Post-Spring Break Response

I quite enjoyed (nostalgia). The cleverness of having the description read to us before we ever see the picture helps the audience to get into the same feelings as the narrator. I also loved the way the pictures burned with the coils blackening, and then watching as the tiniest bits of remnants would finally burn away. Once you figure out what exactly is happening, it's almost like a game, trying to remember what the narrator said about the picture you are about to see, while still enjoying the picture that he just explained to you. One of my favorites so far.


Sitney, “Structural Film”

2. How is structural film different from the tradition of Deren/Brakhage/Anger, and what are its four typical characteristics?

The traditions of Brakhage/Deren/Anger's structure where the shape of the film is predetermined and extremely important. While in structural film, the shape is there, but less important than the film's outline.

The four typical characteristics of structural film are, the fixed camera, the flicker effect, loop printing, and rephotography off the screen.

3. If Brakhage’s cinema emphasized metaphors of perception, vision, and body movement, what is the central metaphor of structural film? Hint: It fits into Sitney’s central argument about the American avant-garde that we have discussed previously in class.

Structural film is a cinema of the mind rather than a cinema of the eye. Instead of trying to represent exactly what the eye sees, like Brakhage, the structuralist filmmakers attempted to represent a mindset, or simply the human mind in general.

4. Why does Sitney argue that Andy Warhol is the major precursor to the structural film?

Sitney argues that Warhol is the major precursor to structural film because he left all of the technical parts out, he was more focused on performance and the film itself. The structure is set, and whatever comes from it will come from it. His films were long, and challenged the viewer who was watching to stay engaged, or if not, question themselves as to why they were not, and explore the consciousness of being conscious of watching a film.

5. The trickiest part of Sitney’s chapter is to understand the similarities and differences between Warhol and the structural filmmakers. He argues that Warhol in a sense is anti-Romantic and stands in opposition to the visionary tradition represented by psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical films. But for Sitney’s central argument to make sense, he needs to place structural film within the tradition of psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical films. Trace the steps in this argument by following the following questions:

a. Why does Sitney call Warhol anti-Romantic?

Because Warhol called himself anti-romantic. He made films that showed how similar and romantic the other avant-garde films at the time were.

b. Why does Sitney argue that spiritually the distance between Warhol and structural filmmakers such as Michael Snow or Ernie Gehr cannot be reconciled?

Because their decisions as to why they used a fixed camera position or not were so similar.

c. What is meant by the phrase “conscious ontology of the viewing experience”? How does this relate to Warhol’s films? How does this relate to structural films?

It means being conscious of watching a film as a film. This fits into structuralism because it deals with the workings of the mind and consciousness. As for Warhol, he was looking for the same consciousness, but of the audience being conscious of watching the film, and not another consciousness.

d. Why does Sitney argue that structural film is related to the psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical tradition, and in fact responds to Warhol’s attack on that tradition by using Warhol’s own tactics?

Structural film orchestrates the sameness and the duration, looking to focus the audience's attention on certain things because of the sameness of it all. Warhol, on the other hand, challenged the audience more as an experiment in a less thought out way, to make the viewer aware of their viewing.

6. What metaphor is crucial to Sitney’s and Annette Michelson’s interpretation of Michael Snow’s Wavelength?

The film is a metaphor for consciousness itself, in that it starts with a question, and eventually answers in in what the viewer should be looking at, and throughout we answer the question ourselves, and are extremely conscious that is what we are doing.

Fuses Response

In this film I can certainly see the Brakhage influence with all of the painting on film, scratching, and manipulation of speed and color. Yet, at the same time, she makes it her own. I may be mistaken, but the way she paints over the sequences of her and her husband stand out and unique to her. Brakhage filmed people and distorted them, and he painted on film, but I don't recall a time where Brakhage took black and white footage and then painted over on that. I think most of his painting was on clear leader. (Disclaimer: I have not seen enough of Brakhage's work to be super certain on this, I'm just going off of the things I have seen both in this class and others.)

There are also times when the color stays consistent between the highlights, lowlights, and midtones, so I wonder if this is some sort of tinting instead of painting.

Overall, it seems a bit of a slap in the face to Brakhage, as this was a response to his film, Loving. She blatantly uses his techniques, but just does them "better". I wonder what Brakhage thought of the film?