Smith and Bush the Icons

These are my favorite films we watched in this Image Meditation class. The films I’m talking about are John Smith’s, “Worst Case Scenario” and Paul Bush’s, “Episodes from the Life of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, these films related directly to what we are doing in class. Smith’s film was inspiring, because he incorporated random people within his work that were not participating in his film, he added some humor and even had a small sound track. One scene of the film I liked a lot was when he was shooting the kid in a long shot at the candy store and he was looking in the window in black and white, then it jumps to the kid’s point of view and we see it goes into color what he is looking at. This reminded me of Hitchcock’s, Rear Window.
The film was voyeur in a way, but the people knew that he was looking at them, because they looked into the camera. I tried doing that for some of my treks, but that didn’t work out to well. People here don’t like random people taking picture of them. The film that I really admired was Bush’s film. There was so much technique and time dedicated within his work. It was a remake of the original, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He created this image of more than one person sharing a continues rhythmic body. I felt he was reflecting of the story of the split personality between the characters the difficulties of this film I know was very high to have to do this over and over. -Randal Jackson-

In Depth Films

In the film, “Close Quarters” by Jim Jennings, This felt like more of a photographer’s film. This film was black and white with incredible shadows and silhouettes. I really like the shot of the cat’s silhouette, the cat seems not to move as if it doesn’t even notice the camera, but like it is a living shadow of it’s self. All the shots in the film are tight and up close on the object’s hence the title Close Quarters, where we see Jim’s apartment in very close in depth shots. He films these lines in the light and connects them to other lines as if there graphic matches. Thoughts that come up in the piece are things I wonder about in the frame, for example when the cat is staring at the bird. I wonder if the cat is going to jump and try to get this bird, but you realize that this is a reflection of the film maker. This is his world and he is inviting you to look into to it very closely. In the film, “Circling the Image” by James Benning we get this view of a documenter filmmaker from a third person view. James is always being filmed in his natural state or filming his own film. I’ve never seen a documentary within a documentary. He is filming 1 great lakes of the world. He goes into one very detailed in the film that he sort of begins to ramble about for to long. That just shows that he really knows and loves what he is doing. These were the films that stuck out to me. -Randal Jackson-

Deren and Pirece

When watching Maya Deren’s, “Meshes of the Afternoon” for the second time. I grasp they meaning of the film more. I see that this was all a dream sequence, but I further understood it. The hard angles that she used during the scene when she is going up the stairs showing her jumble around were incredible. I used similar angles in my film last semester in 221. Her edits were not as sporadic as some of the other artist that e watched, but they were good none the less. I didn’t realize that this was an experimental film until now. The rhythm of the film seems narrative. She takes a non linear approach to the film, but it flows. It flows in a way that you understand it. I look at her piece now not to understand it, but to view her techniques, because I feel that it is the most important part of the film. If you try to figure it out you won’t see the edits, the rhythm, and the framing she uses in them. Another film we viewed was Leighton Pierce, “You can drive the Big Rigs” a film shot from the outside of a diner then into the inside then back outside. Watching this film reminded me of the beginning scene in, “Back to The Future” when Marty McFly gets to the professors home and the camera shoots all these different angles of the room. In Pierce’s film we get this going with the day rhythm, where there are a lot of older people in the diner eating and talking in it. There are these in your face shots that he takes when the people are talking. One guy actually directly addresses the camera by looking dead into it. When this part came up I felt like I was making him mad by starting. He shoots everything around the room moderately close. The film seems to be a home coming film where the film maker comes back to check out his old home.-Randal Jackson-

Comments on Piece Touchee and Close Quarters

by Julianne Arnstein

I found Piece Touchee funny and disturbing and sometimes dizzying. With the jerky movement, it is hard to keep watching all the time. But the effects of slowing down (in a sense) and focusing on this couple makes the viewer’s mind go crazy trying to figure out what their history is. I was constantly thinking murder, abuse, or sex. The wife seemed like she was either being murdered slowly, abused, or beginning sex. Of course none of these are true. Sometimes Arnold just becomes obsessed with a particular image he likes, like the woman’s rotating arm. I think Arnold is accentuating every single movement, telling the viewer that each movement is completely important. The viewer feels like all the work has been done for them: studying every movement is unnecessary because it is already the point of the film. But the viewer still tries to look into it further, as if Arnold has missed something. I felt like the work had been done for me but there was still more to look at. I studied facial expressions and eye direction to find a little extra; it becomes very disappointing because I have to keep reminding myself that none of this is real. Arnold forces us to form narrative and then turn around on ourselves and say, “Ha ha, there isn’t really a narrative, you knew that, and you still looked for one.”

I really liked Close Quarters because the camera shots were so detailed. I could see every hair on the cat and every line on the woman’s foot. This is another film obsessed with detail. Jim Jennings likes to focus on the little things that he thinks no one stops to notice. He appreciated graphic matches: the use of lines is extensive. The quick-paced flow of images erases the discomfort of switching between horizontal and vertical lines. Some lines look cartoonish and others appear on living beings. This mesh of images smoothes transitions between shots. And the images would all be beautiful in their own frame on the wall of a gallery.

Contrasting Meshes of the Afternoon and You Can Drive the Big Rigs

by Julianne Arnstein

I have seen Meshes of the Afternoon three times now, and it seems like a very easy film to make sense of. Maya Deren has clear symbolism between the key and knife and dreaming and being awake. Her film is of surrealist style, trying to tap into the unconscious mind, especially in dreams; she almost creates a narrative. Her film is also experimental in its camera movement and characters. The cameras sway with the movement of the character up the stairs and angles jaggedly upward to see into the bedroom. The characters repeat themselves in continued actions, such as chasing the cloaked figure and picking up the key, and with their bodies, such as the three Maya Derens. Deren also creates a comfortable set with a slight breeze and a homely villa, but she distorts it by adding sharp knives, keys, and mirrors, and by tipping herself (or the camera) upside down and sideways in seemingly dangerous angles.

You Can Drive the Big Rigs has a completely different feel. It is definitely an experimental film based on images and sounds and not on any type of narrative or subconscious narrative. The only continued characteristics are the sound of the beating fan, the clack of the turning clock, and the clinking of a man’s coffee cup. Leighton Pierce focuses on the images of the sticky-feeling diner with its older patrons who seem tired of life. Pierce photographs the diner as it is and presents it with no comment or change. He pieces together sound to create situations that do not exist. The viewer is not trying to figure out a point to the piece; the viewer simply watches and chuckles at the random customers caught on tape.

Deren and Pierce have created very different films, but have also managed to photograph places and situations in a very different light from the normal Hollywood style.

Worst Case Scenario

by Julianne Arnstein

I really liked this film because it was the first still image compilation I had seen where the movement was very slow. I liked the luxurious pace so I thought I would analyze this film. There are elements of conflicting motion or images put together. There is a place where it seems as though a train and a car have hit each other, there is a loud crash, and people turn and react. Then the car is removed from the frame, then the train, and we realize that these are just layered images. Our minds try to piece together a story with what we see and hear. But the people looking in one direction are pieced together in a string to make it look like they are seeing something. The car and the train were in that place at different times and our mind just puts them together because the images fit so well: they are from the same camera position and focus. The crashing sound could be from any moment in time or synthesized or not even be a car crash. But because John Smith has placed these all at the same time and in a string of events, it seems like a car and a train have crashed together. This same Kuleshov effect is achieved when there are repeated images of a deliveryman running into his car door. People seemingly turn and look while the man is continually being slammed into his opening and closing door. But some minor movements of the door and the man have been edited together to create this situation. I liked the fact that everything moved very slowly. The long pauses of images of people looking or walking around create a leisurely effect. The action speeds up sometimes but I enjoy the peaceful pauses. I think Smith is trying to say that these are normal people, but there is no reason why we should not stop to enjoy what we see. Instead of witnessing life at its regular pace, we see every detail and can enjoy it more.

monday 19 november

The goal of experimental film and perhaps all film is perceive the world in new and unexpected ways. Both Piece Touchee and Close Quarters take an intimate part of the world, both familiar and comfortable, and exult them creating new beauty and terror and awe. Martin Arnold’s Piece Touchee takes a very short clip of found footage from The Blackboard Jungle and by manipulating the movement between frames creates an elaborate dance out of a middle-aged man walking through the door, greeting his wife. The dance, however, is not an erotic one, more erratic and terrifying. The simple act of kissing his wife on the cheek becomes violently beautiful as he jerks back and forth over her head and visibly spins over her. However, the actual content is irrelevant in the face of the formal beauty that Arnold creates by manipulating this piece of found footage.

Jim Jennings similarly seeks out and evokes a deeper beauty from the quotidian not through carefully manipulated frame progression but through meditations on the composition of his apartment. Nothing appears in this film that isn’t easily recognizable and used daily. Likewise, nothing is seen outside of the world that isn’t seen through the drawn blinds. With in these parameters, Jennings uses the extreme, natural lighting, creative angles and graphic matches to turn his flat into a text for the extraordinary mundane. His solving of these limitations create brilliance: by cutting between the silhouette of a bird flying past and the cocked head of his cat he creates a subtle interaction that was most likely not there; by considering the lateral lines of his blinds as a refrain through out the film, he creates a moment of awe by rack focusing the normal shot of the blinds to see a crystal clear world through the confines of a tiny hole in one of the shades.