Re:Voir

[tenia]

It is indeed a Potemkine set.

[Matt]

Ugh. I hesitated on which thread to post that in and still got it wrong.

[swo17]

Sorry if I came across as pedantic--I was just wondering why I hadn't heard of it when I follow Re:voir's social media

[Matt]

Not at all. I think I actually priced it out from both Re:Voir and Potemkine and it was slightly less from the former, if anyone else is considering a purchase.

[therewillbeblus]

Not at all. I think I actually priced it out from both Re:Voir and Potemkine and it was slightly less from the former, if anyone else is considering a purchase.

I'm potentially very interested, but since the post has been deleted I have no idea what set you're talking about

[tenia]

It's a Pierre Clémenti boxset released in France by Potemkine (but which can also be imported from Re:Voir seemingly for cheaper than from Potemkine themselves).

[swo17]

Matt moved his initial question here

[therewillbeblus]

Okay cool, looks very interesting! Also, just trying to catch up on Re:Voir's recent slate, and the David Brooks disc looks great. Seems like another novel eye channeling the kind of soothing heightened perceptiveness as Mekas/Jacobs'- can anyone comment on his work?

[Matt]

Classic example of me making things worse by trying to make things better!

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

Can anyone comment how the Mekas set measures up to how it looks? I'm very near ordering it.

[therewillbeblus]

Also, just trying to catch up on Re:Voir's recent slate, and the David Brooks disc looks great. Seems like another novel eye channeling the kind of soothing heightened perceptiveness as Mekas/Jacobs'- can anyone comment on his work?

Answering my own question, I sampled The Wind Is Driving Him Toward the Open Sea and absolutely loved it along the lines of what I expected (though it’s almost Godardian in how Brooke fluidly orchestrates his collage of documentary interviews and sublime home movie footage into a digestible experimental-essayist pattern) so I’ll be picking up this set ASAP

[kubelkind]

Also, just trying to catch up on Re:Voir's recent slate, and the David Brooks disc looks great. Seems like another novel eye channeling the kind of soothing heightened perceptiveness as Mekas/Jacobs'- can anyone comment on his work?

Answering my own question, I sampled The Wind Is Driving Him Toward the Open Sea and absolutely loved it along the lines of what I expected (though it’s almost Godardian in how Brooke fluidly orchestrates his collage of documentary interviews and sublime home movie footage into a digestible experimental-essayist pattern) so I’ll be picking up this set ASAP

There's a wonderful chapter on Brooks in David Ehrenstein's "Film: The Front Line 1984". I loved The Wind Is Driving... too, though it's not so fresh in my memory now. Will pick up the DVD for a revisit, and a chance to finally see Carolyn & Me, which I believe was unfinished at the time of Brooks' death in a car crash aged only 24.

[therewillbeblus]

Thinking of putting in an order soon and wondering if anyone has any recs from recent releases or ones unmentioned in the thread? I'm definitely going to pick up the Marie Menken set, which looks fantastic

[swo17]

Oh nice, I hadn't seen the Menken announcement

[FlickeringWindow]

Can anyone comment how the Mekas set measures up to how it looks? I'm very near ordering it.

I spot checked every disc. Except for one, all BD-50 with healthy encodes and even DTS-HD MA 2.0 sound on everything! The one BD-25 is for one of the discs with less than two hours of content. It’s also at least Region A/B if not region free. The packaging is quite unique with irregular cards with pegs holding the discs. Very well made and apparently the set was manufactured in Lithuania.

[zedz]

Thinking of putting in an order soon and wondering if anyone has any recs from recent releases or ones unmentioned in the thread? I'm definitely going to pick up the Marie Menken set, which looks fantastic

Have you got the Virgil Widrich disc?

Off the top of my head, the recent-ish Marcel Hanoun Seasons box, Garrel and Bokanowski BluRays are all essential.

[swo17]

Seasons set is OOP but I have a spare copy I could sell

[zedz]

Seasons set is OOP but I have a spare copy I could sell

It looks like the individual discs are all still available, however. (Did the box come with a separate book?)

[therewillbeblus]

Thinking of putting in an order soon and wondering if anyone has any recs from recent releases or ones unmentioned in the thread? I'm definitely going to pick up the Marie Menken set, which looks fantastic

Have you got the Virgil Widrich disc?

Off the top of my head, the recent-ish Marcel Hanoun Seasons box, Garrel and Bokanowski BluRays are all essential.

Thanks zedz, yeah I do- mine was the giant order swo posted at the bottom of the group buy on the last page, meaning I have:

Spoiler'd for sizeShow

Dominic Angerame: Cityscapes
Gunvor Nelson: 3-Pack
Jacques Perconte: 2-Pack
Jonas Mekas: Diaries, Notes & Sketches
Jonas Mekas: He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
Jonas Mekas: The Walden Book
Joost Rekveld: 11 Films
Patrick Bokanowski: 3-Pack
Paul Clipson: Landscape Dissolves
Peter Tscherkassky: Exquisite Ecstasies
Rose Lowder: 2-Pack
Siegfried Fruhauf: Exposed
Siegfried Fruhauf: Nature & Abstractions
Stan Brakhage: Anticipation of the Night
Virgil Widrich: Short Films

I'm mixed on the Hanoun films I've seen from the box, and same with the Garrels, but I might bite anyways

[swo17]

Seasons set is OOP but I have a spare copy I could sell

It looks like the individual discs are all still available, however. (Did the box come with a separate book?)

I think you're right about the individual discs. The box did come with a 100-page book though

[therewillbeblus]

zedz, which Garrel do you recommend the most? I see a Blu/DVD three-pack but they have a lot of other discs. I've seen Le Lit de la Vierge and Le Révélateur and liked both

[zedz]

zedz, which Garrel do you recommend the most? I see a Blu/DVD three-pack but they have a lot of other discs. I've seen Le Lit de la Vierge and Le Révélateur and liked both

Both of those films would be among my top picks. Of the BluRays, La Cicatrice interieure - a crazy, gorgeous film.

[therewillbeblus]

Light Matter is a rather academic flicker film, and the least interesting thing on the disc.

What do you mean by "academic" in regards to flicker films? What would a non-academic one looks like, and why? I'm not always taken by flicker films, but this one really worked for me. It seemed to be creating its hypnotic effect from the inside-out rather than a uniform tempo of blinking, which created a kind of visual wave that shifted in rhythm and direction. I don't know if/how that would be possible, but I guess I'm saying that its method of entrancing me felt different than most flicker films, so I'm curious what the differences are and why one might be less interesting than another. I'm definitely less versed in these kinds of experimental films, but I'd like to learn more about the distinctions of interventions and why one might be lauded and another dismissed (If there are good books on the topic too, I'd love to get a rec!)

Anyways, aside from the two clear highlights you mentioned, this and Make/Real were my favorites on the Widrich disc. I wasn't too impressed by a lot of the straight-collage movies but Make/Real's futuristic content and sharp editing culminated in something very aesthetically profound and (physiologically-directed)emotionally moving for me. I imagine Back Track would've been a winner too if my setup was 3D compatible

[swo17]

Back Track just takes a pair of anaglyph red/blue glasses to view as intended

[zedz]

Light Matter is a rather academic flicker film, and the least interesting thing on the disc.

What do you mean by "academic" in regards to flicker films? What would a non-academic one looks like, and why? I'm not always taken by flicker films, but this one really worked for me. It seemed to be creating its hypnotic effect from the inside-out rather than a uniform tempo of blinking, which created a kind of visual wave that shifted in rhythm and direction. I don't know if/how that would be possible, but I guess I'm saying that its method of entrancing me felt different than most flicker films, so I'm curious what the differences are and why one might be less interesting than another. I'm definitely less versed in these kinds of experimental films, but I'd like to learn more about the distinctions of interventions and why one might be lauded and another dismissed (If there are good books on the topic too, I'd love to get a rec!)

I'd have to go back to that film to remember exactly what I meant, but the idea of an aesthetics of flicker films is an interesting one, since they're fundamentally about rhythm, but they're also fundamentally physiological and their impact is presumably even more subjective than that of most films. The best flicker films, like Arnulf Rainer, have an alien majesty that's awe-inspiring. It's like an extra-terrestrial intelligence is trying to communicate with you (it's not a message of love and peace) and in doing so is drilling down into your brain. Whereas more lacklustre ones have predictable rhythms and structures (e.g. calm - FRANTIC - calm) or just retread what's already been done better decades earlier.

With Light Matter, I suspect it was the fact that Widrich is such an inventive and original filmmaker that churning out just another flicker film seemed like a waste of time and energy.

EDIT: Oh, and as for book recs, the best books I know about experimental cinema are the five volumes of Scott MacDonald's A Critical Cinema. These comprise long-form interviews with dozens of major filmmakers that get deep into their aesthetics and practice, and Macdonald's in-depth introductions to each interview provide a magnificent survey of several decades of vital alternative filmmaking. Most of the major figures of American experimental cinema from the 50s to the 90s are covered, and if they made flicker films, they're discussed.