Film Culture (May-June 1955)

films, science, travel, religion; films on art and films on performing arts. The following notes will deal with the lyric film poem and cineplastics only. Distinction Between Film Drama and Film Poem Before going further we have to make a_ clearer distinction between Film Drama and Film Poem. Although there is no sharp dividing line between these two film forms, there are basic differences which we can see when these two film forms are at their extremes. On one side, there is directness and simplicity of the Film Drama approach where story, action and depiction of the character are the primary concern of the artist, though it may use occasional poetical sequences as in some of Ford’s films. On the other hand we have a Film Poem where poetry is not an accidental stylistic means but the very basis of the approach: the form of the film. Hence the basic differences of the two approaches to the treatment of the content, story, characters and film construction. Although in epic and in some lyric film poems we often follow a more or less visible story line and characterization (Dovzhenko’s Earth, Harrington’s Picnic) they are of secondary importance. Symbolic meaning of things and situations, the mood and feeling, the private vision of the film poet about the simple everyday occurrences and eternal truths, improvisations that are not always understood on the first viewing, — all these we can find and accept in a film poem. All that finally matters is the degree to which the film poet succeeds in transferring his vision on film, the degree to which he transcends his material, giving more to it than just the surface imagery; and ultimately, how much emotional and intellectual response he is able to evoke in the viewer. Undoubtedly, there will be purists objecting to the use of the word “poem” in connection with motion pictures. I don’t intend to become involved here with the inter-relationship of the arts, but | do want to remark that Leonardo da Vinci was not just playing with words when he said that painting is poetry made to be looked at. The Reasons for the Growth of the American Experimental Film T° FORMER generations film art was something still new and exotic, but for this generation it is a part of our lives, like bread, music, trees, or steel bridges. Undoubtedly, one of the most important factors contributing to this change is the increase in film education. The graduation of hundreds of students from University film classes, the work of the University of Southern California, The Museum of Modern Art Film Library, Hans Richter’s Film Institute at CCNY, Cinema 16, The Film Council of America and a steadily growing film society movement were all responsible for bringing good films closer and deeper into our communities. According to figures compiled by the newly organized Independent Film Makers Assn. Inc., the purpose of which is “to undertake all projects which would advance the production, distribution and appreciation of film primarily as an art form”, in New York alone there are now more than 40 film makers interested in film “pri 16 marily as an art form” and whose main interest is in making “experimental films”. And there are maybe ten times as many scattered throughout the country. Thus, when a young man with a creative disposition begins to feel a need to express himself in an art medium there is today a much greater possibility than there was 20 years ago that he will choose cinema. These film makers are trying to create in this new and exciting medium. They are like those hundreds of poets that appear every year in various places with their thin booklets of verses read and recognized by nobody but their friends. These dozens of young film makers are as insistent, willing and stubborn as those young literary poets, the only difference being that they chose film instead of the typewriter. The Adolescent Character of the American Film Poem a’, eee WE take into consideration the great number of young people trying their hand at film making today, we shall not find it surprising that the majority of film poems made at present in America suffer from a markedly adolescent character. The most appropriate phrase to describe the greatest number of these young film poets would be, probably, a term often used in contemporary criticism, namely, “personal lyricism”. Kenneth Anger, Gregory Markopoulos, Curtis Harrington, Stanley Brakhage, Ben Moore, Burton Wilner, Robert Vickrey are mostly young men with all the characteristics of their age: adolescent frustrations, uncertainty, search for themselves, inner confusion concerning the reality of objects and ideas. The eternal theme of these films concerns a young frustrated man, a kind of a “young senile”, the most recent example of it being Stanley Brakhage’s The Way to Shadow Garden — a youngster tragically aware (in his 18th year or so) that he “can’t be one with the world” and trying desperately to escape to that other, fantasy world “where flowers burn black against a white night sky”. Escapism, unresolved frustrations, sadism and cruelty, fatalism and juvenile pessimism are the fundamental and recurrent themes of these films. Their protagonists seem to live under a strange spell. They do not appear to be part of the surrounding world, despite many naturalistic details that we find in these films. They are exalted, tormented, not related in any comprehensible way to society or place or family or any person. It is impossible to imagine these characters buying food or working in a shop or bringing up children or participating in any concrete manner in the activities of other men, — they are not much more real than fictitious characters in space novels. In these films, touch with reality seems to be very feeble. Instead of a human being we find a poetic version of a modern zombi: after all our efforts to make it alive we find ourselves stuck with a corpse. There is a clear similarity between the young writers and film poets of today, be it Brakhage, Maas, Hugo or Anger. Not only in their zombi-like characters but also in the super-excess of unintelligible details which they include in their works — details that are, most probably, full of significance to the makers but unfortunately convey no definite meaning to the viewer. It is clear that if all these analytical details lack meaning and impact