avant-garde, experimental, surreal film

this has been boggling me lately:

http://thesoundofeye.blogspot.com/

ha I see they took down the Ira Cohen film that was reissued by Arthur...

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!