24.2.10
Text of Sight
“Film can also essay in language certain things that cannot be done by picture. I needed words to do certain things so that the picture isn’t burdened with them…” (Stan Brakhage)
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The following is an expanded (yet still brief) chronological glimpse at some of the uses of text throughout film history...
College Chums (1907, Edwin S. Porter)*
Anemic Cinema (1926, Marcel Duchamp)*
N. or N.W. (1937, Len Lye)
A Movie (1958, Bruce Conner)*
Word Movie (1966, Paul Sharits)*
Poemfield No. 2 (1966, Stan VanderBeek)
Rat Life and Diet in North America (1968, Joyce Wieland)*
Bleu Shut (1970, Robert Nelson)*
Remedial Reading Comprehension (1970, George Landow)*
Film About a Woman Who… (1974, Yvonne Rainer)*
Projection Instructions (1976, Morgan Fisher)*
Argument (1978, Anthony McCall and Andrew Tyndall)*
Gloria! (1979, Hollis Frampton)
1857 (Fool’s Gold) (1981, R. Bruce Elder)*
So Is This (1982, Michael Snow)*
Secondary Currents (1983, Peter Rose)*
Landfall (1983, Rick Hancox)
Gently Down the Stream (1984, Su Friedrich)*
American Dreams (1984, James Benning)*
The Secret Garden (1988, Phil Solomon)
Untitled (For Marilyn) (1992, Stan Brakhage)
Air Cries ‘Empty Water’ Pt. One: Misery Loves Company (1993, Carl E. Brown)
Histoire(s) du Cinema (1988-1998, Jean-Luc Godard)
As I Was Moving Ahead… (2000, Jonas Mekas)
Secret History of the Dividing Line (2002, David Gatten)
Star Spangled to Death (1957-2004, Ken Jacobs)
Let Me Count the Ways (2004, Leslie Thornton)
The General Returns From One Place to Another (2006, Michael Robinson)
Unas fotos en la ciudad de Sylvia (2007, Jose Luis Guerin)
(If I Can Sing A Song About) Ligatures (2009, Abigail Child)
* ((Indicates titles mentioned/discussed in the article ‘Text as Image: In Some Recent North American Avant-Garde Films’ by Scott MacDonald, included in AFTERIMAGE Volume 13.8))
21.2.10
Shadow of a Doubt
As is fairly familiar knowledge by now, John Cassavetes first work, Shadows, actually exists in two versions, the first having undergone significant revisions after various private screenings left a desire for further change. Upon the release of the second version, a bit of controversy was created when those smitten with the first version, exemplified by Jonas Mekas, did not take kindly to the new incarnation. Eventually the first version fell out of circulation, and to most, out of existence altogether, until many years later, after a prolonged search, the film scholar Ray Carney was able to track down a print. The controversy was re-ignited when the Cassavetes estate, including Gena Rowlands, objected to the release of the first version, and interesting questions soon arose as to who could rightly lay claim to it.
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Excerpt of a letter to John Casssavetes from Amos Vogel, written 11/17/59 (reproduced in full in Cinema 16: Documents Toward a History of the Film Society)
“….There remains a serious problem, of which you already know. I refer to the fact that a number of people—including Jonas Mekas and Gideon Bachmann—feel that the second version, as shown by us, is totally inferior and a ‘commercial compromise.’ I have spent hours with them, attempting to convince them that they are wrong. Jonas intended to make a public attack on the film at our showing, but I convinced him to first write you, since he also plans to write in SIGHT AND SOUND and elsewhere about the new version.
There now does exist a controversy in New York regarding the film, and a confusion as to what is the ‘proper’ version. I have discussed this with Cassel and assume he has told you about it. I cannot discuss it in detail in a letter, except to say that you must have a very clear-cut stand on the issue, as shown, for example, in your decision to send this new version to the various festivals and to have this be the version that will be distributed.
You will further confuse the issue, were you to decide to permit the earlier version to be show. The result will be that you will compete with yourself and create confusion in people’s mind, so that they will think there are two SHADOWS in existence.
For example, it is now being stated by certain people that Kingsley financed the new version; that it was done in accord with his wishes, and that thus it constitutes a commercial ‘betrayal.’ You and I know that Kinsley stepped out of the deal at a very stage; and that, in fact, the changes are due to your desire to strengthen the film, not to commercially compromise it.
Nevertheless, you will have to take a very strong stand, it seems to me, in favor of the new version being ‘the’ film. I realize that this is none of my business; I am simply giving you my opinion; in fact, I do not wish to become involved in this matter and prefer my name be kept out of it completely especially since the decision rests entirely with you. By my opinion stands…..”
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From an article in The Village Voice by Jonas Mekas (included in Movie Journal-The Rise of the New American Cinema, 1959-1971)January 27, 1960
TWO VERSIONS OF SHADOWS
"It may seem to some that enough has already been said about John Cassavetes’ Shadows. After seeing it again last Tuesday at the Film Center, in its original version, and after comparing the exultation of this audience with the perplexity at Cinema 16, I definitely feel that the real case of Shadows is only just beginning.
I have no further doubt that wheras the second version of Shadows is just another Hollywood film—however inspired, at moments—the first version is the most frontier-breaking American feature film in at least a decade. Rightly understood and properly presented, it could influence and change the tone, subject matter, and style of the ntire independent American cinema. And it is already beginning to do so.
The crowds of people that were pressing to get into the Film Center (Pull My Daisy was screened on the same program) illustrated only too well the shortsightedness of the New York film distributors who blindly stick to their old hats. Shadows is still without a distributor. Distributors seem to have no imagination, no courage, no vision, no eyes for the new.
Again, I stress that I am talking about the first version of Shadows only. For I want to be certain not to be misunderstood. I have been put into a situation, one which a film critic can get into only once in a lifetime (I hope). I have been praising and supporting Shadows from the very beginning (see Cassavetes’ letter, Village Voice, December 16, 1959; Ben Carruthers’ letter, December 30, 1959), writing about it, pulling everybody into it, making enemies because of it (including the director of the film himself)—and here I am, ridiculously betrayed by an ‘improved’ version of that film, with the same title but different footage, different cutting, story, attitude, character, style, everything: a bad commercial film, with everything that I was praising completely destroyed. So everybody says: What was he raving about? Is he blind or something? Therefore I repeat and repeat: It is the first version I was and I am still talking about. (Here is the stay-away identification marker: the second version begins with a rock-and-roll session.)
I have no space for a detailed analysis and comparison of the two versions. It is enough to say that the difference is radical. The first Shadows could be considered as standing at the opposite pole from Citizen Kane; it makes as strong an attempt at catching (and retaining) life as Citizen Kane was making an attempt at destroying life and creating art. Which of the two aims is more important, I do not know. Both are equally difficult to achieve. In any case, Shadows breaks with the official staged cinema, with made-up faces, with written scripts, with plot continuities. Even its inexperience in editing, sound, and camera work becomes a part of its style, the roughness that only life (and Alfred Leslie’s painting) have. It doesn’t prove anything, it doesn’t even want to say anything, but really it tells more than ten or one hundred and ten other recent American films. The tone and rhythms of a new America are caught in Shadows for the very first time. (Pull My Daisy does it too, perhaps better, but it came out one year after Shadows.) Shadows has caught more life than Cassavetes himself realizes. Perhaps now he is too close to his work, but I am confident he will change his mind. And the sooner the second version is taken out of circulation, the better. Meanwhile, the bastardized version is being sent to festivals and being pushed officially, while the true film, the first Shadows, is being treated as a stepchild. It is enough to make one sick and shut up."
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Excerpt of a letter to John Casssavetes from Amos Vogel, written 11/20/59 (reproduced in full in Cinema 16: Documents Toward a History of the Film Society)
“Despite the fact that Jonas Mekas promised me not to write anything about the film until after having spoken to you, you will be by the enclosed that he rushed into print with his first attack on the film.
By referring to a ‘commercialized version,’ ‘in no way to be confused with the original’ which was shown at Cinema 16, and then urging people to see the presumably ‘un-commercialized’ version elsewhere, he has compounded the confusion which I warned you would exist if two versions of what is only one film continue to circulate.
It is clearer now that the ‘other version’ should never have been publicized and certainly should not continue to circulate.
Retroactively, he cheapens our showing and your artistic integrity. While as a critic he has a perfect right to his opinon, we are both harmed by this.
For this reason, I have already sent a strong letter to Village Voice and urge you to immediately send them a strong statement of your own, upholding the version shown as ‘the film’. Perhaps it would be good to even wire them, asking them to be sure to print your statement…”
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Excerpt of a letter to Amos Vogel from John Cassavetes, written 1/19/60 (reproduced in full in Cinema 16: Documents Toward a History of the Film Society)
"...Your letters regarding the reception that the film received at Cinema 16, along with the many that were sent to me because of the screening, certainly helped to fill the expectations that we all had for the film when we originally started..."
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Excerpt of letter written to The Criterion Company from Al Ruban, business manager of the Cassavetes estate
“…stating clearly that we do not approve the inclusion in the creation of a DVD by the Criterion Collection of any film footage, picture and/or track of or alleged to be of Shadows the John Cassavetes feature film, other than the full complete version restored and preserved by UCLA Film and Television Archive…”
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Excerpt from essay by Ray Carney detailing his search for the long-lost first version (a the complete essay can be found here, with a considerable amount of additional background information and further exposition on a whole host of issues involving Cassavetes):
“…One could ask whether the discovery proves Jonas Mekas right; but that’s the wrong question. It doesn’t really matter. The two versions of Shadows are sufficiently different from each other, with different scenes, settings, and emphases, that they deserve to be thought of as different films. Each stands on its own as an independent work of art.
The real value of the first version is that it gives us an opportunity to go behind the scenes into the workshop of the artist. Art historians X-ray Rembrandt’s work to glimpse his changing intentions. Critics study the differences between the quarto and folio versions of Shakespeare’s plays. There is almost never an equivalent to these things in film. That is the value of the first version of Shadows. It allows us to eavesdrop on Cassavetes’ creative process–to, as it were, stand behind him as he films and edits his first feature….”
(all stills from the second version of 'Shadows')
18.2.10
Fanning The Flames...
Today (a few days earlier than previously anticipated) it appears as though the embers that had been glowing with increasing intensity over the past several months ignited into full-bodied flames, taking with it whatever quixotically realized bridge I hoped could be constructed between the film society and some of the tenets outlined in their mission statement...
Repeatedly being met with half-hearted acknowledgements of lacking support and the whisper of sweet no-things can only tide ones sensibilities over for so long, so for better or worse, the proverbial gas can was emptied over the match they facetiously insisted on lighting…
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OR IN OTHER WORDS:
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This door indeed seems to have closed, it remains to be seen where the next will open. Much to my relief an exquisite glimmer of hope looms near in next month’s Brakhage Symposium (more on that soon)…
16.2.10
Spring-Loaded
The spring line-up at the San Francisco Cinematheque gets underway this Saturday with a four-part program (extending through Sunday) entitled ‘Apparent Motion’, which will feature live projector performances by artists from around the world. Other highlights include the presentation of several of James Benning’s film and video works, as well as a lecture by the artist himself, a trip back through SFMOMA’s programming history with Steve Anker, an introductory overview of the Australian avant-garde, a Lynne Sachs retrospective and much, much more. The following is just a brief sampling of the many wonders to be found throughout the diverse season…
APPARENT MOTION [Saturday, Feb. 20th – Sunday, Feb. 21st]:
“Apparent Motion celebrates the art of live image projection—the cinematic exhibition apparatus exposed as a primal light and sound machine, an invention without a future, ripe for rediscovery. Working with modified or distressed film projectors as if they were musical instruments or with live manipulation (even mutilation) of projected film (or even directly with the exalted beam of light itself), the artists presented over this weekend fuse image and sound into profound site-specific (yet cinematic) experiences—dazzling light works suggesting a paradoxically concrete form of sound/image synesthesia.” (Steve Polta)
DARKEST AMERICANA & ELSEWHERE
[Friday, Feb. 26th - Sunday, Feb. 28th]:
[Friday, Feb. 26th - Sunday, Feb. 28th]:
“Since the early 1970s, James Benning has created a body of formally innovative, long-form film works which use duration, understated camera work and (at times) elliptical narrative to examine cultural assumptions and contradictions with American culture and history, often revealing darkness or ideological conflict lurking beneath the surfaces of everyday appearances. A filmmaker committed to navigating his own deeply ambivalent relationship with American culture and history, Benning’s works explore the intersections of landscape, history and ideology as elegant monuments to contemplation and the passage of time. This three-program series presents two early films, two new video pieces and a detailed artist presentation that trace these threads in Benning’s work.”
AUSTRALIAN AVANT-GARDE: AN OVERVIEW [Tuesday, March 2nd]:
“Australian avant-garde film history is characterized by formal investigation into themes of landscape, alienation and perception. While their works are in conversation with contemporaneous European and American filmmakers, experimental filmmakers in Australia have worked largely in isolation to produce highly developed experiments with split screens and mattes, optical sound, collage animation and optical techniques (such as colour separation processes). Using the landscape as motivation or a formal premise as a starting point, the films in this program reflect the iconic aesthetics and innovative approaches that shape Australian avant-garde film history from the early-1960s through the 1990s. The rare 16mm prints in this program are provided either directly from the filmmakers themselves or from the National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra, Australia.” (OTHERFILM)
75 YEARS IN THE DARK: MATERIAL AND ILLUSION [Thursday, March 4th]:
“SFMOMA resumed regular screenings in early 1967 and continuing through late 1978, presenting programs sometimes once and at other times several times per week. During these years, Bob White, Edith Kramer, Mel Novikoff and Ken DeRoux were the curators. The programming was eclectic and strong, including classic films of all eras and nationalities. It primarily included contemporary independent narrative and documentary features from around the world but also had a steady presence of avant-garde films by local and non-local artists. The three-program series will begin by focusing on several avant-garde films by filmmakers whose work the museum highlighted during this period. In addition, independent features will be included in the second and third programs that are reflective of the daring and informed series and retrospectives that each curator initiated. In keeping with the spirit of the time, these programs will be eclectic; I have invited two critic-curators, Irina Leimbacher and Bérénice Reynaud, to expand the horizons of this mini-series. Of course, the range of what was shown can only be hinted at in three programs but hopefully the originality and depth of what was accomplished can begin to be acknowledged and appreciated.” (Steve Anker)
STATES OF BELONGING [Saturday, April 10th - Wednesday, April 14th]:
“Working since the mid-1980s, variously on lyrical formal shorts and long form experimental documentaries, Lynne Sachs’ body of film and video work has explored the relationships between individual memory and experience in the context of large historical forces. Foregrounding personal history and autobiography, Sachs exalts the intimate gesture as perhaps the most heroic of poetic and political acts. With a keen grasp on cultural theory and media history, Sachs’s films avoid academicism in their celebration of life and political engagement, presenting complex pictures of the world with lyrical grace and joy. States of Belonging is a four-part retrospective of the filmmakers work, presented as an earnest collaboration between San Francisco Cinematheque, the Pacific Film Archive, ATA’s Other Cinema and Oddball Film + Video. The series will be accompanied by a limited-edition monograph—available at each of the screenings—featuring original writings by Susan Gerhard, Kathy Geritz, Lucas Hilderbrand and Bill Nichols.”
The full Cinematheque schedule, complete with pictures and descriptions, can be found here…
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I had the pleasure of spending a little bit of time with some of the those involved with the Cinematheque while attending the screening of Robert Beavers’ film cycle, and it was clear that these are people devoutly dedicated to preserving and presenting cinema in many of its most breathtaking forms. Those with the possibility of attending any of these offerings are highly encouraged to do so, as the potential rewards are truly immeasurable.
12.2.10
By Brakhage
Today Criterion made official (at least the type of official that comes with bells and whistles) what many had been patiently waiting a considerable amount of time for, the release date of the upcoming By Brakhage Vol. 2, which will be released simultaneously with a three-disc Blu-ray version containing all of the films included on the previous By Brakhage Vol. 1 on the 25th of May. As mentioned elsewhere the films that will be included in this second volume are as follows:
The Wonder Ring (1955)
The Dead (1960)
Two: Creeley/McClure (1965)
23rd Psalm Branch (1966-1967/1979-1980)
Scenes From Under Childhood [Part One] (1967)
The Machine of Eden (1970)The Process (1972)
Star Garden (1974)
"He was born, he suffered, he died" (1974)
Desert (1976)
The Domain of the Moment (1977)
Burial Path (1978)
Murder Psalm (1980)
Duplicity III (1980)
Unconscious London Strata (1981)
Arabic 12 (1981)
Visions in Meditatiion 1-4 (1989-1990)
Boulder Blues and Pearls And… (1993)
The Mammals of Victoria (1994)
From: First Hymn to the NIght – Novalis (1994)
I Take These Truths (1995)
The Cat of the Worm's Green Realm (1997)
Yggdrasill: Whose Roots Are Stars in the Human Mind (1997)
Ellipsis Reel 5 (1998)
Persians 1-3 (1999)
Chinese Series (2003)
Extras that will be included are:
- Brakhage on Brakhage, a collection of video encounters with the filmmaker
- For Stan, a short film by Marilyn Brakhage
- Excerpts from a 1990 interview with Brakhage
- Footage from Brakhage’s salon at the University of Colorado [[thanks Phil!]]
- Audio recordings of two lectures by Brakhage
- A booklet featuring a foreword and program notes by Marilyn Brakhage, as well as write-ups of the films and an essay by Brakhage expert Fred Camper
If am being entirely honest there are some mixed feelings that come along with this announcement. It’s no doubt exciting news, it is clear that there was a concerted effort to include a broader range of films, allowing for the viewer to get some sense of the artistic progression that took place over his fifty plus year career. Like volume one, it also offers the opportunity for greater in-depth personal study of each of the films, which will surely be enhanced by the increased clarity that comes along with Blu-ray (I suppose if there ever was a an occasion that warranted the purchase of a blu-ray player it would be this). My main concern though is that once again these films will end up on YouTube or some like minded sight and be taken completely for granted, a prejudice that I have encountered repeatedly in my attempts to gain financial support for film screenings. The availability of these films on a more convenient format SHOULD NOT take the place of FILM viewing opportunities (though I think this tendency will be tempered somewhat by the wise decision to include only single parts of larger series), the ephemeral mingling of light and emulsion with which these were obviously meant to be experienced. Nevertheless the positives FAR outweigh any minor apprehensions one might have, after all, it was a fortuitous encounter with the first volume that got me started down this path I’m now walking, and the best that can be hoped for is that this new offering will have a similar impact on others.
The releases are available for pre-order through the Criterion website...
(((Now what are these whispers I hear of a Frampton volume in the works?...)))
10.2.10
Un Lac
Elemental, I’ve read, yes elemental, pertaining to the agencies, forces, or phenomena of physical nature...
Passion, yes passionate, a passion that often threatens to overwhelm even the bonds of family...
Brother, Sister, Mother, Father, emerging from the swathes of the unknown deep within a mythic chamber...
The arrival of a stranger, an unexpected savior and transitional catalyst...
Groping, grappling, caressing, convulsive ecstasy, a slightly sinister edge still lurking somewhere inside these tender confrontations...
Fragile whispers cut through a thin air, breathtaking silence, an anomalous seraphic interlude, an aural landscape rich as the misty mountainous terrain...
This environment, cold and vast, these bodies, warm and close, intertwining to the point of (sexual) unity...
Ethereal halos of light gently quivering as darkness slowly envelopes fluid outlines on the verge of melting away...
A sublime tactility (these textures, my God!, is this how they spoke of Noren’s Huge Pupils?), an exquisite warmth, a physicality that no longer needs escape through the lethal grip of a Raskolnikovian figure or a closed fist in Sarajevo...
A song of pure serenity, Philippe Grandrieux, drawing a line of perception through Brakhage back to Epstein, somatically searching cinematic territories hitherto unexplored, occasionally haunted by specters of cinema’s past, erasing boundaries, both literal and figurative, in the name of Vision…
(All stills from 'Un Lac' by Philippe Grandrieux)
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