Reading Response 3: Due Oct. 7 @ 5 p.m.
1. Respond to Chieko Shiomi's Disappearing Music for Face. How does the minimalism and duration of the film affect your engagement with the image?
This reminds me of the walk Matt Damon takes in Gerry. I watched for any change, even the smallest, in the facial expression. At times I caught my attention falling away, but that’s just part of my attention span in general. I would look at the shading of face as the image became darker. Then I thought...I wonder what lights they are using? Do they have a dimmer switch? Did they use it? There’s a dimple on the face, I wonder if it’s on the other side too? Etc…my imagination took off after I got past looking for any kind of movement or my normal expectations of a 11 min narrative. (p.351, by sheer dint of waiting, the persistent viewer would alter his experience before the sameness of the cinematic image.
How does the film relate to the following issues:
a. Maciunas's definition of art vs. his definition of "fluxus art-amusement"
Simplicity and humor were part of Maciuna’s definition of art. Disappearing Music for Face was very simple, only the face with a static camera. Other artists of the time we more serious about the meanings behind the films and perhaps felt they were the only ones that could make films. However, Maciuna’s films illustrated that anyone could make a film.
b. art as object vs. art as performance and activity.
The comparison is in regards to not so much the end result of the John Pollack’s painting, but the Art as performance and activity is compared to the hand movements used in John’s Pollacks paintings.
So as this movie is based on the film medium itself and Pollacks is based on exploiting the canvas.
“De-valuing the art object, and valuing activity and performance”
http://www.ubu.com/film/fluxfilm.html
2. Look up “Fluxus” and any of the Fluxus artists in the index of Visionary Film. Why are they not there? Are the Fluxfilms compatible with Sitney’s central argument about the American avant-garde?
Paul Sharits is in the index. However, yes the others are not there, nor Fluxus. The goal of avant-garde “is often to place the viewer in a more active and more thoughtful relationship to the film. The genre’s more typical features - such as a non-narrative, impressionistic or poetic approaches to the film's construction”
First, Sitney (p. 347) says, “the most significant development in the American avant-garde cinema…was the emergence and development of what I have called the structural film; a movement toward increased cinematic complexity.” (Anger, Brakhage, Maya Deren). Sitney argues filmmaker’s such as Paul Sharits have produced an opposite to prior mentioned, “a cinema of structure in which the shape of the whole film is predetermined and simplified.”
Wikipedia “Fluxus artists used their minimal performances to highlight their perceived connections between everyday objects and art….Also contributing to the randomness of events was the integration of audience members into the performances, realizing Duchamp's notion of the viewer completing the art work.” We saw this is Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1964).
Fluxus creators like to see what happens when different media intersect.
Mary Jordan, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
[An .avi file of this documentary is on your flash drive. If you have difficulty playing it, try VLC Player and follow the instructions I put on your flash drive: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/]
3. What are some of the reasons suggested for Smith’s obsession with Maria Montez?
Jack Smith loved the acting of Maria Montez, couldn’t take his eyes away from the screen when she was on it.
Jack asked others to carry out some sense of himself.
“Maria was the heartbeat that kept Jack going as a child.” Every Saturday Jack and his sister would go to the movies when he was a child and that’s where he fell in love with Maria.
Maria was the film Goddess, the queen of Technicolor. She came from Dominican Republic by herself and became a star Maria brings fantasy life into a world you could live in.
“There’s no one who could recline like Maria Montez” Jack says as he lay in the hospital bed dying from AIDS.
“actress became his muse because she could not act. Instead, she believed—in her own beauty, infusing her dreadful filmography with what Smith saw as "imaginative life and truth."
http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-03-02/news/flaming-intrigue/
What are some of your responses to the clips from the Montez films (especially Cobra Woman)?
Maria was captivating in her physical movements and in her facial expressions. Everything about her became alive, her body shifting and passionate movement.
4. What were some attributes of the New York art community in the 1960s, and what was the relationship between the economics of the time and the materials that Smith incorporated in to his work and films? [How could Smith survive and make art if he was so poor in the city so big they named it twice?]
Jack Smith used whatever he could find, even if it was trash on the side of the road. He was not happy about the money that was thrown at Warhol. Jack needed money, but hardly any was given to him. He hated paying “the Lobster”, which was a name he gave to the Landlords or leaders of Capitalism. The 60’s were a period of “real invention, freedom and spiritual awakening”. Artists could work on whatever project they wanted to. Smaller community and everyone knew each other. They were more of a cohesive group. Outside of the department store dumpsters were these costumes and materials that Jack would use. (1hr 12 min) Worked with people untrained (no costs).
5. What is John Zorn’s argument about Normal Love?
(41 min) It’s a montage to Maria Montez. Started out like that then it went haywire. (44min) “It was almost like the real show was his filming, not the film, they should have an audience there while he was filming, that was the real show.”
How does his argument relate to some of the changes in the New York art world in the 1960s that we discussed in class?
More value was put on the activity and performance such as the Beat generation. Also, as part of the Fluxus attitude, anyone could make a film. Jack had hardly any money, and he received LOTS of attention from his films and photographs. (57 min) Jack felt the object was not an entity in itself but ever growing.
What are some arguments made about the influence of Jack Smith on other filmmakers (including Warhol)?
Jack was more part of the cult fame. Warhol was part of the “in crowd”. Jack was “super aesthetically true to himself.” The biggest promoter of Jack’s kind of artwork was Warhol. A lot of filmmakers trace their inspiration back to Warhol, but which actually came from Jack Smith. Jack wanted others to duplicate his ideas, and instead they duplicated his “icing.” John waters says “he did it all first, in a very limited time, with very limited money. He started something other people took and became more successful with.” The influence of Jack Smith on Federico Fellini’s works can be seen after 1965 and 1966.
6. What is meant by the slogan, “no more masterpieces” and how did Smith resist commodification (or the production of art products)?
He was against the commercialism part of filmmaking that would take away from the purpose/meaning of the film. “The artists see in which direction to copy,” based on the films in film festivals. “The artists compete for more and more useless ideas.”
(1hr 14 min) The system wants more of it, again and again. Jack felt that deprived him of what helped him do his work. “The curators were not there to help him, they are there to food you into the commercial industry.” Jack was very difficult, and “bit the hand of everyone” that tried to show his movies.
Here are some helpful links for those interested in the debate about the Jack Smith estate. This is not required, but this is fascinating, frustrating, and crazy (and it will put the documentary in a new light):
http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw25/0459.html
http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw25/0050.html
http://www.hi-beam.net/fw/fw25/0459.html
And a summary of the debate and legal proceedings. http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-03-02/news/flaming-intrigue/
Callie Angell, “Andy Warhol, Filmmaker”
[This can be found in the Kreul Articles folder from your flash drive]
7. How does Angell characterize the first major period of Warhol’s filmmaking career?
As a mystique that surrounded him as an artist. His fascination of film as a medium tried to reveal everything about the subjects and their personalities.
What are some of the films from this period, and what formal qualities did they share?
The Chelsea Girls, **** Four Stars, Lonesome Cowboys, San Diego Surf, Flesh, Screen Tests, Tarzan and Jane Regained..Sort of, Ronald Travel, Edie Sedgwick films, experiments in multiscreen projection.
These all show Warhol’s rapidly shifting interest and the many directions in which he moved. The collection constructed an “ongoing dialectic between personality and persona, documentary and drama, reality and illusion.”
Long and static movies made between 1963 to 1964:
Sleep, Kiss, Haircut, Blowjob, Eat, Empire, and Henry Geldzahler. The long static takes represented Warhol’s technologically “primitive” approach to filmmaking.
What are some significant differences between Sleep and Empire?
Sleep: 5 hours, 21 minute. Made with a camera that could only hold 4 minute of reel time. Experimented with handheld camera and multiple shots, a complex montage of different shots. (including hundreds of splices).
Empire: is what Warhol really wanted to do with Sleep.
Shot the nonmoving Empire state building using a camera that can hold a 50 minutes reel. The hours of stillness are equivalent to that of a picture.
8. What role did the Screen Tests play in the routines at the Factory and in Warhol’s filmmaking?
Screen Tests provide a kind of filmed guest book for the Factory, constituting a unique documentation of the New York arts scene during 1964-1966. They related to his lifelong work in portraiture. They also served as important precursors of the later painted and silkscreened portraits Warhol made form his own photographs in the 1970s and 1980s.
9. How does Angell characterize the first period of sound films in Warhol’s filmmaking career?
With sound, Warhol used a wide variety of chance factors, such as actors’ improvisations, forgotten lines, and reading from cue cards.
Who was Warhol’s key collaborator for the early sound films?
Edie Sedgwick
What are some of the films from this period and what formal properties did they share?
2. Good catch on Sharits in the index...we'll come back to that when we cover Structural Film (and it will make more sense why Sharits is in there).
ReplyDeleteVery good. Good comparison the Gerry (Van Sant was a fan of Warhol, as you know.)