Tuesday, April 21, 2009

New Blog Post for the week of 4/20

The term, “avant-garde” refers to an relatively easily defined films. Yet one of the ideas behind it is that these films are always stretching the norms and boundaries. Do you think that there is an inherent contradiction between these two ideas? In addition, what do you make of Peter Wollen’s effort to split the avant-garde into two categories and what can one then derive from this regarding the film theory’s view of avant-garde. Finally, what is the reasoning behind the continued use of the heading, “avant-garde” as it is a term that has thus far spanned 80 years, had some many different influences, is it far to the original “avant-garde” to still use their name today.

According to the Murray Smith article, words like ‘reactive’ and ‘critical’ were used by David James to describe the avant-garde. James also cited the avant-garde as continually challenging and undermining the norms of orthodox practice and attempting to deface the values of mainstream society. So if we assume that the classic Hollywood cinema is the first cinema and the avant-garde works as the second cinema, what relation does the third cinema have in relation to these other two ideas? Please attempt to frame your answer in terms of Apparatuses 1 and 2. Also, please feel free to comment on the original view point of James regarding the avant-garde.

Penley and Bergstrom’s article surrounds the concept of viewing the avant-garde cinema as an attempt of exploring the consciousness. Please explore this relationship on a deeper level, specifically in relation to the views we viewed last week but feel free to mention any that we have seen all semester. In addition, are there elements of those films that are unattractive and that bring back memories of Wollen’s virtues of counter-cinema? Finally, how does the ‘ethnographic impulse’ as described by Catherine Russel change the way we understand films especially in the relation to the ‘exploration of the consciousness’ model?

10 comments:

  1. I think the major difference between counter-cinema and avant-garde can be seen in their names: something challenging a contemporary (counter-cinema), versus something moving forward and away from its contemporaries (avant-garde). While counter-cinema has to follow the same basic pattern of narrative cinema in order to properly provide a counter cinema, while avant guarde tries new methods, styles, and subjects, continually testing the boundaries of film in order to move film as a medium forward. Counter-cinema attempts to make us uncomfortable by changing the aspects of cinema, while avant-garde makes us uncomfortable by doing things and going places that film as a medium has not tested before in grand scale, and therefore is completely new and "future-esque" to us.

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  2. The Penley and Bergstrom article relating avant-garde cinema to consciousness is supported by a number of the films we viewed. Many avant-garde films are similar to a stream of consciousness, in that connections between one shot and another are often symbolic and psychological, rather than following a narrative. The sequence that we discussed in section with the bomb in the ocean followed by the surfers is similar to the strange connections that link one thought to another. This relates to the analogy of traditional cinema as prose and avant-garde cinema as poetry, especially poems that use a stream of consciousness technique. The children in Peggy and Fred in Hell singing songs absentmindedly can be seen as a parallel to getting a song stuck in your head. Peggy and Fred also shows how ethnography relates both to avant-garde cinema and its connections to consciousness. Peggy and Fred's only knowledge of other people is what they see on TV, and so they assume that they are on television. This is similar to how media and culture constantly affect people's thoughts and actions.

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  3. While avant-garde cinema does test the boundaries of narrative structure and alignment of meaning, I think the best way to define it is in terms of what it doesn't do. Reality tv, for example, is most likely a reverberation of a much more abstract and extreme exploration into voyeurism, as we might have seen in Un Chant D'amour or Man with a Movie Camera. With the explosion of youtube culture where all aspects of life are being framed and rated, an evolving avant-garde is the disappearance of the co-op movement, a decreased concern for a viewer, and a birth of autonomic cinematic critiques of viewer space that problematize our vantage point. I've tended to see avant-garde as defined by which direction the gun is pointing.

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  4. In response to Bladi's comment, I don't think that decreased concern for the viewer is necessarily only a characteristic of avant-garde. There is a lot of that in counter cinema as well. I think the distinguishing line might be that while avant-garde is not necessarily created with pleasing the audience as a first priority, it does not strive to estrange the audience and cause it discomfort, as such counter cinema directors as Godard often did frequently.

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  5. I think that the question of what constitutes counter cinema or avant-garde cinema can be interestingly framed around Superstar. Do you think that Superstar fits into avant-garde or counter cinema category? or both?

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  6. I think that a major component of avant-garde cinema is that its main goal is not to entertain the audience, or to inspire the normal, conventional system of hopes and emotions that the audience feels while watching a classical hollywood film. One major example of this is the concept of the walk-out point, the point in an avant-garde movie where the audience finally becomes fed up with what they are watching and walks out of the theater. For conventional cinematic directors, the thought of the audience walking out is terrifying, whereas avant-garde directors do not mind. The goal of an avant-garde director can still be accomplished if the audience hates the movie – indeed, this can actually help the director's goal of confusing or enraging the viewer and subverting classical cinema. In terms of "exploring the consciousness," I think there is a fine line between images that disturb us because they bring up fears inside of us and images that bore or disturb us for other reasons. What do you think about a film such as "Fireworks" (the one where the sailors rip the man's heart out) or the singing scenes in "Peggy and Fred go to Hell"? Do they access some part of our unconscious mind that makes us uncomfortable, or are they simply unpleasant (albeit well made)?

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  7. One of the most interesting things about the idea of the continued use of avant-garde is the Futurist roots it comes from. The continued use of such an overdetermined term is in my opinion problematic. While members of the Futurists, Dada, and surrealist movements all appropriated this term in relation to their art, the militaristic roots of the "advance guard" holds. I am uncomfortable by this term in that I do not think that spectator displeasure in film (which seems to be one of the goals) in experimental cinema I find this politically conflicting with much of experimental work done by what is commonly posited as "avant-garde."

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  8. I agree with Matt M about the stream-of-consciousness connection to avant-garde. Much like a Joyce novel (which is a staple of modernist literature), avant-garde film's use of match cuts in order to apply new meaning most reference the continuity of the mind--which is itself fragmented, and thus, not continuous at all, jumping from thought to thought. In "Fireworks" for example, a dream-like unstable quality fixates itself throughout the film. Like a dream, the spectator cannot directly interact with it, succumbing to whatever the next shot will be, whether it be something akin to a nightmare or an erotic dream. The film itself seems to reference the uncontrollable connections that the mind makes, and thus attaches to itself something different that a counter-cinema film might do--which is to break down conventions of film, like many Godard films (especially Weekend).

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  9. In kind of a response to comments above me, don't you think that the whole idea of "the walking out point" actually shows that there is some concern towards having an audience? I think avant garde cinema is looking towards some audience, but not to the large extent that mainstream cinema may look for it. If avant-garde artists care enough to make their films right up to the walking out point, then they don't want their audience to walk out. This is different than "art gallery films" that are meant to only be watched absentmindedly... Yet they are still made for an audience. So yea, i feel all these types of cinemas care about an audience, but care about different types of audiences and for different reasons. And I feel that the relationship between both avant garde film and counter cinema with the audience is somehow similar as it creates a sort of discomfort, yet I have to agree with someone up there that counter-cinema actively seeks this discomfort while avant garde cinema creates it simply by its new formal attributes.

    I also agree with what is said up there about the stream of consciousness aspect of it. Unlike counter cinema, avant garde doesn't actively try to break a narrative, it just simply has a different relationship with time and space. Like in dreams, avant garde films neither follow a established narrative, neither try to actively break a narrative. It just simply happens. I guess that is the biggest difference with Godard's films. They are uncomfortable because it is hard to follow a narrative as they are broken up by strange occurrences or characters or even titles like in weekend. Avant Garde just simply doesn't have a narrative to break.

    I'm just curious though, there seems to be now many categorizations of types of films we have been watching. Classical or mainstream, counter-cinema, avant garde, independent, 3rd cinema and national or post national. Would anyone think that these types of cinema can be put into smaller categories? I unfortunately, basically because I grew up in a "western system", am almost tempted to label Mainstream vs. other. But I don't think that is correct. Is there a better way to group all of these cinemas in categories? Or is the point of having them to just keep them in separate labels? And what about art cinema? Would you consider that counter-cinema or avant garde?

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  10. I don't know if this is just me but I found a lot of the Avant Garde-typed films to be very disturbing in an almost uneventful, dull way. I understand that Counter Cinema films (especially Godard's) are built to disturb the audience and make them feel uncomfortable...but it was done in a way that was, for me, very interesting and fascinating to watch. Whereas, a lot of the Avant Garde films felt very monotonous in some sense. Did anyone else feel this way? Is this due to the existence of a narrative? But the narratives in many Godard films are, as Dani said, hard to follow "as they are broken up by strange occurrences or characters or even titles like in weekend". Dani continues to say that Avant Garde doesn't even have a narrative to break, but I feel that is somewhat untrue. Superstar for one has a definite narrative (but then we can argue, is Superstar really an Avant Garde film?). And how about the black and white movies with the prisoners? The narrative wasn't has strong or solid as a "conventional" film, but I feel the whole film did indeed follow a certain plot line.

    I hope that made some sense....

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