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Experimental Film
INTRODUCTION: THE TWO MAIN FILM TYPES
The two most general film types are the story film and the non-story film, the latter comprising the bulk of experimental films and all the varieties of the film of fact. Supposing now a film maker susceptible to the peculiarities of his medium is free to choose between the story and non-story film. Will he spontaneously prefer one of them or will he dismiss the whole idea of such a choice in the belief that both admit of equally satisfactory solutions?
Gross as this issue may seem, it has been much-debated in the literature, especially by those favoring the first alternative. They usually hold that storytelling interferes with the cinematic approach. Before looking into the avant-gardes revolt against the story film, we might well ponder two comments in the same vein from other quarters, completely independent of each other, which point up the significance of the issue.
There is, first, an observation by Andre Maurois, which is all the more poignant since it stems from a genuine experience of this sensitive writer: "In a moviehouse I visited they advertised Larmes de clown [Tears of a Clown] and showed a series of quite beautiful pictures which presented a circus ring, clowns rolling a big ball, a lion threatening a dancer; all this was beautiful, obscure, and suggestive like certain poems by SaintJohn Perse. Next week I went to see the film. It was an honest, coherent, sentimental, and flat story. Its whole poetic charm was due to the fact that the film had been cut arbitrarily. In stripping the events of their excess of common sense, one relieves the spectator from the necessity of judging, bringing him closer to poetic emotion. In consequence, there is a conflict in film between intrigue and poetry. If the intrigue is too interesting,
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