The Other Side_Lucricia Martel

I chose to attend the Lucricia Martel talk as well as finish watching The Other Side and I would like to split this week’s response between both of them.

The Other Side is an experimental documentary film my Bill Brown . The juxtaposition of images follow the form of a structuralist film, with the camera being set-up in different cities and places across the U.S border. Following Deleuze’s cinema theory, one could say that the entire film is made out of perception-images with the camera as the position of perception. The camera stands film in different places across the border, and the images usually do not include any people, but perspectives of cities, shadows, the desert and experiences. The images are united through the voice-over by the film-maker himself who uses it as a travelogue, a way to share his experience travelling across the border. The camera almost has a different experience than the film-maker, people enter and exit the audio-scape, stories are being shared. The camera stands alone in space, invading landscapes, capturing moments in space and time, following the traces that were left behind from the pilmigrage of immigration. It seems that the juxtaposition of images and the soundscape are too independent pieces that can work separately. One can only listen to the piece or look at the images or both, there is an attempt to re-create his travel experience and share what he discovered by travelling near the border.

One thing that one could say is common in Lucricia’s Martel work and Bill Brown’s work is the importance of the soundscape. The Other Side would have never worked without the unitary and deeply personal voiceover. Lucricia Martel almost directs with her ear, first she creates the soundscape and the imagines and sets up the images and movements inside the frame that will produce this narrative. For her what is absent in the frame is just as important as what appears. She uses sounds to trace the unseen and help the spectator put the pieces together and construct their own assumptions and stories through her images.  Her films allow the viewer to imagine, she focuses on leaving little traces that the viewer can use to construct the narrative himself instead of giving the entire story in the film. She puts reality into doupt and brings small everyday horror in the surface, using images to think about the world around her. Her talk was very inspiring because she uses her childhood memories and the tensions that developed in her own family to draw ideas for her films through real human experiences.  

Structural film | Serene Velocity

The structural film is a popular and intriguing type among film forms, it is a kind of experimental film. It doesn’t have a specific outline or storyline since it focuses on the expression of the author. Instead of telling a story to the audience, it emphasizes how the audience be absorbed in a compositive film without a feature. It develops gradually in order to draw the audience’s attention to the details of the process, then begins to contemplate the while film. The structural film is like a looping slideshow, with its montage way to express the main idea step by step. This kind of film is more like a carrier of the authors’ thoughts rather than an entertainment to the audience.

In “Serene Velocity”, it keeps bringing the dizzy view of an empty and dark corridor by shifting the lengths on a lens. The edit of this film puts the scene of zoom in and zoom out together in just one second and loops it makes me feel hypnotic. I feel like I am immersed in this scene and get lost in it. The images were structured in the center of the corridor, and the fast motion both intensify the experience in this film.

Structural film_response

Structural film is a kind of experimental cinema that challenges the norms and the ideas of what the frame should contain inside it.  In a sense, it challenges the form and the narrative structure like most video art and creates a rhythmic , well-structured juxtaposition of images that are mainly concentrated on the visual aspect. In all the examples that were studied in the text, as well as Zorn’s Lemma and Serene Velocity the visual aspects of the film are following a set of rules and the shots are montaged together ignoring narrative or visual pleasure to create a new meaning. What is allowed inside the frame and in who defines the rules ? What kind of intense emotions can images that seem unlikely or irrelevant produce to the audience when combined through a rhythmic montage? I feel that this is the question that structural films are tryng to respond too.

Serene Velocity puts together a perspective of a dark lit corridor in different  level of zoom, creating an intense dazzling effect and a disorienting feeling for the spectator. As the perspectives change faster and faster the mind starts playing games initiating movement. As an audience although I watched it in my laptop at home I felt dazzled, disoriented and confused like I was walking back and forth in a scary psychedelic corridor. The film doesn’t create a narrative but a structure of images that lives on its own and it is its own art form , capable of creating intense emotions and experiences.

Marilia Kaisar_Chronicle of a Summer

Jean Rouch's and Edgar Morin's film Chronicle of a summer was a great way to understand and incorporate the reading of last week The voice of documentary in film form and understand what it was really all about. The film is a classic example of cinema verite, juxtaposing images of the city with real interviews from real people that took place during the course of a summer. It is an experimental approach that tries to answer the question of how people live, what is happiness  and above all what is true and what is a performance, moving away from classic film making
The film makers tried to record with their cameras "the truth" or an angle of the truth and then put together those images to allow the audiences to decide what they feel about it. They didn't try to construct an illusion or a narrative, but they choose to tell the story of the people who participated in the experiment. The film makers even appear in the film discussing their process offering a really meta-moment. Regarding the sound they use all three approaches that were explained in the text, interview in the city, interview by person, voice overs and free discussions between the participants. Whatever the film makers's intentions were, the film is still a cinematographic illusion.They had to cut and paste different frames, make a choice of their material and make connections between images and sounds that already creates new interpretations and offers a new approach to the reality. I believe that film unfortunately will never be able to capture the truth, but only fragments of reality that when they are reunited again in an assemblage(film) form some kind of illusion or simply a representation of reality. 

Audio Interview Proposal -Daniela Chrysafi

Daniela Chrysafi

Documentary Idea Proposal

I want to interview others to get their opinions and stories about their social lives. This includes asking them about their social needs, desires, as well as how they view themselves in relation to other people. What are all the different feelings people get about their social lives, their image, and their perception of themselves and others?

Social desires in relation to self

What kind of people do you want to or like to surround yourself with?

Do you feel that theres something missing in your life socially? is there something you want?

How do you like to spend time with people? What do you like doing with them or near them?

What scares you most about being around other people?

How do you feel about your friends? 

What do you desire most from a friendship?

Do you make friends easily? why? how do you feel about that?

Do you like being alone? Do you like doing things alone?

How much do you think you rely on other people for emotional support?

Do you think you need/want validation from other people?

Do you feel the need for people to like you?

What is the worst thing someone could think about you? What do you not want people thinking about you?

How do you want others to perceive you?

How do you think others perceive you?

Do you think its easy or difficult to get close to others, why?

Are there any trends you notice that others say or feel about you?

What is an opinion someone said about you that you don’t agree with?

What is something important you’ve noticed about the people you’ve been around in your life?

WEEK 2- Reading Response- Daniela Chrysafi

Koyaanisqatsi

The movie Koyaanisqatsi, was filmed in the early 1980’s as an experimental film. It served to provide commentary on the struggle between nature and humanity and explored concepts of creation, destruction, chaos, and order. This film’s style of documentary falls under Nichols’ sub style of “Poetic Documentary”. There is no linear story structure and while the film certainly has a message to convey, it is communicated through feeling rather than a directly worded message. Koyaanisqatsi begins with grandiose shots of nature, then shots of humans are introduced, they are beginning to build. We see the sped up buzzing of factory workers, cars on a highway, people on a busy street, with repetitive and complicated music in the background. We see buildings being destroyed, we see slow images of a building burning. All of these images and sounds, their pacing, their placement make the viewer feel, and then think about what they’ve seen. There is a message but there are many ways one can perceive it, or how the film made them feel. 

WELCOME DDA577 FALL2017!
ENJOY BLOGGER!

-MARIANNA

SEPTEMBER 12: AUDIO DOCUMENTARY. PROPOSALS DUE
September 19: First Draft Due. Sept 23: Final Due by email

                                           JOHN CAGE & DAVID TUDOR INDETERMINACY