed Rhythmus 21, there is not video art. However, this film’s forms are like a video art. This film does not use colors, and this is black and white film. This film shows connection between sound and visual part. Although this film did not use colors but black and white, it expresses feelings and thoughts by using geometrical shapes.

Vormittagsspuk

Vormittagsspuk is also directed by Hans Richter. This film is animated, and similar with Rhythmus 21. It also describes sound as visual parts. This film is non-narrative, and shows abstract images.

Symphonie Diagonale

Viking Eggeling directed Symphonie Diagonale. This film uses shapes and objects. In this film, various shapes look like dancing with symphony. Viking Eggeling expressed the melody of the track and the feeling to listen to the music by introducing afugue form on the screen.

[jungminnam]

The Seashell and the Clergyman

Germaine Dulac who was female avant-gard director directed “The Seashell and the Clergyman.” This film regards as the first surrealism film. This film used surprising images’ features for exploring notions of identity of love and religion. In fact, this film is hard to understand because of unfounded series of images’ features. However, this means main character’s mental states.

  The Return to Reason

Man Ray directed a film “The Return to Reason”. This film is non-narrative and very short, but viewers can keep thinking logically. This film also shows series of image’s features. In contrast of traditional photography, he put objects between a light source and photosensitive film. And he pioneered rayographe and photogramme through thi film.

  The Starfish

This film was directed by Man Ray as well. Also, this film is non-narrative. Although most film shoot features directly, this film sees the subjects through a mirror and a diffused glass, and he uses tactics.  Most images seem like being distorted and out of focus.

  Ballet Mecanique

This film was directed by Ferned Legar and Dudley Mruphy, and this film regards as one of the masterpieces of early filmmaking. This film combined with Dadaism. Therefore, This film looks marvelously. Of course, this film is non-narrative as well. This film used sound that is full of energy, and animated images.

[jungminnam]

Man with a Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov who was Russian film director wrote a scenario, directed the film and edited it as well. It means that he took three parts. The Man with a Movie Camera is documentary film which treats cameraman’s story that he shoots people’s daily lives and city’s figure, for getting around. Dziga Vertov regarded this film as an experiment that deliver visual situation without subtitles, sets and actors. He shows objects in three dimensions by combining constructivism with montage technique. Also, he describes people’s daily lives vibrantly and optimistically.

After this film began screening, The Man with a Movie Camera has been regarded as a textbook example about constructivism and montage technique of documentary film. Early documentary films were recorded simply, but this film used editing techniques and special effects that people could not see at that time. Therefore, it advanced progress of films. For example, there are scenes that a camera walks alone, stand camera stands middle of the crowd and cameraman climbs up to a beer cup with stand camera. As following these scenes, it was proved that the technique of film construction was developed considerably in 1929.

 Moreover, Dziga Vertov portrayed reality as fabrication in his film although he centralized the fact that a film had to reflect reality as it was. The reason why he described reality as fabrication is that he wanted to criticize American film system which was leaned not toward artistic value but toward industry marketplace.

To sum up, It is sure that not only is Dziga vertov very good director but also he helped film industry to develop.

[jungminnam]

Adda: Calcutta, Kolkata

I have not been watched Indian movies, but after watching Adda: Calcutta, Kolkata, I’m interested in Indian movies. This documentary film, Adda, shows everyday life in the city. This movie made me feels like that I was in India. In this movie, there is not the general narration. Therefore, This movie only concentrates on real Indian life; even it shows real Indian conversation, which makes more realistic.

You can find the scene that middle class family do the shopping, and find that old men or street cleaners play cards on the street. This scene seems like bidirectional.

 The interesting thing of this film is that there is not a big story, just have a various story in each clips. On the street, there are a lot of people, and they are different each other. They cannot have same story individually.

 Every country had different aspects of daily life, and every person has different of daily life as well. Watching the various life, culture, and country is very interesting, and makes to embrace them.

 This film made me not only to lead into documentary genre but also to want to travel to India. I really recommend watching this movie. 

[jungminnam]

Films of Matthias Breuer and Scaffidi

I was hard to watch Matthias Breuer’s Reconstructing the Truth, even though this short film is only about 20minutes. To be honest, I did not understand exactly what this film says about. This film recreated two films, which are The Matrix (1999) and World on Wires (1973). I know that these two films are good and give some messages. However, reconstructing these two films does not look like a good idea, but look like untidy and messed. Every scene proceeds by rewinding and forwarding. I am not sure that this film is avant-garde. I think that films have to express their message exactly, but this film was hard to get any ideas.

The next film was “Dynamism of a Dog in a Wheelchair.” This film was shorter than first one. It takes only about 2minutes. However, I think that this second film was better than the first one. This second film analyses how a dog in a wheelchair moves. The camera shoots the dog in backside, and shows dog’s walking in slow motion as well as in a various perspective. This film can be summarized using one sentence, which is “Dynamism of a Dog in a Wheelchair” as same as its own title.

[jungminnam]

Film Before Film

In Film Before Film, Werner Nekes shows what people watch before making films. I had not considered the era before making films. This film presents Magic lantern, Peepshow Transformation by light, Hidden Information Montage and so on.

I remember that I had played with shadows as well as made flip-books when I was young. Of course, most people have played with shadows and flip-books. 

These two plays are one of historical aspects around film. It means that film have surrounded our life. We barely realize it though.

One of interesting things is that Werner Nekes, Film Before Film's director, appears in his film.  

This film's genre is documentary, so it lists prehistory of film. I recommend to watch this film because it is helpful to study "Film Before Film".