Theories of Interpretations

5.
How do any of the film-makers that you
have seen, during the course of this unit,
make the cinema itself, their primary
subject of investigation.

Eva Ticha

Year 1, group M

UCA Farnham, 2009/2010

word count: 2 380

“Perception, or the action by which we perceive, is not a vision ... but
solely an inspection by the mind.” (Iampolski, 2002: 36) was announced by
Rene Descartes, French major figure of rationalism, almost four centuries
ago. This idea was then developed in 19th century by Hermann von
Helmholtz, a German empiricist and physicist, who states that the
perception of ‘retinal image’ is placed in mind where the configuration of
‘mental symbols’ representing reality is a result of an intellectual activity,
called intuition. So that “perceiving the world happens not in the realm of
the senses, but in the mental realm of logic, inductive logic in particular.”
(Iampolski, 2002: 37) A century later this concept is applied by Andre Bazin,
a French film critic, to formulate the nature of cinema as a ‘conceptual
phenomenon’ that is ” an idea that has temporarily taken the form of
certain materials.” (Walley, 2003:23) However, according to Woolen
(1976b:81) Bazin understood the ontology of film only as an ‘extroverted
ontology’ where the cinematic essence is in so-called ‘pre-filmic event’ the
photographic reproduction of the natural world. The other interpretation,
‘introverted ontology’, is characterized by “ever-narrowing preoccupation
with pure film, with film ‘about’ film”.(ibid: 81) It is brought to attention
by avant-garde filmmakers from the United States, at the beginning of
1960’s who, originally artists from various media turned into filmmaking
mostly due to increase availability and reduced costs of equipment as well
as newly escalated support from Arts Council (Field, 1971:24). This notion
of filmmakers was only a fragment on a greater scale of art world as “the
historic avant-garde, was a break which took place in painting pre-
eminently, with the discovery of Cubism.” (Wollen, 1976b:79) Picasso and
other Cubist painters were first to change the emphasis from a problem of
signigied and reference to that of “signigier and signified within the sign
itself” Their influence can also be seen in a tendency of abstraction and
deformation of conventional photographic imagery. (ibid:80) For the avant-
garde filmmakers this meant “medium-specific purification: the reduction
of the art object to the essential physical or material components of its

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medium.” (Walley, 2003:17) According to Field this was done in order to
reconciliate the ‘lived reality’ with ‘artistic form’ as “Only now, though, are
filmmakers beinning to realize that the first way to examine reality is to
examine the reality of their medium.” (1971:27-8) and Wollen adds on that
“the necessary interest of the artisan or craftsman in his materials and
tools, asserted as an end in itself.” (1976a:12). Thus the primary subject of
investigation of American Avant-garde filmmakers becomes the film itself.
In this essay I am going to examine various approaches towards the
materiality of film in the works of some of the principal authors of American
Avant-garde.

According to Sharits “Ontology and semiology can coincide” (Wollen,

1976a:16) His work explores the duality of film’s being in the way that film
is an autonomous ontological object as well as its own semantical
representation. To achieve that, film can only be about itself and its own
structure. (ibid:16) For him it is only “a tool of inquiry into the problems of
film language and film being, united at the level of minimal unit.” (ibid:16)
To Wollen it shows Sharits’s interest in phonology rather than syntax as he
concentrates the attention on a frame which “is a distinct physical as well
as linguistic unit.” (ibid:15) As for a linguistic point of view, a frame is a
basic unit of cinema, that Christian Metz (ibid: 14) established to be a
multi-code system, with two types of primary codes. Cinematic codes which
are determined by camera movements, editing, etc and non-cinematic
codes which are music, verbal language, gestures, facial expression,
narrative, etc. These have got an independent existence on their own
preciding even the invention of the cinema and they are at work during pro-
filmic event, the process of photographic reproduction. Since their iconic
code can be modified due to their inscription within the film text they are
independent from subject of discourse, film itself, as they have their own
iconic reference therefore Sharits needs to exclude them for the sake of his
‘self-referential’ film that is only “its own unique field of signification”
(ibid:14). For that very reason cinematic codes need to be reduced too, to
those codes that “reference-back to the material of the signigier itself.”

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with no further iconic reference(ibid:14) This ‘material substrate’ is then
structured by a random system of ‘second-order of representation’ which is
“a production of new unintended, unaticipated, unconsciously derived-
signification” (ibid:16) as the ‘first-order of representation’ is for Sharits a
conventional iconic reference to convey a determinate meaning. This
second-order self-referential information is derived from ‘re-structuration
of noise’ which is multiple mapping procedure of drawing attention to
cinematic phenomena which are normally meant to be overlooked (ibid:17).
So that textual production dissolves the very concept of a subject.
(1976a:20) As he articulates it: “I wish to abandon imitation and illusion and
enter directly into higher drama of… individual psycho-physical
subjectivities of consiousness. In this cinema drama, light is energy rather
than a tool for the representaition of non-filmic objects; light as energy, is
released to create its own objects, shapes and textures.” (Field, 1971:28)
Therefore it does not matter what is seen, whether his films are entirely
without imagery, only blank colour frames, or combined with images of
extreme physical action, as in T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1968) because a form of a
strobelike continual flickering permits the sensing of the film only in an
overall way. In which, as he concludes: “one may generate virtual forms,
create actual motion (rather than illustrate it), build actual colour space
(rather than picture it), and be involved in actual time (immediate
pressence)” (Field, 1971:28)

According to Field watching Brakhage’s work, “nearly all silnet, one

becomes intensely aware of the film as a strip of celluloid, the images flash
by giving an overall sense before the eye can grasp specific imagery.”
(1971:26) Field points out 3 most relevant features of Brakhage’s as one of
the most influential American Avant-garde filmmakers. Firstly, most of his
films are without any sound track. As he explains in Legendary Epics Yarns
and Fables: Stan Brakhage (1971) “It is my theory that if the major
consideration of film is really the visual than the reason why sound is a blind
alley is because it cuts back sight. So that at the very instant that suddenly
the sound is removed or that it’s relatively silent, my theory is that it

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becomes more possible to see.” And the reason why in Hollywood movies
“there’s never a moment of silence is because people are afraid and with
sound oriented to their ears they feel more comforted, lullabied, in some
sene.” This characteristic of his films was shared with a numerous number
of other filmmakers as their aim is “an aesthetic which was itself founded
on concepts of visual form and visual problems which exlclude verbal
language from their field.” (Wollen, 1976b:80) Secondly, inability of the eye
to catch specific imagery of his films. This is caused by preference of film’s
physical form over its substance. In Mothlight (1963) he made entire film
without a single use of camera by “placing leaves, flowers and moths wings
between strips of clear film and printed it up” (Field, 1971:26) By doing so
he shifts the whole focus from visual reference, signified, that happenes to
be unrecognizable by human eye to the signifier of film strip process which
to Sharits allows “the length of his ‘subjects’ to determine their duration on
the screen.” (ibid:26) Finally, Brakhage fabricates the viewer’s awareness of
the material substrate. This is done by not only leaving instances which
have no iconic reference and would have normally be removed from a film
strip. (Wollen, 1976a:17) In addition, he goes even beyond that by
deliberatele deterioration of the footage while filming take place by spitting
on the lens, wrecking its focal intention, under- or over- exposing of the
film, using different parts of camera equipment against regular
specifications. His editing techinques ceased no limitations either as he
often painted on the film, grew mould on it or superimposed not two but
tree images. All this was done by him in order to “break up movement, in a
way that approaches a more direct inspiration of contemporary human eye
perceptibility of movement.” (Field, 1971:26) This use of ‘mistakes’ is
primarily meant as ‘foregrounding’ which, in terminology of Prague School,
means a process of projection that becomes a pro-filmic object/event for
another film (Wollen, 1976a:17). According to Sharits (ibid:17) using
foregrounding is a symbolic displacement that demonstrate the interruption
of a lower-level system of non-iconic fragments into the higher-level system
of signification at which “what was not intended reveals what it is possible
to intend.” Hence Brakhage’s intentions are to remind of an artifice that

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the art of film is and to “kick spectator out of escapist wrap-up ”.

According to P Adams Sitney Michal “Snow has intuitively discovered an

image, in almost every one of his films, capable of evoking the metaphysical
notion of categories of being.” (Wollen, 1976a:10) This can be read Show’s
attempts to bring a viewer ‘inside’ the film’s experience of time and space.
According to Le Grice (2001:157), Snow explores the comparability between
“the shooting and projection TIME/SPACE” where thanks to strict continuity
of time and space during the projection an illusion of a ‘concrete’
experience occurs. It is “non-retrospective, a physical/psychological
product” in its own right. This is done by “The drive to give works of art the
integrity of objects and to liberate them from the burden of human
mimesis” (Walley,2003:10) Therefore the primary subject of investigation is
equivalence between materiality of shooting and projecting. This is done by
“exploring the tension between ‘paintery’, two-dimensional surface and
three-dimensional ‘space’, or effect of space, produced upon it.” (Wollen,
1976a: 15) Snow’s Wavelength (1967) was particularly successful in the
reconciliation of ‘lived reality’ with ‘artistic form’. Snow describes the film
as “A time monument… A definitive statement of pure film space and time.”
(Wollen, 1976a:10) Field (1971:28) describes the film into a basic camera
movement shot within an enclosed space as attempting to balance out all
the so-called realities that are involved in the issue of making film.
Moreover the basic units of film language are constantly reminded by
varying the film stock on which the artifical effect of film’s materiality
becomes visible as “the deep space of illusionism” by which the screen
becomes “a window on the world – of the presentation of a three
dimensional reality on a two dimensional surface.” According to Regina
Cornwell the ontology of this films is that of “an investigation and
demonstration of its own properties- an epistemological and didactic
enterprise” (Walley,2003:11) And as for Snow it is a proof that his “films are
(to me) attempts to suggest the mind in a certain state or certain states of
consciousness. They are drugs relatives to me” (Wollen, 1976a:10)

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“Landow’s films are structural rather than sensual” (Casper, 1971:123). For
Landow “The important thing to see is that the film contains visual
metaphors.” (1978:121) For Wollen they are ‘specifically cinematic’ codes
and materials associated with various phases of film production.” (1976b:79)
So that to create a metaphore, a meaning, cinematic codes are used to
present an image with substance. Consequently, the a personal image is
created. This works also in reverse, as by applying different cinematic codes
the substance of a personal image is removed converting it into non-
personal image. (Landow, 1978:122). And it wouldn’t be the avant-gard if
this process was not taking place right in the viewer’s face so that
essentially, the combination of images does not build up an illusion of
continuous reality. (Casper, 1971:123) On the contrary, the composition of
images is used “to make one aware of the unreality, the created and
mechanical nature, of film.“ Hence the materiality of Landow’s films is
examined through the way images interrelated within the entire edited
form. Camper goes on and calls the degree to which a viewer is aware of
watching a film (rather than illusional reality) the ‘degree of filmic
distance’. In addition, lack of ‘distance’ is called the ‘degree of primary
reality’. Remedial Reading Compregension (1989) is Landow’s film focused
primarily on transitions between periods of primary reality (represented by
personal images) and filmic distance (non-personal images). Langdow places
the form of transition under scrunity by making it constantly self-renewing
and more importantly utterly ambiguous which restrains any linear closure
what-so-ever. By doing so, he “prevents the viewer to feel the film-within-
the film events almost as primary reality” and hence “prevents the distance
itself from having any primary reality either.” (ibid:124) Therefore when
the film itself points out that “This is film about you not about its
maker”( Remedial Reading Compregension, 1989) it only manifests the
film’s effect which can only “depend on the audience’s reaction to these
forms of endistancing than on the personal vagaries of Landow himself.”
Therefore the only aspect of the film we can relate to is the structure (of
ambiguous distancing) and how we react to it (distancing). Hence the film is

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not about “any psychological or associative-symbolic meaning to Landow’s
images, they can be percieved only in terms of structure.” (Casper,
1971:125)

Despite major differences in understanding cinema as a whole, Bazin comes

to an agreement with the American Avan-garde filmmakers on the level of
pure perception of an image by admiting that “The meaning is not the
image, it is in the shadow of the image projected by montage onto the field
of consciusness of the spectator.” (Bazin, 1967:26) In the course of the
Avant-garde, materiality of film from Sharit’s basic cinematic phonology of
film’s self-refential qualities was scrutinized by Brakhage’s foregrounding,
reinvented by Snow’s illusionary experience of third dimension and finally
distanced by complex ambiguous system of Landow’s syntax. Ultimately, all
of their vivid examinations of film as its own signified can be seen as
undeniably fruitful. As by breaking conventional cinematic processes they
dedicated their world of film art to an investigation beyond one’s limits of
intentional perception of pro-filmic event to find the power of the
unconscious being within. Be it the film’s true essence or the viewer’s
immediate presence experienced during the projection of these films.

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 Bibliography
1. Bazin, André (1967) The Evolution of the Language of Cinema, in:
Gray, Hugh (ed.) What is Cinema? Berkley: University of California
Press. pp23-40.
2. Camper, Fred (1971) Remedial Reading Comprehension in: Gidal P.
(ed.) Structural Film Anthology London: BFI. pp123-125.

3. Field, Simon (1971) Film is…?. In: Artforum (September) pp. 24- 29.

4. Frampton, Hollis (1986) Stan Brakhage. In: Millenium Film Journal

16-18 pp.212-213.

5. Iampolski, Mikhail (2002) The Logic of an Illusion: Notes on the

Genealogy of Intellectual Cinema, in: Allen and Turvey (ed.) Carmera
Obscura, Camera Lucida : Essays in Honor of Annette Michelson
Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 36-49.

6. Landow, George (1978) Notes on Film in Gidal, P (ed.) Structural

Film Analogy London: BFI, pp121-122.

7. Legendary Epics Yarns and Fables: Stan Brakhage from Brakhage: A

Film by Jim Shedden (1971) Directed by Stephen E. Gebhardt and
Robert Fries. [DVD] USA: Zeitgeist Video.

8. Le Grice, Malcolm (2001) Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age.

London: BFI

9. Mothlight (1963) Directed by Stan Brakhage. [16mm] USA.

10. Remedial Reading Comprehension (1970) Directed by George

Landow. [16mm] USA.

11. T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G , (1968) Directed by Paul Sharits. [16mm]

USA.

12. Walley, Jonathan (2003) The Material of Film and the Idea of
Cinema: Contrasting Practices in Sixties and Seventies Avant-Garde
Film. In: October 103 pp15-30

13. Wavelength (1967) Directed by Michael Snow. [16mm] USA.

14. Wollen, Peter (1976a) ‘Ontology’ and ‘Materialism’ in Film. In:

Screen 17 (1) pp.7-23.
15. Woolen, Peter (1976b) The Two Avant-Gardes. In: Edinburgh

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Magazine pp. 77-85.

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