The Experimental Film List Project

[therewillbeblus]

Siegfried A. Fruhauf's Cave Painting is a fantastic flicker film - which makes me wonder if there's a comprehensive list somewhere of 'flicker films', or if people could recommend their favorites (I know of the main ones that have been recommended, but there have to be more obscure choices too)?

Flicker films are my version of ASMR - I find them incredibly calming, and I'd love to start a ritual of watching a new one after work each day

[therewillbeblus]

I'm currently going through my backlog of Re:Voir DVDs, and wondering if we should go ahead and set a date for submission? Even if there's going to be limited discussion, I'd like to get the opportunity to glance at a master list (and anyone who is willing to's posted lists) simply to get more experimental recommendations out there through title exposure. This project's completion would be cool for expanding the number of experimental films listed on the board, if nothing else. I have no idea where to start for assembling my own list, though

[Red Screamer]

Siegfried A. Fruhauf's Cave Painting is a fantastic flicker film - which makes me wonder if there's a comprehensive list somewhere of 'flicker films', or if people could recommend their favorites (I know of the main ones that have been recommended, but there have to be more obscure choices too)?

Flicker films are my version of ASMR - I find them incredibly calming, and I'd love to start a ritual of watching a new one after work each day

Some favorites off the top of my head not by Conrad/Kubelka/Sharits/Lowder, though I've mentioned some of them before:

Serene Velocity (Gehr)
Gravity (Provost)
Sketch Film #1 (Nishikawa)
Wasteland No. 2: Hardy, Hearty (Mack)
L'eau de la Seine (Hernández) & Souvenirs/Rouen (Hernández) [more in the vein of Breakaway]

And I'll also link to these, mostly because this post reminded me they exist and the filmmaker put them online: ¡PíFIES! (Tamarit) & In Film/On Video (Tamarit)

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks, Red Screamer, these are great! I polished off Jodie Mack's oeuvre a while back (highly recommended), and have seen the Provost too, but not the rest.

I'm not that keen on Peter Tscherkassky's work overall, but The Exquisite Corpus and Outer Space are exceptional sorta-flicker films, and both would probably make my list.

[swo17]

Have you seen his Coming Attractions? That's my favorite

[therewillbeblus]

Yes, that was great too!

[zedz]

I'm currently going through my backlog of Re:Voir DVDs, and wondering if we should go ahead and set a date for submission? Even if there's going to be limited discussion, I'd like to get the opportunity to glance at a master list (and anyone who is willing to's posted lists) simply to get more experimental recommendations out there through title exposure. This project's completion would be cool for expanding the number of experimental films listed on the board, if nothing else. I have no idea where to start for assembling my own list, though

I'd love to do the list, but there's clearly not much interest in it, and I don't see any point in making lists without any attending discussion.

[denti alligator]

I’m still game. Maybe we can get discussion going on a certain period or movement, narrow the focus a little.

[therewillbeblus]

That’s what I’m trying to do

[denti alligator]

The flicker film idea is good. I like your idea of posting a preliminary favorite 10-20 films even better.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah, ideally doing that could assist in narrowing focus on a few more nanogenres

[therewillbeblus]

I'm not a huge fan of Phil Solomon's later work, but Nocturne is a magnificent achievement - at once horrifyingly apocalyptic and sublimely liberating

[TechnicolorAcid]

I'm not a huge fan of Phil Solomon's later work, but Nocturne is a magnificent achievement - at once horrifyingly apocalyptic and sublimely liberating

Have you seen Remains to be Seem and The Exquisite Hour yet? Discovered them during the 1989 list and fell in love with them right away.

[knives]

His Brakhage collaborations are also some of the best work I’ve seen.

[therewillbeblus]

I wasn't crazy about the Brakhage collab that I watched (in that, it didn't feel any different than one of Brakhage's films of that ilk - hard to locate Solomon's artistic voice), but I'll keep dabbling in his work

[therewillbeblus]

Light Reading (Lis Rhodes): There's so much to unpack in this 20-minute film, but doing so would seem to defeat the purpose of (one of) its thesis: That language and cognitive limitations imprison us, when trying to understand stimuli. There's also something going on, especially later, regarding the nature of cinema - an actress as object vs subject, imprisoned in the film itself.. but I found the former abstract reading to lead to a more powerful 'feeling' than the latter, which paradoxically calls one to analyze, at odds with the first's ideas. A truly awe-inspiring work, which would make a good, if on-the-nose double-feature with Blow-Up.

‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen (Michael Snow): I may have preferred the funnier and more concise So is This, but this is a sprawling work of ideas and gags that is as amusing as it is exhausting, largely centering around the symbiotic and dissonant relationships between image and sound. A laugh feels way more earned when it comes after a segment of brutally-slow noise or inert action. And while the film may be front-heavy with its long, sublime plane bit, the back half moves pretty smoothly, at a better rhythm than what makes up the second part of the first half's section. The design of its cadence probably has a deliberate logic to its madness, but all I know is I wish there was more Michael Snow out there like these works. The guy has a great sense of humor.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Vault (1984, The Yonemoto Brothers) is essentially an avant-garde take on one of my favorite sub-subgenres, the tongue-in-cheek melodrama, and it’s fantastic, flowing with energetic energy/editing and enough melodrama conventions to make Sirk blush and it has me wondering if there’s any similar avant-garde works that does similar riffing on classic tropes, either through reusing clips or in some other form

[therewillbeblus]

Pièce touchée is a phenomenal piece of work, taking an 18-second clip of a banal marital interaction in the 50s and creating a rhythm that allows these minute moments to breathe, meditating on the small possibilities of interaction. Only through this medium can such a small moment be extended and transformed into a choreographed harmony achieving grace. There are moments that reflect a flicker film, and others that demonstrate a kind of dance, always tinkering with the potential of film to create different art forms within. Brilliant.

[denti alligator]

Arnold really is an incredible filmmaker.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Pièce touchée is a phenomenal piece of work, taking an 18-second clip of a banal marital interaction in the 50s and creating a rhythm that allows these minute moments to breathe, meditating on the small possibilities of interaction. Only through this medium can such a small moment be extended and transformed into a choreographed harmony achieving grace. There are moments that reflect a flicker film, and others that demonstrate a kind of dance, always tinkering with the potential of film to create different art forms within. Brilliant.

I remember watching this one for the 1989 Project and while I prefer Arnold’s Whistle Stop (primarily because of Arnold deconstructs the entire image rather than just its movements), I almost became intoxicated by Pièce touchée’s sense of rhythm as it kept moving along and I agree that it does eventually resemble a sort of dance like grace as it goes on in a way that to me feels both beautiful and haunting at the same time.

Arnold really is an incredible filmmaker.

Are there any of Palmer’s films that you would recommend as some of your favorites, he seems like an interesting filmmaker and I’d like to see more from him?

[denti alligator]

His name is Martin Arnold (you must have mistyped). I think Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy is his masterpiece.

[therewillbeblus]

For whatever reason I didn't like either of the ones you guys mentioned, but connected deeply with Pièce touchée

[denti alligator]

I also like Passage a l‘Acte and Deanimated.

[TechnicolorAcid]

For whatever reason I didn't like either of the ones you guys mentioned, but connected deeply with Pièce touchée

If I may offer a suggestion, maybe the reason you like Pièce touchée so much over Whistle Stop is the runtime since I imagine that the feeling you got of it becoming a choreographed dance only becomes extended the longer that you have to sit with, whereas Whistle Stop’s runtime was probably too short for that feeling to sink in and so, while I haven’t seen it, maybe Passage a l’Acte might work better for you since it’s runtime might allow you to be immersed in it for a bit longer.

[therewillbeblus]

The reason isn’t that superficial. Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy has about the same running time as Pièce touchée