Reading Response 10: Due April 19
Ray Privett & James Kreul, “A Cinema of Possibilities: Brian Frye Interview”

How does Frye relate his work (including his film programming) to the following movements / concepts / genres:

Performance (and performance art)
-He tends to poke fun at it a bit. The idea of not doing anything in front of a group of people is still performing, such as in "Brian Frye Fails to Masturbate".

Minimalism
-Frye doesn't like to call himself a minimalist, and he isn't trying to be one. However, he does admit that some of his films could fall into that category, and while he doesn't object to them being called that, he also doesn't promote them as such.

Fluxus
-Some of his work was certainly about the performance and the making of it, as well as being relatively simple, for example "Disappearing Music for Face".
--How does Frye respond to the question about what he “adds” to films such as Anatomy of Melancholy?


Scott MacDonald, “Maintenance”

--What are some of the reasons for rental income growth at Canyon Cinema between 1980 and 2003? How did Canyon distinguish itself from the Filmmakers Cooperative and the Museum of Modern Art?

Canyon Cinema can probably attribute rental income growth from the 1980s to the early 2000s to educational institutions teaching more avant-garde films and classes devoted to avant-garde films. They were able to distinguish themselves from the Filmmakers Cooperative and MoMA because they regularly updated and revised their catalogs with new and updated content, while the Filmmakers Coop and MoMA rarely did. The catalogs were also interesting, uniquely designed, and sometimes even contained surprise articles by filmmakers.

--What problems and controversies did video distribution cause for Canyon in the 1990s? To what degree were the sides of the debate related to the age of the filmmakers on each side? Based upon the interview with Dominic Angerame at the end of the chapter, what was his position on the video debate?

Canyon had to decide if they would allow video makers (instead of FILMmakers) into the group and allow them to vote and distribute their work. The older generation of filmmakers was more focused one the preservation of the work that Canyon already had, as well as keeping with their original bylaws that stated they worked with 16mm, 8mm, and other related light and image production media. The younger filmmakers were more keen to add video and were more open in general to the new technologies citing that if Canyon wanted to remain in business, they would have to be friendly to new technologies.

Angerame's views on the video debate were more neutral. He was more or less just concerned with keeping Canyon together and not letting it dissolve.

--What were the advantages and disadvantages to funding from the National Endowment from the Arts? What controversies developed related to the publication of Canyon Cinema Catalog #5?

The advantage of the funding from the National Endowment from the Arts was that they had stable funding for a number of years and didn't really have to worry about money. However, the government got involved and didn't approve of some of the things that were published in some of the catalog issues (such as male nudity and lesbian kissing -- stills from various films). In the end, the government's hold won and the NEA had to essentially pull all of their grant money from Canyon.