Avant-garde

I am taking an Experimental Film subject this semester, so I’ve been watching a lot of avant-garde films and I am loving them.



My favourite ones are from people like Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage, and Len Lye which are made by scratching and painting onto the film negative. Here’s some of my favourite experimental shorts:



Norman McLaren: Dots

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=E3-vsKwQ0Cg



Stan Brakhage: Mothlight (made by attaching dead moths to the film)

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=XaGh0D2NXCA



Len Lye: A Colour Box

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=T3y1offmJ4Y



Oskar Fischinger: Komposition in Blau

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=o93RWtaLe-g



Toshio Matsumoto: Everything Visible is Empty

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_aQ5rxBLPko

OMG, guess what ? I took an experimental and underground film course this semester ! Ahah.



I just didn’t the Matsumoto vid, I knew all the others, so cool but it doesn’t surprise me anymore from you :stuck_out_tongue:



Dog Star Man by Brakhage :

(Prelude) http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=6ndcPzRG-z4

(Part 2) http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=_pGH7hbMu88

(Part 3) http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1i2euyPzQw



Rhytmus 21 by Hans Richter :

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=uhv2KpQGMqY



Early Abstractions by Harry Smith :

(Part 1) http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=-wYJ51nSXRQ

(Part 2) http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=KRJAoJVp8cU

(Part 3) http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=RrZxw1Jb9vA

(Part 4) http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=TNh12zaFtxo





Have you seen any by Kenneth Anger ? Or Weber and Watson ?



I didn’t find a link yet of Film Ist by Gustav Deutsch but it’s really good too.



Btw avant-garde/experimental/underground films and artists were very much influenced by the pre-cinema scientists film experience to study movement, optic, light, and all, like Lucien Bull, which you should check out.

[quote=“cyber-lili”]
Have you seen any by Kenneth Anger ? Or Weber and Watson ?
[/quote]

Kenneth Anger is great. I was reading this interview from before he died and they said that during the interview, the sprinkler went off in the room and Anger ripped open his shirt to expose a Lucifer tattoo on his chest and then jumped on the table shouting, "See, I made it rain! I am Lucifer, the most powerful magician in the world!"



He made great films though. And I love Brakhage’s Dog Star Man. I watched it last year as part of a Film Analysis class. The fact that it’s silent just makes it better. You really appreciate the power of the image.

Cool vids, thanks! :smiley: It’s always fun to watch a another side of cinema.

I’ll post more and more when I know more stuff from my course, Max. You gotta check out experimental cinema, so cool, especially for suckers of visual.

I forgot Martin Arnold. He does found footage films where he takes a couple of seconds of footage from an old film and re-edits it into like fifteen minutes or so. Insane stuff.



Alone:

<LINK_TEXT text=“http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/se … d_creation”>http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/martin%2Barnold/video/xo5tk_martin-arnold_creation</LINK_TEXT>



A clip from passage à l’acte (made from a scene in To Kill A Mockingbird). The whole thing is like 16 minutes, but this 5 minute clip is all I could find on the internet at the moment. It’s probably his most famous film and gives you the best idea of what it is he does:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=drDPbKquQVw

A series about gay, transvestism :



Kustom Kar Kommandos by Kenneth Anger : about cars as erotic objects for men

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=_28AhRynu0A



Pink Narcissus by James Bidgood (originally anonymous but even James Bidgood doesn’t seem to be the real name) : the title is quite explicit, the video even more, ahah

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=lhuOGAGmXY0



Flaming Creatures by Jack Smith : one of the main influence of Tarnation by Jonathan Caouette (have you seen it Angel ?)

http://www.ubu.com/film/smith-jack_flaming.html



Btw, Angel, this site is pretty cool, you can find some stuff and download them (in a poor quality often though)

www.ubu.com