Film Culture (November 1957)

recall that the avantgarde movement started in Europe just after the First World War, at a time of social upheaval. I think that the world-view of the experimental film-maker is something to be kept in mind at all times when we view these films. The people who make them are profoundly discontented. They are not “adjusted” to present-day society and they express the tensions and problems of this society in no uncertain terms. Giron BAcHMANN: Basically, then, you have said that it is the social complexities operating upon or pressing upon the people who make these films, who find themselves profoundly unable to cope with the current human condition, that impart significance to the experimental film. Now, Mr. Hugo, since you apparently have a more individual approach to their creation, do you feel that experimental films need no wider, social significance? Ian Huco: I think they have a very wide social significance, and precisely because of the approach which many of us have to the art—the individual approach. I ' believe that through the individual approach you will arrive at an integration with other human beings. Vittorio de Sica has said that the essence of today’s drama is man’s inability to communicate with his fellow man. I believe the reason for this failure of communication is that most attempts at communication have been made through the surface mind. We have come to distrust all surface communications because we have seen how deceptive they can be. Now, some modern writers, painters and many _ jazz musicians have succeeded in reestablishing com munication in depth—under the surface and through the subconscious. When film-makers discover the true language of the film medium, as only a few have begun to do, and succeed in expressing themselves as film artists in that universal language, the film will become the most potent means of communication among human beings. Parker Tyzter: I would like to add to the proposed raison d’etre of the experimental film by remarking—in regard to the question of the artist or, rather let’s say, the individual not communicating with his fellow man or with society in general—that the avantgarde film-maker or the avantgarde artist in any medium displays a kind of individual courage in being able to go into himself, to go into the depths where (if we are to believe James Joyce) all society is again rejoined and becomes one, or, as Joyce calls it, “the night mind.” There are many other names for it: Freud, for example, calls it the unconscious. The particular kind of courage displayed by the experimental film-maker, I think, makes him a very worthwhile object of support and, in view of his condition of simple mechanical needs, perhaps all questions of form and content become rather academic. He has a tion, is what makes the world go round. It’s what enables us to visualize the future. It’s what enables us to visual-jze in ourselves our deepest human motives. And in his effort to create a world of vision which has character and which has drive, which has depth, the experimental film-maker is doing his best to—well, I will put it peas again—make the world go round. WHERE CAN EXPERIMENTAL FILMS BE SEEN? GIDEON BacuMANN: I think what all of you have been trying to say is that the experimental film—more than fund of courage in him, based on—to put it very. simply —imagination. And imagination, really human imagina-| the Hollywood film, and in the manner of the modern ‘painter or the modern sculptor—expresses the complexi ‘ties of the human situation and makes it easier or, maybe, makes it possible for less universally conscious people in the audience to find some mirror of their own difficulties, of their own troubles, of their own existence. And, this, perhaps, most significantly defines the universal meaning of the experimental film. Now, Mr. Vogel, as one who has been closely associated with the distribution and exhibition of these films, could OH tell us where experimental films can be seen? Amos VocEt: By and large, these films can be seen only in the so-called non-theatrical outlets, primarily in film societies of which there are several hundred throughout the couniry. In addition, there are many art museums, civic groups, labor unions, churches, etc. The films are distributed through several sources, Cinema 16 being one*, which in the last five years has rented films of this type to more than 400 outlets. In these small but growing organizations, audiences—often for the first time —have an opportunity to become | Soret with experi mental films. GipEoN BACHMANN: Perhaps some of you would like to say a few words to end the discussion and to give a short review of your opinions on this entire movement? Amos VocEL: I just want to come back to one point made before. What does the average moviegoer “get out” of seeing experimental films? Having seen practically all the experimental films made in America and abroad in the last six or seven years, I find it easy to categorize them in very definite ways for they deal with very specific themes, although they may treat these themes in an oblique and unorthodox fashion. For example, I could list at least ten to fifteen films that in various ways attempt to deal with the whole question of war and there are at least ten or twenty that deal with problems of emotional or sexual adjustment. When you begin to look at these films more specifically, you realize how they tie in with the human condition at every point and how they are not at all frivolous or esoteric. If we approach them as we approach all of art, literature, poetry or music, if we approach them with an open mind search| ing for an experience, then we can get a great deal out of them. ParKER TYLER: Two things have been brought out by all the participants in this symposium—first, that the experimental film is a subject or, rather I should say, a kind of activity about which people can agree and disagree deeply, and this, it seems to ‘me, proves the vitality of experimental films; and second, that in so far as mod ‘ern problems are concerned, or what has been called the human condition, the experimental film is an inwardgoing kind of activity and it seems to me that, by this going inward, the outward human condition is sing cad illuminated. * Art and History Films, 41 W. 47 St., New York, N. Y. Brandon Films, 200 W. 57 St., New Vink NAY: Cinema 16, 175 Lexington ‘Avenue: New York, N. Y ‘Contemporary Films, 13 E. 37 St., New York, N. Y. Creative Film Society, 1700 N. Lima St., Burbank, California. Film Images, 1860 Broadway, New York, N. Y. Film Rentals, 6509 De Longpre, Hollywood 28, California. Museum of Modern Art Film Library, 11 W. 53 St., New York, N. Y. Film Forum, a weekly radio program sponsored by * Cineliages” magazine and Fordham University, is heard in New York every Sunday evening at 9 P.M. over station WFUV-FM (90.7 kilocycles). 15