Reading Response 7: Due TUESDAY November 23

Please note due date, not due before class this week but by Tuesday of next week (to compensate for the late posting).

1. First, as requested earlier, post your response to Peggy Awhesh's Martina's Playhouse.

Keller and Ward, "Matthew Barney and the Paradox of the Neo-Avant-Garde Blockbuster"

2. What has changed in the gallery art world that allows Barney to describe his work as “sculpture”? In other words, how has the definition of sculpture changed since the 1960s, and why?

Performance art has developed out of and in relation to sculptural practices –principally minimalism – leading to the destabilization of sculpture as an object (both physically and discursive).

Barney claims his performance and art as a “family of objects.”

3. Tricky but important question: Why was minimalist sculpture seen as a reaction against the “modernist hymns to the purity and specificity of aesthetic experience”? In other words: Why do they say that minimalist sculpture is post-modernist?

Minimalism issued a call to understand the experience of art as public, in the sense that viewers were to discover the meaning of the object in their interaction with its context.

A couple things, Modernist were more about exploiting their medium. And Post-modernism was opening the range of materials, artwork being about the process of art, not the end result, questioning the medium specifity and encouraging intermedia, questioning the role of the artist, and pastiche.

Star Wars is a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Cremaster is once upon a time in a gallery far, far uptown. (pastiche).

Minimalism encourages intermedia (“the family of objects”) and the process of the artwork as does post-modernism.

4. Describe the role of the body in the works of Vito Acconci and Chris Burden. You may wish to consult the following links to supplement the descriptions in the readings:

http://www.ubu.com/film/acconci.html

http://www.ubu.com/film/burden.html

Acconci felt the body is the source of minimalism. Ex. Seedbed (1972), masturbating 6 hours a day, two days a week. Burden is another artist whose transition into performance was mediated by minimalism, whose performance can be seen to be both enabled by and critical of minimalism. Ex. Slightly peculiar gym equipment (mistaken for traditional object sculpture). Burden put himself through a lot of pain for his art. Getting shot in the arm, pushpins stuck in his body by the audience, lying in bed for 22 days (others had to take care of his needs with no instructions).

Performance= endurance connected to physicality

Avant-garde = duration is purely temporal

Burden used his body and performance by sitting still atop a stool for forty-three hours until he fell. The audience was those in attendance (even if passer-bys) and secondary audience would experience his work in documentation.

5. In the opinion of the authors, what are the key differences between performance art of the 1960s/1970s and Barney’s Cremaster cycle? What do they mean by the term "blockbuster" in relation to the gallery art world?

In the 1960’s and 1970’s had a tension between presence and absence, between an event and it’s dispersal through time, so as to consider the relations between body and the way it is mediated. In Barney’s Cremaster, the body is akin more to the iconic status of the movie star’s on screen body, mythologizing system.

Barney insisted that the function of his films is “to generate sculpture.” Props and sets are relics of performance art. Climbing the walls of the Guggenheim was to remove the temple-like quality of museums, bringing the viewer from the status of pilgrim to that of patron.

It is rumored $8 Million was spent on making Cremaster, only grossing $515,000, yet is considered a success in the art world. Being a financial bomb puts it in the realm of an art success. With Barbara Gladstone Gallery refusing to discuss the film’s budget, it places the film in a realm of priceless and above such concerns. Also, Barney’s film is not distributed for or to the public, which is unlike most avant-garde film (they usually try to get anyone who is willing, to exhibit their film).

Hard Body Redux = Rambo, Die Hard, Terminator, Lethal Weapon, how much can they endure?

Walley, "Modes of Film Practice in the Avant-Garde"

6. What is meant by “mode of film practice”?

The two bodies of work tentatively identified thus far as “avant-garde cinema” and “artists film” are the two different modes of practice in the avant-garde. The term ‘mode of film practice’ refers to the cluster of historically bound institutions, practices and concepts that form a context within which cinematic media are used. These are defined by the formal and stylistic norms used to create the work.

Give two well known examples of non-experimental modes of film practice. Why does Walley argue that the concept of the mode of film practice can help distinguish between the experimental film and gallery art worlds?

It’s not just the production of the works that define wether is traditional (ha) avant-garde or a new form of art cinema, it is also the methods of distribution, exhibition, and reception of viewing that separate the two.

7. What are some of the key differences between the experimental and gallery art worlds in terms of production and distribution?

Avant-garde cinema is acollaborative, meaning the filmmaker controls every aspect of production from the initial conception of the film’s idea to post production, even sometimes being in the film itself. Their films are scarce due to budget. These works are more abstract. Avant-garde cinema, film is the artist’s primary and often sole medium.

Artist’s film is collaborative as we see in Matthew Barney’s Cremaster. Meaning they have many individuals such as cinematographers, editors, sound recordists, composers, etc., although a lot of the worker’s names are subsumed under the rubric of the auteur. Their films are limited in hopes of making it valuable due to scarcity. Because of the higher costs involved galleries sometimes contribute financially to the works. The works connote both narrative and illusionism. Film is but one medium of many to the artist.

White cube of the gallery

Sculptural Space

Mobile viewer

Enables freedom of choice and movement among viewers

Black box of the theatre

Film’s two dimension

Seated cinema spectator

Constriction of the viewer’s temporal and spatial experience

Reading Response 6: Due Nov. 3 @ 5 p.m.

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.

Reading Response 5: Due Oct. 27 @ 5 p.m.

Sitney, “Structural Film”

Visionary Film, Chapter 12

You may find it helpful to read the first few pages of the other assigned reading for this week (James Peterson, “Rounding Up the Usual Suspects”) before tackling this chapter, focusing particularly on p. 72-76. Read that overview, which will review key concepts from the first half of this class, then tackle this chapter and answer the following questions.

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

The avant garde of Deren, Brakhage, and Anger was a more complex and dense form of avant garde. The structural film is a cinema of structure in which the shape of the whole film is predetermined and simplified.

Avant-garde according to Sitney is the representation of the human mind in all its depth, especially the minds of the artists, whose powers of imagination and vision enable them to see the conflicts raging within themselves and between them and society.

Structural film is seen as a development out of the formal film. Structural film develops from lyrical film, like lyrical film developed from the trance film. The structural film insists on its shape, and what content it has is minimal and subsidiary to the outline. Four characteristics of structural film:

Fixed camera position

The Flicker effect

Loop printing

Rephotography off the screen

If avant garde film is the reproduction of the human mind, then the structural film approaches the condition of meditation and evokes a state of consciousness without mediation; that is, with the sole mediation of the camera.

What is meant by “apperceptive strategies”?

the process of understanding something perceived in terms of previous experience. In Brakhage’s art, perception is a special condition of vision, most often represented as an interruption of the retinal continuitu. However in structural cinema, apperceptive strategies come is the cinema of the mind rather than the eyes.

2. 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.

The central metaphor would be the human mind and consciousness for structural film. If avant garde lyrical, myth, and trance is displaying human tendencies, the structural is about the mind.

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

When Warhol was making films, he was indifferent to direction, photography and lighting. He could turn the camera on and walked away. He entered the film world with total commitment. He took the knowledge he studied from Brakhage, Anger, and Smith, and built upon the simplicity of expressions of the mind. Warhol’s Empire uses 3 out of the 4 characteristics of structural film.

4. 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:

Warhol made his films simple using static camera, loop printing, and rephotography (frozen frame) but the what the film was trying to convey as a structural film is of the mind. Simple – in Sleep he records for hours a man sleeping. Complex – why was he recording this man? What is this man dreaming about? Is this what I look like when I’m sleeping?

a. Why does Sitney call Warhol anti-Romantic?

Warhol advertised his indifference to direction, photography and lighting. It is anitormantic since it locates the world of art’s richness not in Bauldelaire’s “Elsewhere” but in the here and now. I could expand on the “here and now” statement, thinking about Vinyl and wanting the cast to read cue cards, messing up the actors on purpose, and keeping a lot of the “mistakes”. Warhol wants to be transformed into an object himself.

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

Warhol as a pop artist is spiritually the opposite from the structural film-makers. Warhol eventually abandoned the fixed camera for a type of in-the-camera-editing. For Snow and Gehr, the camera is fixed in a mystical comtemplation of a portion of space, which Warhol broke away from.

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?

I feel like it means there are so many ways to view the experience that Warhol provides. The reflexive qualities of something as simple as Haircut or staring at the Empire building for 8 hours. This relates back to Structural film in the human nature of getting a haircut or touring a city and looking up at the building, or even going to a museum and staring at a picture. Structural is film is about the human mind and engaging with it, which Warhol busted wide open, even with his Screen Tests.

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?

Warhol’s film relate to the avant-garde trance/myth/lyrical through his creativity and challenging the mind while focusing on human tendencies but take it a step further with the long takes and close interactions with what is being filmed. He is focused on individual items. He was the first filmmaker to try to make films which would outlast a viewer’s initial state of perception. His films challenged the viewer’s ability to endure emptiness or sameness.

5. On p. 352 Sitney begins an analysis of the Wavelength rooted in conveying the experience of watching it; this style of analysis is admittedly hard to read without having seen the film (we’ll discuss this style of analysis in class). Try your best so that you can answer the following question related to p. 354: What metaphor is crucial to Sitney’s and Annette Michelson’s interpretation of Michael Snow’s Wavelength?

For the rest of the chapter, focus on the discussions of the following films:

Paul Sharits: T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G

George Landow: Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc.

James Peterson, “Rounding Up the Usual Suspects”

[Found in "Kreul Articles" folder on your flash drives]

The following questions ask about three reading strategies for the minimal strain of the avant-garde. They are all previewed on p. 77. Your answers should incorporate details from the subsequent discussions of them (see page numbers in the parentheses).

The films of the minimal strain apparently violate the principle of optimal relevance.

6. What is the reading strategy associated with the “phenomenological schema” (include details and examples from 77-80)?

The critic interprets the film as presenting itself to the direct perception of the viewer, developed by Annette Michelson.

For Michelson, Snow’s work is the paradigm case of the link between cinema and consciousness.

Snow’s One Second in Montreal is thought of by Michelson as “the flow of time is somehow inscribed in the filmic image, immediately given, perceptible in our experience of it”.

Also, Wavelength, it is suggested that the film represents consciousness as well as directly presenting it (zooming?, slow motion) The action of the camera is the action of the consciousness.

7. What is the reading strategy associated with the “art-process schema” (include details and examples from 80-85)?

Derived from the aesthetics of composer and teacher John Cage. Cage advocated blurring the lines between “art” and “life”. The art-process schema, the production of an innovative film is seen as a demonstration of the rigidity of the conventional process of filmmaking.

With such examples as Brakhage Mothlight, the viewer can recognize the dual nature of cinema as simultaneously an artifact and performance. One would have to visually look at the film strip for further research. There are four potential causes that direct the attention away from the screen and to the physical object in the projector:

· A high rate of information change on the screen

· Poor legibility

· Cognizance of the film’s facture

· An intuition that a look at the film strip would help to explain the other three features.

The viewer watches the film, then wonders how the filmmaker did it.

The strategy of including a wide range of materials rests on two aesthetic principles:

· Most material in our everyday world has aesthetic value

· Removing the aesthetic from the object produced and affixing it to the process that produces it (wondering how the filmmaker did it)

This leads to the nature of the film process, they want the viewer to be less susceptible to the films that hide the processes of production.

Side note: “Formal” film – metaphorical association of the earlier avant-garde.

Mothlight considered a political act that resists authority.

For Arthur, the Structural film is an act of aesthetic and political resistance.

Sitney views avant-garde as apolitical and evolutionary.

8. What is the reading strategy associated with the “anti-illusion schema” (include details and examples from 85-90)?

Any film image with limited depth cues is interpreted as an assertion of inherent qualities of the film medium, derived from the work of Clement Greenberg. Any element that does not produce a three-dimensional space, is read as a demonstration of the inherent flatness. Painting is pigment on a flat surface, and according to Greenberg should only be this.

Reading Response 4: Due Oct. 13 @ 5 p.m.

First, write a brief response to the Ann Buchanan screen test. How is it similar to / different from the Fluxus films screened in class?

Similar to other fluxus films, there is the simplicity of Ann just sitting there not moving. I can’t imagine sitting that still for that long. Then I see her crying and I wonder, is she crying out of pain? Or is she crying because logically she knows that she has to wet her eyes somehow or else she will blink? When she is that still, my mind wanders onto her facial features, lips, eyes, eyebrows, etc. By her subtle facial expressions I feel I can almost understand what she is thinking. As we spoke of in class, it’s like looking at a picture. But far more information if you look at her slight changes of the face. We can see her crying, swallowing after a tear drops her head slightly rock forward, the creases of her lips turn up/down trying to keep the same pose.

I hadn’t thought about a crying doll as mentioned by JJ Murphy, but since mentioned I can certainly see the comparison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhYfCWd5XQ0 (I would advise muting the recently added music track).

You might find this blog post by JJ Murphy (my advisor back in Madison) interesting and/or helpful

http://www.jjmurphyfilm.com/blog/?p=82

J. Hoberman, Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Underground

1. What were some of the venues associated with the early underground film movement in New York City?

Fashion Industries Auditorium, the Charles, Thalia, the New Yorker, Bleeker Street Cinema, some of the less popular venues around the slum neighborhood soon to be known as the East Village, and Vanderbeek’s own American Underground Cinema (floating venue) sometimes shown in Living Theater.

What were some of the unique characteristics of the Charles Theater and its programming?

An eclectic program, very wide range of films. Opening to other venues of art, local artists, jazz concerts, silent films, panel discussions, and additional screenings of cultish films. Basically, they tried to have something for everyone. Also, Charles began holding monthly open screenings, and to get in you either had to pay or bring a film. Being at the screenings was like a party or social gathering with uninhibited patrons, most outsiders were impressed.

2. Which filmmakers did Jonas Mekas associate with the “Baudelairean Cinema”?

Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith), Queen of Sheba meets the Atom Man (Ron Rice), Blonde Cobra (Ken Jacobs), and Little Stabs of Happiness (Ken Jacobs).

Jack Smith in Ken Jacob’s Little Stabs at Happiness.

Why did Mekas use that term, and what were the distinguishing characteristics of the films?

Mekas described these films as “the real revolution in cinema today.” He felt these films were comparable to the striking movement/experience of Charles Baudelaire. These films tread on the very edge of perversity; the artists are without inhibitions, sexual or any other kind.

3. Why did underground films run into legal trouble in New York City in 1964?

At the Gramercy Arts, police regularly harassed the filmmakers and patrons b/c the films exhibited were not submitted to the NY State Board of Regents for licensing, therefore making it illegal to charge admission for their exhibition.

Later, NY City was cleaning up for the upcoming 1964 World’s Fair. Many village coffeehouses and off-Broadway theaters were closed, and several filmmakers arrested for exhibition of obscene films.

What film encountered legal problems in Los Angeles almost on the same day as Mekas’s second arrest in New York City?

Mike Getz was found guilty for exhibiting the “obscene film” Scorpio Rising at the Cinema Theater.

4. What were some of the defining characteristics of Andy Warhol’s collaboration with Ronald Tavel?

Warhol purchased the rights to A Clockwork Orange, and Tavel “adapted” the novel, and it turn made the film Vinyl.

What were some of the unique characteristics of Vinyl?

It was shot in real time with a single camera setup; the performers read from cue cards, Warhol stuck Edie Sedgwick in the film at the last minute.

How does Edie Sedgewick end up "stealing" the scene in Vinyl? (You may choose to add your own observations of the film based on our screening.)

She arrived after shooting was underway. She just sat there smoking a cigarette, but her eyes stole attention from the others onscreen. Personally, I noticed that though pretty to look at, the reason she “stole” part of the scene is bc while sitting there, she continued to knock props off the trunk and look like she wasn’t sure why she was there or she looked uncomfortable, not knowing what her part was in being there.

5. In what ways did the underground film begin to "crossover" into the mainstream in 1965-1966?

The films went through a drug phase, of Psychedelic (LSD) festivals and drug crazed Factory superstars until Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls in 1966.

What films and venues were associated with the crossover?

By the fall of 1967, The Chelsea Girls had been shown in numerous large cities such as San Francisco, Buffalo, Atlanta, Houston, Boston, etc. even invited to the Cannes Film Festival. Its first opening was at the Film-makers Cinematheque, then the Regency, and onto Getz’s Underground Cinema 12.

How were the films received by the mainstream New York press?

NY Times Mike Bosley Crowther wrote a negative review of Warhol saying, “it is time for permissive adults to stop winking at their too-precious pranks.”

6. Why was Mike Getz an important figure in the crossover of the underground?

Getz’s Underground Cinema 12 played in twenty-two cities, being responsible for introducing underground movies to the American heartland, providing the platform for the midnight-movie explosion of the 1970s.

7. How do Hoberman and Rosenbaum characterize Warhol’s post-1967 films?

After The Chelsea Girls, Warhol and Morrissey were quick to produce four nudity filled features.

They characterize his post 1967 films as a career proven to be a catalytic figure in the history of on-screen sexuality. Until he was shot by Valerie Solanis in 1968 (she sounded deranged).

Robert Pike, “Pros and Cons of Theatrical Bookings”

[in folder: notes_from_the_creative_film_society_pros_and_cons_of_theatrical_booking]

8. What were some of the advantages and disadvantages to the move from non-theatrical to theatrical bookings for experimental films?

Advantages: money (make a profit), show a nude female, prestige, and filmmakers could find financial support.

Disadvantages: wear and tear on prints, sloppy handling of the prints,

9. What issues developed concerning non-exclusive and exclusive representation by distributors?

Non-exclusive would give the filmmaker the best coverage of showing his film in many areas, with each venue having their own loyal customers.

With exclusive representation they are able to demand the highest possible rates for the films. Theatrical released films are more reliable on play dates and professional, they are there to earn revenue.

10. What problems did the Creative Film Society run into with devious theater owners?

False advertising by the Rivoli Theater, advertising the films of Uptown Theater but actually playing “beaver” films. Also, Esquire Theatre chopped up a couple of the prints through sloppy handling and was slow to pay for everything.