avant-garde, experimental, surreal film

i'm pleased da intawebs has somewhat put pay to the "harder core than thou" aspect of fanboyism that has historically plagued the appreciation of "such" film. i think there's much experimental which doesn't evoke any feeling of "magic" - fair enough - the "real", scabrous, harsh & unforgiving in a situationist / docu style has it's place. but i will say in defence of the magical to check at your leisure fellini's "satyricon" & "casanova" & power rangers lost galaxy "return of the magna defender" i do not joke here.
can you help me tho, i wonder? i'm looking for an old film i thought was either man ray or duchamp (might not be): something like " poeme cinematique " or similar title - very art deco surrealist i think perhaps concentrating on NY or Paris architecture, shadows, the play of light on water etc any ideas? vielen dank !

Ballet Mecanique?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SgsqmQJAq0

ah super, thank you, but not the film in question. i think the one i'm seeking (based on a hugely fuzzy ancient memory) is a little (just a little) more recent. sadly i can't give you much more than that. sorta swimming cap flapper art deco abstract tourist board film dappled shadows scintillations of water reflections. no worries if you're drawing a blank, so am i!
o:
honorable mention for masaki kobayashi's "kwaidan" ( super cinematic ghost stories in glorious technicolor w/ super toru takemitsu score ), nobuhiko obayashi's "hausu"/ "house" super cheesy scoooby doo style haunted house 70's teen-schmaltz-horror, whatever folks directed "funky forest" gentle contemporary pop-surrealist sketch-show film,
most dario argento, most cronenburg, the m.barney canon, and season 2 & 3 lexx haha!

Hello bob snoom, yr descrip kinda sounds like a mash-up of Vigo's Apropos de Nice and Taris, tho' i don't suppose its either.

i think you might also like Dreams That Money Can Buy by Hans Richter

"dreams..." i know, it's a smasher ! - will def check out the others thank you.
maya deren gave me nightmares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upHAWrEj1qY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjnHUJ455Ss&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsYCeRlSFwI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMDez_kGL2Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-cvJq3m7pw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yALxXKDjI1k

:DDDDDDDD that is lovely, want to see the rest now

oh cripes xposts!!!!!!!!!! um I was talking about the John Smith one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1x-9dLboDo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbscpyrWgg&feature=related

inland empire - david lynch, if not mentioned already. yeah i realize he's the cliche go-to for surrealism, but i have never been more scared watching a movie than that one. really sucks you in.

thank you admrl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMY-3Wg3eE0&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Ty4TTAX48

More Alys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC4-op71sa4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vryg0DE7L70&feature=related

Feel like I may have already posted this but too lazy to check:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzniaKxMr2g&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJcqk3PcOlg

Ooops, this one has English subs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItEHvYi8KZI&feature=related

thanks adam.

caught a Jordan Belson retrospective last night at the Pacific Film Archive, really amazing.

Experimental fucked-up film - Mishima's Patrotism:

http://www.ubu.com/film/mishima.html

LA ppl should not be missing out on the alternative projections series going on right now (and that i really hope tours at some point). caught peter mays' 'death of a gorilla' last weekend, which is all kinds of incredible

Really LOVE Hollis Frampton.

http://www.ubu.com/film/frampton.html

Been watching a lot of experimental film this last week and he does interest me a bit more - its certainly the static rigour, but also the nhilistic streak. Nostalgia is the example, for me, here is a guy burning away what might have meant something to him, at one time.

Maya Deren also good - more surreal and dreamlike - but she is so good at making something out of dance - Meditation on Violence must be mentioned.

Chris Marker - 2084:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGkSAe0SzIg

UK cats: Dreams That Money Can Buy is on Film4 right now! Quick!

Yeah saw that years ago at the Renoir, missed last night's showing.

this is cool!

http://www.handmadecinema.com/

Went to an experimental program at the 20th anniversary of the Innis Film Society tonight. (The Society was around from '85-93; I graduated in '84. When you start attending anniversaries you predate...) There were ten films, and the only one I'd seen before was Anger's Kustom Kar Kommandos. I quite liked four of them. Bruce Conner's Cosmic Ray: excellent use of "What I'd Say," kind of anticipates the Vietnam-rock 'n' roll films like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Brakhage's Dante Quartet: beautiful to look at, amazing to think about (how he did it). Owen Land's On the Marriage Broker Joke... (extremely long title): bizarre, very funny, impossible to describe. My favourite was Keewatin Dewdney's Maltese Cross Movement from '67. Wish I could find it online (what's the name of that site that houses all sorts of experimental films you can watch for free? I always forget its name). Unsettling.

I feel like I can take most anything in the way of aggressive sound and/or image, but 12 minutes of Paul Sharits' Touching was a real test.

Saw Asphalt Watches at Cinematheque Vancouver a week or two ago. I wasn't quite sure what to expect - kind of thought it would be cheap and with a teenagey tOtaLLy rAnDoM feel to it... but it was really very nice. Surprisingly warm in its treatment of the odd characters occupying its space. The two reviews I read said it dragged at times, and I kept thinking to myself "is this when it's going to start dragging?" and in the middle of that, the film ended.

I'd watch it again.

i think you mean

T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G

i love that movie, but yeah i always have to walk out and get some fresh air 1/2 way through.

Keewatin Dewdney's Maltese Cross Movement

that's the one w/ the beach boys "gettin hungry" on it. it's pretty great (and beyond bizarre).

bruce conner is unquestionably my favorite A-G filmmaker. my favorites of his are take the 5:10 to dreamland and valse triste,but it's all amazing.

did you mean Ubuweb clemenza?

http://www.ubu.com/film/

whole bunch of avant/etc shorts [through the years] coming up on TCM this Saturday AM (4 or 5 hours from now)

sorry, make ^that^ this Sunday AM, March 30th, from 2am onwards

thanks, Paul. Lots of good stuff and that "Free Radicals" doc I haven't seen yet

I should watch more experimental film. I watched Hans richter's every day today at the library, it was awesome. Soviet montage-style short set in London & featuring eisenstein and a stop-motion bangers & mash dancing

(xpost) That's the site, NV--thanks. I was hoping the Dewdney film would be on there, but no. (amateurist: I've never owned Smiley Smile, so I never would have guessed that was the Beach Boys.)

ubuweb is great

Can be a frustrating experience at times -- some films that you wish were in a better state.

There were ten films, and the only one I'd seen before was Anger's Kustom Kar Kommandos...
I feel like I can take most anything in the way of aggressive sound and/or image, but 12 minutes of Paul Sharits' Touching was a real test.

― clemenza, Friday, March 28, 2014 9:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, I distinctly remember watching these in Innis Town Hall in my Cinema Studies classes.

I think the running joke (well, I guess it's not actually a joke) is that T.O.U.C.H.I.N.G. is the only thing that most the kids who take the intro to cinema class remember from it, just 'cause, y'know.

What's on TCM? Is it over?

I like "Free Radicals" but Maya Deren excepted, it bums me out that that particular history of avant-garde film is just a series of old straight white guys. It's nice that he includes a couple of films in their entirety though.

Ah I see it now. It's all stuff mentioned in Free Radicals. Nice to think of Ken Jacobs on tv at 3AM though!

When were you there, ed? I was '79-'84 (needed an extra year because there was a city adjacent to the campus, and that caused problems). I took the intro course with Joe Medjuck, and I don't recall experimental film being a part of it.

Going through this thread picking up recommendations, just watched the youtube of Tusalava - so good!