Discover Top Posts Tagged with #kubelka

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S0aoQQxzwk)

Actress - Again the Addiction - Hazyville

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"But Arnulf Rainer is not merely a study of film rhythm and flicker. In reducing the cinema to its essentials, Kubelka has not stripped it of meaning, but rather made an object which has qualities so general as to suggest a variety of possible meanings, each touching on some essential aspect of existence." (source)

#arnulf rainer #kubelka #peter kubelka #experimental film #16mm #black and white film

Film as a Document

Today's (Sept. 5th) discussion got me thinking about where films are headed today, and what hasn't been done before. In the start of film there were untouched ideas, but now what more can we do? When thinking of the idea Montage Battleship Potemkin by Eisenstein is the first thing that comes to mind. The idea of collage images to create a greater idea. This was Eisenstein's way of evoking emotion, but it is not the only way. In Kubelka's interview he describes how there is a certain articulation to cinema in both editing and in sound. For Eisenstein this was in the use of montage, but Kubelka saw it as much more than that. He looked at is as a frame by frame discussion, in which each frame had meaning behind its choice, as did the sound. I found this idea of meaning per frame to be interesting and realized that, like with writing, though the techniques have been discovered, the content can always change.

For example, there will always be new ideas to write about as time presses on and our history changes. Kubelka stated that he was still in the stone age, and that humanity was still a small child. To Kubelka, his films are a document for the future, something for others to look back on. This got me thinking of where film has to go. There will always be new topics of discovery and things to say. So, the techniques for film may have already been perfected, but each new artists has a different take on the world, and something different to say.

Look at Alone: Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998) by Martin Arnold for example. This film takes a scene that has already been used in film and reedits it to say something completely different. Here, like Kubelka, Arnold uses each frame to have meaning. By reediting the time of this soot, one is able to take an innocent scene and turn it into a Freudian idea of the mother and sexuality. It is wild to think, just by changing the frame dynamics of this scene one is able to create an entirely different conversation of the relation of image and sound. Not only is the image changed, but the relation of the sound as well.

This idea of relation to sound and image is also important. Many artists wanted to recreate the "real world" in film with sound, while others wanted it to be a compliment to film. In Kubelka's Unsere Arikareise we can see this play on relationship to sound and image. Here we not only have a disjunction of sound disturbing the natural order, but a whole new interpretation on the image. Instead of hearing what happens, there is a deconstruct of the image, making the viewer hyper alert. In Kubelka's interview he goes on to describe how through his films he wants to create a conversation with the viewers. I feel by playing with synchronous sound, Kubelka was able to create even more meaning in his frame by frame discussion. He not only added another to his already complex shots, but made a deeper meaning into what those shots meant to him. One that stood out to me was the shot of the lion being killed and pulled up onto the bus. He says that he carefully chose the music, and as the lion looks at the camera the music mimics this. To me, the use of sound to rather compliment an image is much more powerful than using it to verify an image. By adding this extra layer, the filmmaker is able to create deeper meaning as well as alter the viewers perception of the image.

To me this is the most important aspect of sound in cinema, to alter the interpretation of an image. This still brings me to the question of where is film going today. Though certain shots have already been established, and there hasn't been much in the world that hasn't been filmed, it is the filmmakers job to say something different. To leave a "document" for the future as Kubelka said. In that interview, the interviewer mentioned that Warhol's idea of using film to compare what people looked like over the years. This is an aspect of film that will always be astounding. The ability to study a culture using images and they way in which that culture both presents and interprets those images.

#film #andy warhol #kubelka #8mm #16mm #35mm