The Experimental Film List Project

[TechnicolorAcid]

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

I knew that but I wanted to compare Pièce and Whistle because they both have more commonground than Pièce and Alone and upon rewatch, I think Pièce actually works much better than Whistle because of the fact that its repetitive nature is allowed much more time to breathe and really absorb the viewer compared to Whistle, which I love, but does comparatively feel less engaging because of the fact that it’s a 5th of Pièce’s runtime and thus can’t really engage with each new thing added or subtracted as much as when Pièce decides to move on towards the next couple frames.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I’ve admittedly never really been a fan of experimental cinema but when one hits, it hits hard and leaves with an indescribable sense of catharsis and I’m proud to say that Hours for Jerome is one of those films mainly because of how much you can feel director Nathaniel Dorsky’s pure love of the seemingly insignificant moments he’s capturing burst into beautiful images that betray how mundane they should be. I think my favorite moment is when Dorsky is filming windows of apartments across from him and for a brief couple of seconds, there’s a wonderful image of this man just sitting on his bed and it broke me from the trance the film was setting me in because we have at some point all been like the man sitting on his bed in sadness, possibly contemplating how we even got here in the first place and I think it sort of comforted me especially as someone who has repeatedly felt like that man at many points in his life and felt alone in those thoughts. It’s probably my favorite example of how Dorsky makes us want to pay more attention to the larger world around us but it’s also far from the only example from the way he highlights the details of a tree to how he makes us observe a street view of regular people going about their day. I think I should leave this to someone more knowledgeable than me to comment on this but I do really think this is an extremely wonderful film and an immediate favorite and if anyone has recommendations for either more works from Dorsky’s filmography or just films that feel similar to this, please let me know because I would love to hear them!

[senseabove]

If that means you were at the BAMPFA screening last week, then you should definitely not miss The Arboretum Cycle there in a few weeks.

[therewillbeblus]

Should we move forward on setting deadlines/engaging with this project on a timeline, perhaps following the Musicals Redux project?

[denti alligator]

I think there was a general lack of engagement, so the idea was suspended...

[domino harvey]

I assumed it was like the Oscars and Cesars threads, just a general viewing project with no hard end date

[therewillbeblus]

That's what it's turned into, but I dunno, it'd be cool to see lists and get more esoteric recs that way. Selfishly I'd like it to turn into a real thing and then taper off and become that kind of thread afterwards, like many do

It also might be a nice contrast/palette cleanser after watching so many old Hollywood musicals to dive into something completely different. Maybe there will be more enthusiasm then

[denti alligator]

I agree. We could start with a simple vote on 50 titles. Those who have 50 can submit. Then we tally and go from there to maybe build up to another vote many years from now.

[swo17]

I fully intend to put some kind of a personal list together at some point before I die

[zedz]

I think there was a general lack of engagement, so the idea was suspended...

Yeah, I'd be happy to resuscitate the project if there was enough interest, but there was no evidence of that at the time. If it's just a vote with no discussion of the films, what's the point?

[TechnicolorAcid]

I’d be interested, if only to allow myself to explore experimental cinema beyond what the most well-known titles but I’m curious what would be the cutoff for what could or couldn’t be considered an experimental film. For example, would we be limited to films that have public showings or can we also include avant-garde stuff that can only be viewed on platforms like YouTube when submitting our lists?

[Balthazar]

For those in London, the ICA have another weekend of Michael Snow films on 16mm later this month, as well as two by Joyce Wieland https://www.ica.art/films/five-films-fr ... ce-wieland

There's also a programme of work by Daichi Saito, who deserves to be better known, in November https://www.ica.art/films/sonic-cinema-daichi-saito


I wonder if Dry Leaf would qualify for this list. A narrative film made experimental by virtue of the camera on which it was filmed? Post-impressionistic images that, in the case of the car wash scene at least, are reminiscent of Phil Solomon or Brakhage.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Been watching a couple experimental films and I figured I’d shout some of my favorites out!

Impressions of the Upper Atmosphere (1989) was something I watched all the way back when we were doing the 1989 List and it was probably the short that made me change my tune about experimental films & will probably top my list. There’s just something so vast & cosmic about it that, when paired with the intensifying soundtrack that unlocked something in me when I was watching that made me fall in love with it and realize just how transformative an experimental film can truly be and even with a rewatch, I still found myself falling into a trance watching it.

Flame (2018) and Light Is Calling (2004) both use the same setup of the the toll time has on memory through showcasing fragments of old films distorted into something that viewers can only glean what’s occurring in them. But while Light Is Calling finds beauty in the fragments of The Bells, Flame feels a lot more haunting because, unlike The Bells, there is very little other existing footage of Flame’s source material Nuorena nukkunut and that it is cursed to remain in this fractured, disintegrating state and in turn, there’s a real feeling of horror watching this footage as faces and bodies pulsate & distort into something unrecognizable. Yet despite that, there is also a beauty in Flame in the rediscovery of this footage, at points feeling like recovering a lost memory and reveling in the discovery of this newly found footage (part of me wonders if Sami van Ingen’s fascination with this formerly lost footage was a result of him growing up as the grandson of legendary silent filmmaker Robert Flaherty). Both films are great and essential for anyone interested in the recovering & restoring of old movies.

I’ve also been watching a bunch of Jim Henson’s experimental works and while I don’t believe any would make it on my list proper. I do want to highlight my favorite, Drums West, which I imagine fans of Oskar Fischinger or Norman McLaren’s Begone Dull Care would really enjoy.

Invisible Adversaries tows the line between being ‘conventional’ and radically experimental & whether you consider it worthy of the list really depends on whether you’re willing to classify Godard’s more openly radical works as experimental (which I do but I can understand an argument for the opposite being true) since this is very much in step with them. But regardless of pedantic classifications, this is a wonderful film as it plays with its sound, visuals, and editing to make you feel just as disoriented as its lead character as she tries to figure out whether the growing nastiness of the world is a result of an alien invasion or just mental illness. And while the initial couple of minutes set a disorienting & confounding experience, which this definitely can be for those like me coming in completely blind, it’s also consistently hilarious & free-spirited, even during some of its more openly angry or somber moments. There’s one specific moment near the beginning involving the sound design when Anna is developing her photos that had me in hysterics when it occurred. Highly recommended.

[denti alligator]

Thanks for these recommendations, a couple of which I know. I’ll seek the others out.