Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

[Mark Street]

Thanks to all.  I especially appreciate Jonathan Walley's skepticism bout
the entire venture!  I share that skepticism, actually

all the best,
Mark

On Fri, Dec 15, 2017 at 6:50 AM,  wrote:

>
> As some of this is perhaps about intent and ways of thinking I'd push for
> you to consider those that were never made. Leopold Survage, designs for
> his 'Le Rythme Colore' for instance. OK it dates from 1913 but being
> flexible with dates could accomodate an ever so slightly wider range of
> material.
>
>
>
>
> ||
> NACHLEBEN FILM LAB AND ARCHIVE
> http://www.nachleben.org.uk
> CUBE CINEMA. BRISTOL
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>
> ||
>
> On Wed, 13 Dec 2017, Mark Street wrote:
>
> Hey All,
>>
>> Preparing a brief talk on The Experimental Impulse in Early Cinema
>> thinking about how it ALL was that way by
>> definition early on; an inventory of tricks, effusions, failed and
>> successful experiments.
>>
>> Any favorites anyone can recommend?
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

[graemehogg]

As some of this is perhaps about intent and ways of thinking I'd push for 
you to consider those that were never made. Leopold Survage, designs for 
his 'Le Rythme Colore' for instance. OK it dates from 1913 but being 
flexible with dates could accomodate an ever so slightly wider range of 
material.





||
NACHLEBEN FILM LAB AND ARCHIVE
http://www.nachleben.org.uk
CUBE CINEMA. BRISTOL
http://www.cubecinema.com/
||

On Wed, 13 Dec 2017, Mark Street wrote:


Hey All,

Preparing a brief talk on The Experimental Impulse in Early Cinema thinking 
about how it ALL was that way by
definition early on; an inventory of tricks, effusions, failed and successful 
experiments.

Any favorites anyone can recommend? 

Mark



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Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

[Fred Camper]

I pretty much agree with Jonathan here.

Two other elements: the avant-garde of the 1920s, and even more so I 
think the American movement beginning with Harry Smith and Maya Deren, 
operated simultaneously in opposition to the naive representationalism 
of the dominant commercial cinema and within the thinking that 
characterized modernism in the other arts. Thus Deren speaks of the 
"vertical" and opposed to the "horizontal" as ways of organizing a film, 
and was working with an obvious awareness of surrealism. Thus these 
later films make the viewer self aware of the viewing process in ways 
that might lead to a certain kind of intellectual reflection less likely 
to be engendered by the earliest films -- and I find this to be as true 
of Jack Smith as it is of Hollis Frampton. These later films put it to 
us that film viewing itself is something to think about.


Jonathan, I am in the same situation as you are with regards to grading. 
It is always nice by way of relief to read a bit of writing by someone 
who knows the difference between "its" and "it’s," that most sentences 
need both subjects and verbs, and when to use capital letters...


Fred Camper
Chicago

On 12/14/2017 10:02 AM, Jonathan Walley wrote:

Would that I could resist this, but no…

It’s probably a little dangerous to think of these films as 
“experimental” in any strong sense of that term, since mostly the 
“experiments” on view in these films are about cultivating film’s 
ability to tell stories; or else, formal experimentation was about 
exploiting cinema’s novelty in the early years. Both of these impulses 
are about making film/cinema a commodity, and developing a degree of 
formal standardization (which paralleled attempts at 
material/technological standardization that were underway by the 
mid-oughts). Once early cinema was rediscovered, so to speak, as a 
paradigm of “roads to taken,” something Gunning suggests in “The 
Cinema of Attractions,” the historical link between it and 
experimental film “proper” was forged, I would say. But not before.


This is not to put these films down, or to say they have no relevance 
to genuinely Experimental/Avant-garde cinema. But the impulse was 
entirely different than the ones animating experimental filmmaking 
beginning in the late teens and early twenties. Early generations of 
experimental/avant-garde filmmakers looked much more, I think, to the 
budding commercial cinema of the teens for their inspiration (I’m 
thinking of Leger’s love for /La Roue/, for example, or the 
Surrealists’ of slapstick comedy ala Chaplin and Keaton, or Cornell’s 
for films like /East of Borneo/).


Gunning argues that the “cinema of attractions” “goes underground,” to 
be revisited by the avant-garde decades later (he mentioned Jack 
Smith, for instance). But this suggests a kindred spirit between 
someone like Smith or Warhol and the earliest filmmakers, and that it 
was simply a matter of returning to a way of doing things that existed 
before commercial cinema; both claims are questionable.


Anyway, this has allowed me to avoid grading for a little while, which 
is nice.


All best,
JW

Dr. Jonathan Walley
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Cinema
Denison University
wall...@denison.edu 

On Dec 13, 2017, at 7:29 PM, Dave Tetzlaff > wrote:


thinking about how it ALL was that way by definition early on; an 
inventory of tricks, effusions, failed and successful experiments.


Do take a look at Gunning’s concept of "cinema of attractions”. You 
could argue that the whole idea of cinema was a trick. Against the 
conventional view that the Lumieres were proto-realists and Melies a 
proto-expressionist, take the famous anecdote about early audiences 
panicking viewing Train Approching A Station. That wasn’t people 
seeing the film as a representation. There’s also something 
connecting the early films of single take with locked down camera 
between later era formal works (e.g. Peter Hutton) that are in the 
Experimental canon.


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Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

[Jonathan Walley]

Would that I could resist this, but no…

It’s probably a little dangerous to think of these films as “experimental” in 
any strong sense of that term, since mostly the “experiments” on view in these 
films are about cultivating film’s ability to tell stories; or else, formal 
experimentation was about exploiting cinema’s novelty in the early years. Both 
of these impulses are about making film/cinema a commodity, and developing a 
degree of formal standardization (which paralleled attempts at 
material/technological standardization that were underway by the mid-oughts). 
Once early cinema was rediscovered, so to speak, as a paradigm of “roads to 
taken,” something Gunning suggests in “The Cinema of Attractions,” the 
historical link between it and experimental film “proper” was forged, I would 
say. But not before. 

This is not to put these films down, or to say they have no relevance to 
genuinely Experimental/Avant-garde cinema. But the impulse was entirely 
different than the ones animating experimental filmmaking beginning in the late 
teens and early twenties. Early generations of experimental/avant-garde 
filmmakers looked much more, I think, to the budding commercial cinema of the 
teens for their inspiration (I’m thinking of Leger’s love for La Roue, for 
example, or the Surrealists’ of slapstick comedy ala Chaplin and Keaton, or 
Cornell’s for films like East of Borneo). 

Gunning argues that the “cinema of attractions” “goes underground,” to be 
revisited by the avant-garde decades later (he mentioned Jack Smith, for 
instance). But this suggests a kindred spirit between someone like Smith or 
Warhol and the earliest filmmakers, and that it was simply a matter of 
returning to a way of doing things that existed before commercial cinema; both 
claims are questionable. 

Anyway, this has allowed me to avoid grading for a little while, which is nice. 

All best,
JW

Dr. Jonathan Walley
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Cinema
Denison University
wall...@denison.edu

> On Dec 13, 2017, at 7:29 PM, Dave Tetzlaff  wrote:
> 
>> thinking about how it ALL was that way by definition early on; an inventory 
>> of tricks, effusions, failed and successful experiments.
> 
> Do take a look at Gunning’s concept of "cinema of attractions”. You could 
> argue that the whole idea of cinema was a trick. Against the conventional 
> view that the Lumieres were proto-realists and Melies a proto-expressionist, 
> take the famous anecdote about early audiences panicking viewing Train 
> Approching A Station. That wasn’t people seeing the film as a representation. 
> There’s also something connecting the early films of single take with locked 
> down camera between later era formal works (e.g. Peter Hutton) that are in 
> the Experimental canon.
> 
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Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

[Jorge Lorenzo Flores Garza]

A lot of the early Emile Cohl films deliberately push technological boundaries. 
 There is one that I remember that handles morphing effects in faces very much 
in the fad of early digital motion graphics (like the typical Michael Jackson 
“Black or White” video).  I think the film is Les transfigurations from 1909, 
but I am not sure.  His whole ouvre is worth checking out.



Best



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De: FrameWorks <frameworks-boun...@jonasmekasfilms.com> en nombre de Francisco 
Torres <fjtorre...@gmail.com>
Enviado: Wednesday, December 13, 2017 1:40:30 PM
Para: Experimental Film Discussion List
Asunto: Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

The films of Segundo De Chomon are worth a look.
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Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

[Francisco Torres]

The films of Segundo De Chomon are worth a look.
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Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

[Rob Gawthrop]

Mark

Apart from obvious Méliès & Zecca  …   some regressive historians have 
considered early films (sometimes insultingly described as primitive) based 
mainly on formal achievement ( the first close-up, edit etc.) or precursors of 
hollywood narrative (point of view, establishing shots etc.) and have dismissed 
other aspects as being just amusing ‘trick films’.

The following favourites (often mentioned  in the above context) have both 
perceptual and conceptual content that  relate to concerns in some structural 
films, indeed some film artists (myself included)  have remade or 
recontextualised such films from this period.

James Williamson: The Big Swallow 1901
  : An Interesting Story 1904
George Albert Smith: The Miller & The Sweep 1898  (& much copied)
Cecil Hepworth: How it Feels to be Run Over 1900
Edwin S Porter: The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend 1906

Rob

On 13 Dec 2017, at 16:27, Mark Street  wrote:

> Hey All,
> 
> Preparing a brief talk on The Experimental Impulse in Early Cinema 
> thinking about how it ALL was that way by definition early on; an inventory 
> of tricks, effusions, failed and successful experiments.
> 
> Any favorites anyone can recommend?  
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> ___
> FrameWorks mailing list
> FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com
> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks

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Re: [Frameworks] Experimental Films before 1910

[Jonathan Walley]

Hi Mark,

One favorite springs to mind immediately: *Ladies Skirts Nailed to a Fence*
(1899)/. Two women (actually men in drag) stand at a fence gossiping, and a
young scalawag sneaks up behind them, pulls the ends of their long,
Victorian skirts through the slats in the fence, and nails them to said
fence. When the "ladies" notice this, they try to run away, but are stuck,
of course. Instead of moving the camera to either side of the fence for the
two recto/verso views, the filmmakers moved the *actors*. This variation on
shot/reverse-shot is pretty awesome, and the pantomiming of femininity by
the male actors is a bonus.

I'm sure I'll think of more - this is a favorite topic.
All best,
Jonathan

On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 11:27 AM, Mark Street  wrote:

> Hey All,
>
> Preparing a brief talk on The Experimental Impulse in Early Cinema
> thinking about how it ALL was that way by definition early on; an inventory
> of tricks, effusions, failed and successful experiments.
>
> Any favorites anyone can recommend?
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> ___
> FrameWorks mailing list
> FrameWorks@jonasmekasfilms.com
> https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
>
>


-- 
Dr. Jonathan Walley
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Cinema
Denison University
wall...@denison.edu
740-587-8552
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