Week 14 Films

Julien Donkey-Boy

As I’ve probably voiced before, I can eventually bring myself to appreciate aesthetically unpleasant works, but I don’t enjoy watching them. This was absolutely the case with Julien Donkey-Boy. I understand this was part of Korine’s intention, along with serving up every possible opportunity for us viewers to be uncomfortable: incest, abuse, accidental child murder, miscarriage... and that whole business with the cigarette party trick. After watching, I can appreciate that such an absurd film was made, and with talented actors too. And I understand that the film grain was necessary to bring us face to face with the discomfort and let us feel the realness of the experience through the rawness. I also appreciate that it was a sort of bonding experience for the class, like having to sit through Chelsea Girls together. But needless to say, I’m glad the week was revived with:

Breaking the Waves

I wrote in my notes that I “forgot my life” while I was watching this—particularly in the series of events that leads to Tess being hospitalized. What a beautiful, moving film. This felt real in a wholly different way than Julien Donkey-Boy. The characters were extremely complex and I wholeheartedly believed their relationships. More devastating than Tess’s death was Dodo’s uncensored reaction to it. The chapter postcards were brilliant, invigorating the senses with awesome 70s jams and surreal, sweeping landscapes. They may have been incongruous with the tragic goings on of the film, but I feel they helped solidify Breaking the Waves as a tightly wrapped work of art.

Week 12 Film: Stalker

I loved Stalker. I feel a little guilty liking more than anything in an avant-garde film class because it had the most engaging narrative of anything we’ve watched.  The fact that it was a journey of sorts held my curiosity because I knew there was an end goal, almost like a structuralist film. But I think the narrative being so intriguing helps to keep our attention for the two and a half hours so we can appreciate all the artistic choices that Tarkovsky makes.

His use of perspective was very creative. The contrast between the extreme wide shots and extreme close ups was always surprising—at the beginning I became used to seeing the three characters from afar and allowing them to blend together. But then we got lingering close-ups and I could see the distinct character in each of their faces. These extremes almost felt like I was playing a computer games with set views. But I don’t mean to diminish these choices by saying that. It leant itself well the adventuresome quest feel of the film.

I actually found this to be one of the more transcendental films we’ve seen in several ways. The sequence where the camera moves up a sepia-tone stream, only to end up on the same character we departed from, was extremely meditative. It felt like a separate part of the film in that I fell into a trance while watching it and forgot the larger narrative that it was a part of. It was also mind blowing to end up where we started after traveling in one non-circular direction.

It also had a very transcendental ending. I felt at first that it could’ve ended when the three men were still in the zone, but because we see the stalker rejoin his family and have almost a normal familial experience (when they roamed the beach), it seemed like he was content with the bleakness of his life.

Week 11 Films

For some reason, I found it difficult to pinpoint my reaction to La Jette. While I was watching it, I felt pretty neutral towards it. It's possible that with its sparse imagery and narration I was lulled into a calm, hypnotic state. The story was engaging but a little confusing to me. The ending certainly had an impact though – I think because that kind of a twist appealed to my comfort with mainstream narrative films.

I really enjoyed the portion of the film where the couple goes to the museum with the stuffed animals. Many of those shots were stunning – particularly one where their bodies were obscured behind a screen and a bird hung overhead.

I had a more vivid reaction to Sans Soleil. The filming felt both very intimate and very distant. Marker really captured the Lost in Translation feeling of being a Westerner abroad. The filmmaker was in awe of the culture, in the midst of it and yet wholly separate.

The film takes on a very melancholy feeling, which is appropriate for its name. I think part of the reason for this is that we as an audience seem to be floating through the cultures without an anchor – it feels very lonely. Marker also focused on some of the disturbing yet banal features of a large city – the superficial ads that go abandoned and unnoticed.

Also, more than any other documentary I’ve seen, I genuinely wondered about the lives of the people on camera. I think since I couldn’t assume what their lives were like outside of when they were being filmed, I became very curious about their everyday.

Week 10 Film

To The Wonder - Terrence Malick

I really enjoyed being able to watch a narrative avant-garde film this week. Sometimes with the non-narrative films it's hard for me to even understand what to analyze. I found it helpful to have the narrative structure to bolster my viewing experience and allow me to relish the deviations from this narration.

However, at times I think I was so distracted by the beauty and feel of the filmmaking that I missed clear narrative plot points that other classmates picked up on.  For instance, I didn't read it as being chronologically sound because I enjoyed floating through it.

While I was watching, I admired Malick's ability to obscure much of what was going on, and for me to wholeheartedly accept that I was going to be a little confused for much of the film. Maybe I was a little more confused than I was supposed to be.

I loved the grand, sweeping quality of the film. It felt very spiritual the way Malick played with light and constantly revolving shots. After our class discussion I understand a little better that the film is about something higher, rather than being grounded in the characters themselves.

But I did enjoy Malick's shots that visually expressed the feelings of the characters. The distance between Neil and Marina (using their names brings them down to earth a little too easily) was conveyed beautifully in shots where we could see them on different levels of their house but they couldn't see each other, and walked off the screen unsatisfied.

It was interesting when Marina briefly held the power after coming clean to Neil and she was much larger in the foreground, dominating his small figure in the background.
I was also stunned by the dark, dollhouse feeling of Rachel McAdam's character wandering through her empty house after Neil leaves her.

Malick was notably very effective in conveying the paradise of love, by allowing us to watch the couple in their tender moments (in Paris especially) and feel like we were a part of the experience due to the unconventional way they were framed. Allowing us to see their arms embracing rather than their faces captured what we would be observing were we actually in their situation.

Week 9 Films

I found Fogline to have the biggest effect on me as a transcendental film. I felt it made the best use of timing to evoke a certain mood. When it began, I wasn't sure how I was supposed to view it. Since there was no moving along of footage to follow, it was much like standing in front of a painting for an extended period of time. When you endure a certain amount of time, the subtleties of the piece start to stand out. By the end of the film I felt very tranquil, so it was successful as a meditative film.

While I was in awe of many of the shots from New York Portrait #3 for their use of scale, contrast, and composition, I didn't feel an overall effect of the film by the end of it. It seems like it was transcendental less for its impact on the viewer and more for revealing the stunning in the mundane.

I felt somewhat similarly about the films of Dorsky. His manner of abstracting nature and city life was incredible. I especially liked Compline's use of obscurity and darkness. Though the three were fairly similar, the later two films felt more focused than Arbor Vitae. For some reasons I found it off-putting when Dorsky mixed shots of nature with those of people in the city in Arbor Vitae, but it was successful in Winter because he maintained a similar tone throughout. But, though I appreciated all the visuals individually, by the end of all three films, I didn't feel differently from how I felt before I watched them.

Mother and Son had more of a complete, sweeping effect. The colors were gorgeous and I liked that it was difficult to distinguish at times the real from what looked painted. The opening shot looked so much like a still photograph, due in part to the figures not moving much. I enjoyed the gentleness and slowness of the actions and voices of the characters. It matched the tone of the whole piece.

Week 8 Films

I loved Stan Brakhage's films. They were so engaging that I couldn't look down to take notes while I was watching them. In particular, I didn't want to miss any shot in Mothlight or Dog Star Man. The beauty of these films is even more powerful when it passes by quickly.

Mothlight (1963)
I appreciate how Brakhage highlighted the natural color and shape of the elements he used and crafted them into patterns without altering them. Like I mentioned before, I was able to see the images for just enough time that I was compelled to see more. The combination of the silence with the light colors created a peaceful viewing experience.

Window Water Baby Moving (1959)
After a fair amount of warning, I had an easier time with this than expected - although it was extremely difficult to watch the placenta and the umbilical cord being cut onscreen.
Otherwise, I found it stunning and surprisingly, wanted to see more when it ended. It's interesting that no one else saw the first part in the tub as being tender. Maybe I just have a tendency to over-romanticize what I see.

Prelude: Dog Star Man (1962)
I was enthralled by this film. The colors of the light astounded me and I tried to take a mental picture of certain images to use the colors later in my paintings: red-orange on deep green, bright pink on cobalt, mango-orange on sage. The use of silence in the film elevated it to a spiritual experience.

Hymn to Her (1974)
I didn't enjoy this as much as the first three films because it felt more narrative but wasn't. However, I really enjoyed the shot with the blurred green in the foreground. I can't even remember what the shot was of entirely, but I made sure to make a note of it.

The Dante Quartet (1987)
I actually was not as in awe of this film as I was of the others. For the other films, I felt that no one but Brakhage could have made them. While I understand the time and skill that went into these painted frames, it didn't seem as unique of a vision. Maybe for this reasons I thought the fast frames were more effective than the slow ones that lingered on the individual composition.

I found Phil Solomon's films less easy to watch, because they focused more on deep moods than on the composition of each frame and beauty of life.

Psalm II: Walking Distance (1999)
I found the use of sound to be a little jarring in this film. While it definitely contribute to a melancholy mood, it sounded unnatural and reminded me that it was edited to the visuals. It did find it effective when the sound of a wave crashing accompanied a filtered visual of a wave. I felt like I was being overtaken by the water.

Psalm III: Night of the Meek (2002)
This felt very depressing with the heavy use of blue and image of the person in a hospital bed. One very effective moment was when we were engulfed in a dark screen with night noises. But this film had more disparate types of imagery going on than the other two.

Still Raining, Still Dreaming (2009)
It was easiest to see Brakhage's influence in this film. The figures did feel like dream images, and they acted almost like Rorschach tests for what someone could read into them.

Week 6 Films

Scorpio Rising, Kenneth Anger

I really enjoyed watching this film. While the imagery was interesting enough that I would have been engaged anyway, the soundtrack really drew me in. Together with the haircuts and styling of the people in the film, it created a nostalgic experience. I’m very curious as to what the experience would’ve been for the audience when it was first released. I can assume that many of the people watching wouldn’t have been aware of the goings on of the motorcycle subculture, so maybe the popular music of the day would have made the subculture more relatable while also creating an interesting friction.

On another note, the use of homoerotic imagery in this made me think about objectification in general. I’m so used to seeing women’s bodies objectified that I’ve come to feel that there is inherently wrong with such a portrayal. Now I wonder if it’s just wrong that the objectification is overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, of women in mainstream media. I don’t think a solution is to fill the mainstream with more male objectification without addressing women, but it’d be nice for it to be more equally distributed.

Chelsea Girls, Andy Warhol

I agree with the rest of the class that I felt somewhat trapped watching Chelsea Girls and therefore didn't exactly enjoy it. But as I stuck with it, it revealed itself to be an extremely thought-provoking film experiment. I was at first extremely bored with the Nico in the kitchen footage, but once she was contrasted with the louder couple to the left, I came to appreciate her scene much more. Next to the shrillness and immaturity of other the couple, the bright, silent close-ups of Nico rendered her angelic.

As audience members we were presented with the interesting “choice” to follow one of the little films at a time because it was impossible to watch both. While in general I was most attentive to the films with sound, during the portion where the shrill drug-administering woman was talking on the phone I sought refuge in the silent classicality and strangeness of the Boys in Bed scene. This was another instance where the silence was more engaging because I could better appreciate the composition and imagery. When the same boys in bed reappeared on the right side of the screen with audio later on, they were far less engaging. It took all the mystery out of what was going on.

I was also extremely impressed when both sides of the screens lined up despite their both being continuous shots. For example, when the Hanoi Hanna storyline was on both sides, at one point the two shots of her face were almost identical. In a match-up of content, both the couple at the beginning and Nico got beverages at the same time.