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August 11, 2007

An Unfinished Post

In an article in the new issue of Filmmaker entitled Transart Film Express (available only in the print version), Shari Roman writes that modern artists "are unabashedly wielding the language and history of traditional cinema... they appropriate and stylishly compound critical narrative-image structures while toying with the construct and context of material, sound, space and time." Filmmakers, meanwhile, are bridging the gap from the opposite side.

I've got a few minor issues with that dimension of the article (and no mention of Weerasethakul?), but Roman hits the nail on the head of one of the most exciting aspects of film and video art (as opposed to art films), at least from the perspective of someone crossing over: the explosion of narrative form. The implicit understanding, expectation and application of narrative affords artists quite a bit of room to explore the same (in other words, they can take advantage of deep structure). Two examples, both by Brahkhage: Dog Star Man, which depicts the archetypal heroic journey, and Mothlight, which represents the same from a subjective perspective (in so much as that the moth, compelled by genetically ordained instinct/destiny, could be perceived as the Campbellian hero of its own life) and relies on the audience to impose (or withdraw) the dramatic arc.

I should probably go to the library before I write any more on this; I was about to rashly reference Derrida.

Posted by David Lowery at August 11, 2007 9:08 PM