Michael Zryd, "The Academy of the Avant-Garde : A Relationship of Dependence and Resistance"
1. What changes in the American avant-garde are associated with the rise of structural film and the creation of Anthology Film Archives in 1970?
The avant-garde of the 60’s became an institutionalized legitimacy with the establishment of Anthology Film Archives and “structural film:
How does these changes affect:
a. The participants (filmmakers, critics) in the avant-garde community?
They “came in from the cold” I feel like they mean there was now more organization to these avant-garde filmmaker’s works, they were being taking serious enough to even teach their work now. Some filmmaker’s worried about the “theory” and pretentiousness that came along with academization. I found this a very interesting thought, “paradox of success as proof of failure”. If their film was embraced by academization, it had failed the avant-garde. I suppose I understand, I don’t want a scientist breaking down/analyzing an abstract picture I painted. If the scientist likes it, then maybe I wasn’t creative enough. And what does a scientist know about art anyways, who is he to judge my work?
b. Canon formation (which films are considered “important,” and taught in classes).
This canon-formation favored established filmmakers and those well-liked by academic fashion at the expense of young developing artist. With cutbacks in arts and education, led to a scarcity of resources creating an increased tension in the avant-garde film world. With the canon, it does not allow enough work by new filmmakers to be screened.
c. Distribution and exhibition practices.
Even by 1967 when Michael Snow came out with Wavelength, already 60% of the AG films were academic rentals. (reflecting the explosive growth of film studies). Exhibition in classrooms instead of theater is considered a betrayal of the 1960’s energy.
AG was an “underground fad”, Hollywood shifted to a more relaxed censorship regulations (one of AG selling points), recession of the 1970s created budgetary restrictions, and AG film had a visible decline in the the 1970s. The unruly, chaotic, free and rebellious AG from the 1960’s to the 1970’s was replaced by a tamed formalist, theory driven, institutional art world and university culture. In the 1980’s AG was “taught rather than fought”.
2. Briefly explain the debate between autonomy and engagement within the avant-garde. How does this debate play out in the 1980s?
The source of AG film is the desire to resist mainstream or established structures, institutions and values. The AG filmmaker “authenticity” or “personal urgency could be compromised by an academic establishment. However, the desire for purity and autonomy could be achieved through the film’s engagement with society (breaking down distinctions between art and life).
3. What are the negative aesthetic connotations of the “academic avant-garde film”?
According to Fred Camper “one quality of academic art is that it avoids reflecting the complexities, the contradictions, the violent impulses of a life lived with passion, in favor of the airless repetition of the techniques of part art.”
One positive, the classroom offers a potentially critical and collective experience in cinema viewing rather than passive theatrical product consumption.
What is the major critique from new filmmakers who emerged in the 1980s?
While some attacked the academization as institutionalization in the 1980s, most AG filmmakers, co-ops and other institutions ignored the university as a site for consideration.
AG fosters critical thinking for the universities and shows they tolerate free expression.
AG has been in academia since the 1920’s but boomed in 68-69.
4. What are the five legacies of the academicization of the avant-garde?
1) the maintenance of distribution co-ops, as the classroom became the dominant site of exhibition
2) regionalization, as centers of avant-garde film activity expanded beyond New York to multiple regional sites
3) publication mechanisms for the writing and dissemination of the history, criticism, and theory of the avant-garde
4) employment for filmmakers as faculty or technical personnel
5) development of second (and third) generation students becoming filmmakers, critics, teachers, programmers, and archivists.
Broadening classroom screenings by not restricting themselves to a canon.
The support of universities can be seen as essential for the support and survival of AG film.
5. Name at least three similarities between the punk music scene and the punk/no-wave filmmaking scene, in terms of technology, style, and community.
If someone could just pickup a guitar and play then someone could just pickup a camera and film. Learn as you go. The rotation of roles in films was used as would be the rotation of instruments in the band. They enlisted their friends to act in films, much the same way bands formed based on social connections. The films produced by this run-and-gun style were as raw and aggressive as No Wave music.
6. What were the exhibition venues for punk/no-wave films such as those by Beth B. and Scott B., and how did the venues affect film content and style?
Frequently, they screened their work in rock clubs like CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. The goal was a populist cinema that could connect with the audience outside the art world. Screenings at the New Cinema (opened by Nares and Mitchell through “Colab” were fun. You could drink beer, some whatever, talk back to the screen. Scott B and Beth B were more interested in ideas and political issues and actually having their work speak. The sound screeching in the film Black Box reminds me of Warhol’s use of this same intensity in public viewings.
7. What are some similarities and differences between the American avant-garde we have studied so far and the Punk or No Wave filmmaking in the late 1970s? Address the following areas:
a. Aesthetic similarities and differences (which filmmakers do the cite as influences, which filmmakers do they reject?)
A conscious separation between the Punk and the Michael Snows and Jonas Mekases. Punk wanted to make films where people in the audience talked back. Super 8 was cheap enough for non-professionals, associated with home movies, which added the connotation of unscripted reality. Also, it makes me think of Andy Warhol and Fluxus as anyone could make a movie. More Andy Warhol, bc they just pointed and pushed a button on the camera the way Andy would push the button and leave the camera, whatever happens, happened. I think the AG though used 16 mm. Amos Poe, generally considered the first No Wave filmmaker. Poe found inspiration in the main pioneers of New Wave – Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and Eric Rohmer. In print they championed Hollywood filmmakers such as John Ford and Nicholas Ray.
b. Technological similarities and differences
Both AG and Punk used the technology they could get their hands on. Super 8 film, like Jack Smith finding his film in dumpsters. Use of non-actors, and no costly crew.
c. Economic similarities and differences
Both did not have a lot of money to spend on their movies and financed by themselves. AG is
similar to punk, as they sought working methods that were fast, cheap, and easy to learn. Different in that modernist and structuralist AG want to exploit their mechanisms of making film. Post modernism is more about human tendencies I feel similar to Punk.
The comment of “the process was learned by making all the mistakes along the way” reminds me of Andy Warhol’s films, Vinyl.
d. Social similarities and differences
Both AG and punk exhibited elements of their own personalities and their histories. They were both against making films like mainstream. In the late 1970’s Poe wanted to create a movement similar to the Nouvelle Vague on the 1950’s. That “anyone-can attitude is No Wave Cinema’s strongest legacy.” Created by a whole community in NY starting in the late 1970’s.
Janet Cutler, “Su Friedrich, Breaking the Rules”
8. In what ways does Friedrich “break the rules” in terms of mixing filmmaking practices?
Her films are a mixed genre in nature, they juxtapose avant-garde, documentary, and narrative modes. She uses private material, blends the past and present, displaces painful experiences into ironic tales using humor, mixes popular culture and gender politics, and makes use of conventional melodrama.
How have different critics approached her different films?
As auto-ethnography or domestic ethnography, with her films as personal history implicated in larger social formations and historical processes. Critics like Bruce Jenkins credit Friedrich with reworking the traditions of avant-garde, turning existing film practices to her own purposes.
What kinds of avant-garde sub-genres has she explored?
The psychodrama Damned if you Don’t, the trance film Gently Down the Stream, the structural film Sink or Swim, and the diary film Rules of the Road.
9. What are some of the distinguishing characteristics of “Sink or Swim”?
Domestic ethnography that in assembling a portrait of her father as other, Friedrich is also representing the self. Friedrich establishes a rigorous structure – twenty six scenes, each corresponding to a letter of a reversed alphabet from Z to A – to address painful but ultimately liberating childhood memories.
Sink or Swim contains Friedrich’s most complex interweaving of sounds and images and includes a mix between past and present, poetry and reportage.
Also, the film material’s include home movie footage, tv images, educational and documentary footage, and some newly shot images.
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