ON
(experimental) FILM
In
an article entitled "Art Isn't Easy ," in
ART & TEXT #17, 1985, RoseLee Goldberg discusses
what might appear to be the movement of performance art into the realm of
popular culture in view of the successes of Laurie Anderson and the
presentation of performance works such as Glass and Wilson's EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH in commercial
venues. She concludes, however, that Broadway is not being taken by storm, and
that "…art isn't easy. Nor for that matter is commerce. What is decidedly
easier is the possibility for art to take on commercial proportions. It is now
an acceptable virtue to be able to transcend the underground of the artworld, to mix 'art and life' (which in the American
context means melding media and pop references of all sorts) so that in the
end, it is an art in itself to create the sublime mixture of cerebral and
popular."
Reading
this put me in mind of feature-length experimental films like James Benning's LANDSCAPE SUICIDE and Yvonne Rainer's THE MAN WHO
ENVIED WOMEN both of which played in commercial cinemas during the Festival of
Festivals and of filmmakers like Godard, Greenaway, Kluge and Ackerman—how does the equation apply
to these films. I was also reminded of conversations about a year and a half
ago with Richard Kerr about the possibilities for experimental films to 'reach
a broader audience' (his film ON LAND OVER WATER: 6 STORIES was an hour long,
closer to feature length!, had crisp, clean, steady images, had narrative
references, even had Hemingway!) and what the chances were for T.V. broadcast
of experimental films—or some anyway that could 'bridge the gap.' Now Richard has a new film
: THE LAST DAYS OF CONTRITION
(16mm bl.&w. 35min.) and I wondered
whether he had set out with this film to land that big audience?
It
doesn't seem that these concerns were foremost in his mind. The imagery in THE
LAST DAYS OF CONTRITION is more "public" and the motivation more
political as compared to the more "personal and very dark, suicidal"
imagery of 6 STORIES. CONTRITION uses American pop imagery or images that stock
the public culture image bank such as missiles, billboards, baseball stadium
and the American flag. Although Richard is Canadian, these images were very
much apart of his childhood. "The way we were brought up to look at the
States: a place of wonder (Disneyland vacations) and, as our own and their
history changed, a place of terror as well in the
missiles, Vietnam, Watergate, Nicaragua
etc. and in the road movie mentality of just moving on through
it." Although it has been criticized as such, Richard says that the film
is not anti-American; it is anti-American-military-technology. It is a one
movement, one feeling film : fear and
"disappointment in my big brother that
he resorted, in the end, to might." The images filmed refer
simultaneously to the past (broken down buildings reminiscent of the Depression
and Walker Evans photographs) and the future (jets, helicopters pass over unpeopled land). The apocalyptic landscape is penetrated
only by a woman—"the last person on earth, makes sense it would be a woman
who could carry on." She penetrates it, however, only from a protected
position inside her vehicle -"in the 'moving fort' fearful of what is 'out
there' (ref: Gail Mc Gregor's THE WACOUSTA SYNDROME:THE CANADIAN LANGSCAPE). " She
is driving in circles, turning nowhere in the overexposed footage, not apart of
the place superimposed behind/over her. Polaroids,
which featured prominently in ON LAND OVER WATER, are used in this film.
Richard refers to them as metaphors for "containment and a way of
organizing the world - if I can get all this in the frame then I can make it
all work". A surface of Polaroid photographs (the flag, the atomic bomb,
the slogan "Welcome to the Eternal") are peeled away in an
unsuccessful attempt to clear the way. There is hope in the film as depicted in
its construction: the repetitions and circularity speak of continuity and in
the final sequence the forms close but not entirely - there is left just the
slightest opening to the sky.
Richard
says that he is optimistic about life and about filmmaking. Television may not
work without a lot of hard work to develop an audience; but Richard is taking
great pleasure in showing his work to audiences not only in Toronto but in many smaller centres where discussion with informed, small audiences is
exciting.
Annette
Mangaard is an artist who works in film and who, in
her association with the band THE PALACE AT 4 A.M. and her screenings at
cafe/bars such as The Rivoli on Toronto's Queen St.West,
moves in amidst the popular culture. She was also thought, at the time of her
filming NORTHBOUND CAIRO to be making that Move to Narrative Film. The film has
not "taken Broadway (or in this case Cineplex) by storm," nor does it
seem that it was her test run for a career in feature filmmaking. She did feel
that with Northbound Cairo she was trying to forge some bridges for audiences
to enter into her work. She had screened previous short films and had "got
too many questions. They (audience) would feel something but were not
sure." Annette had also wanted to work more in this film with
people-people as objects—and to use synchronous sound (previously she has
employed only voice-over)—to use language between people as a way of communicating,
to give dialogue a physical presence. The sync sound, however, was not used for
its capacity to ground the film in real time/space, nor
for easy audience identification with the characters. Quite the opposite, in fact . Annette speaks of NORTHBOUND CAIRO as a parody of
lifestyles in which she has constructed a series of layers or walls through
which the audience sees the characters but is not able to relate to them. The
background (travel footage of exotic places, not where the story tells us the
characters are) is just that, a backdrop with only a tenuous connection to the
characters. This also mirrors the lack of connection we (urban, 20th century,
Western, audience) have with the natural environment and how we sit and just
watch it all pass by—we don't travel enough! This film, explains Annette , is meant to be like T.V. in its effect on the
viewer; that is, it is difficult to become intimate with. As opposed to the
effect of large- screen, darkened-theatre viewing where the filmmaker wants the
audience to experience
an emotion, with this film, one sits back and watches
analytically. "We're analytical in our daily lives—emotional responses are
not acceptable. We all know the psychology!" The bedroom scene of
super-saturated colours and fantastic costuming is to
speak of escapism, while the black and white footage encodes itself as Reality.
Only in these scenes did the filmmaker allow for intimacy—the characters speak
of their desire for connection. The rest of the film, like the box of the TV
screen, has talking but no communication. Annette concludes that she wouldn't
make this film again. "It almost works too well. I wanted to alienate the
audience... and it worked!"
Annette
is now working on a more personal, human, warm film that will have elements of both
drama and documentary, LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF ANNA. It is about creativity and
the problems of creativity -art/life, creation/fertility; it is about her
dissatisfaction with film - how much money you need to make film
art—film/money, art/commodity.
This
article originally appeared in Cinema Canada, July 1987.