12 years a slave.

such movies make my heart ache.

Just watching this now: http://player.bfi.org.uk/player/watc...default/search

Am definitely interested in seeing this film.

this

"We belong dead." - The Monster

ditto. grueling.

i watched volume one of "american avant-garde film" (or something like that) and it was the most boring thing ever.

i realized that 99% of the time "avant-garde film" means: white people making a bunch of random shapes on the screen by a variety of methods to the tune of some sort of chaotic sountrack (with the inclusion of unfamiliar "ethnic" tracks).

now i'm not opposed to experimentation but come on! please make something that i can care about without the use of psychedelic "wow, look at those colors, maaaan" drugs. experimentation doesn't have to mean "random shapes moving to the sound of music."

maybe i'm being unduly harsh, but it was all unwatchable, and the modern music video has improved so much over those early pioneers as to render them irrelevant. it's not like watching fritz lang or buster keaton and saying "wow, this still works a century later."

i'd rather watch hbo series, sorry.

eta: along these lines, i find "born into brothels" to be much more truly avant-garde. putting cameras in the hands of kids = innovation.

What were some of the films?

shit, i just sent it back. all i remember was that it was in part paid for some andy warhol foundation. lemme pull up some info…

…

http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds...ant-garde-film

i got disc 1:

This disc includes the following short films: "Film No. 3: Interwoven," "Notes on the Circus," "Here I Am," "Fake Fruit Factory," "Odds & Ends," "Eyewash," "Peyote Queen," "7362," "Aleph," "Note to Pati," "By Night with Torch and Spear," "The Riddle of Lumen" and "The End."

they were all very boring to me. no maya deren or kuchar brothers or kenneth anger. lots of home films shown in negative, lots of dancing colors and shit like that. shaky cameras, etc. even promising titles like "peyote queen" were disappoints. the only one with a narrative was "the end" but it was like a bad short story written by a continental philosophy student who liked to ramble too much. oh, there was one documentary of sorts that showed special ed children playing with blocks and stuff. just looking. but i've seen kindergartens and nursing homes and special ed people, and it's not like this was "7 up" or anything. so it was all boring. fuck, i sound mean. i don't mean to be mean. but i had much higher expectations. maybe i was in the wrong frame of mind.

oh i found the link to the names. not all of them were in that disc:

Bruce Baillie, Here I Am (1962)
Wallace Berman, Aleph (1956–66?)
Stan Brakhage, The Riddle of Lumen (1972)
Robert Breer, Eyewash (1959)
Shirley Clarke, Bridges-Go-Round (1958)
Joseph Cornell, By Night with Torch and Spear (1940s?)
Storm De Hirsch, Peyote Queen (1965)
Hollis Frampton, (nostalgia) (1971)
Larry Gottheim, Fog Line (1970)
Ken Jacobs, Little Stabs at Happiness (1959–63)
Lawrence Jordan, Hamfat Asar (1965)
George Kuchar, I, An Actress (1977)
Owen Land, New Improved Institutional Quality: In the Environment of Liquids and Nasals a Parasitic Vowel Sometimes Develops (1976)
Standish Lawder, Necrology (1969–70)
Saul Levine, Note to Pati (1969)
Christopher Maclaine, The End (1953)
Jonas Mekas, Notes on the Circus (1966)
Marie Menken, Go! Go! Go! (1962-64)
Robert Nelson & William T. Wiley, The Off-Handed Jape...& How to Pull It Off (1967)
Pat O'Neill, 7362 (1967)
Ron Rice, Chumlum (1964)
Paul Sharits, Bad Burns (1982)
Jane Conger Belson Shimane, Odds & Ends (1959)
Harry Smith, Film No. 3: Interwoven (1947–49)
Chick Strand, Fake Fruit Factory (1986)
Andy Warhol, Mario Banana (No. 1) (1964)

---

now i remember that fruit factory which is another "documentary" was there too. i mean is just a camera on some people making fake fruits with some sort of clay. maybe he thought because they were mexican they were instantly interesting. i mean it was just workers doing their work. fucking edison did that in 1895 and he didn't exoticize brown people.

uncle lobster's notes on the circus was another thing: a circus. in fast forward. with a soundtrack.

uncle lobster is no jack smith.

also, no su friedrich? fuckem.

oh, btw, i realize there was a film by joseph cornell there and yes there was one thing that looked pretty good (probably his) but at that point i was tired of dancing colors.

there was also some footage of upside down factory workers with a track by john zorn and while i enjoyed the zorn music i went to wash dishes.

Wow! There's some of my fave films ever on that list. Little Stabs at Happiness, Aleph, Chumlum!!!!! I don't know what to say. You like Anger and Jack Smith but you didn't like Chumlum???? That just doesn't compute. :)

I watched that again recently. I liked it as ever but it is a real mess of a film. Totally all over the place.

Know what you mean - Argento's script isn't exactly a linear effort here, is it? Still, it's a pretty good giallo effort by him nonetheless. I thought Tony Musante's encounter with the gruff and grumpy artist was pretty entertaining. And as for Suzy Kendall....:o:cool:

of the 3 movies you mention only aleph was on this disc.

which one was that? shapes jumping?

ha ha ha-- i'm a fucking philistine, that's what. i'd rather watch the khaleesi in her furry bikini. but no, seriously. im sick and tired of "avant-garde = jumping colors with music." and that includes brakhage too. ha! ha ha ha!