American Avant-Garde 1

Course unit code:

311MAA1

Course unit title:

Mode of delivery:

zápočet

Range:

12/S

Type of course unit:

Study plan Animovaná tvorba - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Dokumentární tvorba - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Dokumentární tvorba - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Animovaná tvorba - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Scenáristika a dramaturgie - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Scenáristika a dramaturgie - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Režie - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Režie - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Kamera - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Kamera - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Produkce - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Produkce - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Audiovizuální studia - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Střihová skladba - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Střihová skladba - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Zvuková tvorba - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Zvuková tvorba - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Fotografie CZ - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Fotografie CZ - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Fotografie EN - bakalář – optional subject
Study plan Fotografie EN - magistr – optional subject
Study plan Audiovizuální studia - magistr – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Cinematography – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Fotografie CZ - magistr: restaurování – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Cinema and Digital Media - Directing – compulsory optional subject
Study plan Fotografie EN - magistr: restaurování – optional subject

Level of course unit:

Year of study

předmět nemá určen ročník studia

Semester when the course unit is delivered

zimní

Number of ECTS credits allocated:

Garant předmětu:

Henry Lyman HILLS

Name of lecturer(s):

Henry Lyman HILLS

Study Objectives:

Introduce top American avant-garde films to students, broadening their film knowledge.

Mode of delivery:

Seminars, screenings, discussion

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

None

Recommended optional programme components

None

Course contents:

Viewing the dominance of narrative in film and the consequent hegemony of Hollywood as an historical anomaly owing to the economics of film production (an issue from the pre-digital past, now that filmmaking, like record collecting, has become essentially free), we will explore fringe work as an alternative reality which contains seeds of a positive future vision for moving imagery, i.e., avant-garde film will be viewed as a model of consciousness seeking expansion. Ideally this will be a study of works in which form and content are perfectly merged, the focus being on film as a thing itself, not films ?about? something. We will view as many films as possible, films that bounce off each other in different ways. Availability on DVD is redefining film history, and such access plays a major role in the structure of this course. Therefore outside screenings of films projected on film have been arranged and are an important component of this course.

1a. Friday, October 1, 10:00-13:00 FAMU Projection Room

2a. Friday, October 1, 15:00-18:00 FAMU Projection Room

3a. Saturday, October 2, 9:00-12:00 Classroom 3

4a. Saturday, October 2, 13:30-16:00 Classroom 3

additional screening: 20:00 Wednesday, September 29, Ponrepo, guest filmmaker EVE HELLER with 16mm &amp; 35mm films

Study materials:

Recommended films

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

additional screening: 20:00 Wednesday, September 29, Ponrepo, guest filmmaker EVE HELLER with 16mm & 35mm films

Assessment methods and criteria

As the primary focus of this class is analysis based on the direct experience of projected works, attendance is mandatory. Students must keep a JOURNAL of experimental films they see, both in class and outside. This should include sufficient information to convince me that you have seen the films, plus commentary indicating that some of what you have seen has given you some thoughts. Plagiarism from the internet is not acceptable and will result in failure and ridicule. These are due (by e-mail) the end of the last week of classes. If you use Windows, please send as PDF file.

Language of instruction:

English

Work placement(s):

Pracovní stáž není u tohoto předmětu zavedena.

Course web page:

Note:

HENRY HILLS (http://www.henryhills.com/)

a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow, has been making dense, intensely rhythmic experimental films since 1975. Owing to a personal involvement in film scenes in San Francisco in the 70´s & 80´s in New York from the 80s to the present, and his activities as a curator, he has a personal relationship with almost all the major figures in the Experimental Film movement. He is intimate with the evolving concerns and thus can present a first-hand history, both anecdotal and theoretical. His own work, which seeks abstraction within sharply-focused naturalistic imagery, the eternal within the temporal, and the ethereal within the mundane, promotes an active attentiveness through a relentlessly concentrated montage. He brings a long association with various other art scenes as well, including ?language? poetry, the ?downtown? improvised music scene, and post-Judson postmodern dance. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, was included in the Whitney Museum ?The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000? program, and screened in last year´s New York and San Francisco film festivals. A DVD of his selected 16mm films is available on Tzadik (http://www.tzadik.com/) and his feature-length theater document JOHN ZORN/RICHARD FOREMAN -- ASTRONOME, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA has just been released (also on Tzadik). He is currently working on a multi-screen HD installation based on footage shot on his train commute between Vienna and Prague.

EVE HELLER

?Eve Heller uses the intricate and particular beauty of black and white 16mm film to carve a space for the viewer away from the frantic pace of the traditional moving image. Sensitive, ruminative, and often disarmingly simple in appearance, these films develop an otherworldly atmosphere where the viewer is invited to grasp the profound in the everyday.? She was subject of a recent retrospective at the Austrian Filmmuseum. Several of the films she will screen are 35mm blow-ups from super-8.

NATHANIEL DORSKY made films in Kodachrome from the time he was 10 years old (in the mid-50s) until the stock was discontinued 2 years ago. He dropped out of college and moved to New York in the early 60´s where he was part of a circle of filmmakers revolving around Gregory Markopoulos and received early fame for such films as INGREEN (as well as winning an Emmy for work as a cinematographer). A crisis of identity caused him to move to California and stop releasing films for almost 20 years. The first films he began to release when he emerged from isolation were exhaustive studies of imageless film emulsion from long discontinued stocks (PNEUMA) and sand (ALAYA), followed by a number of films edited from the accumulated glorious footage he had continued to shoot over the years. By 1998´s VARIATIONS, in many ways the prototype of his current work, he had caught up and now shoots specifically for each new project. He is the author of a book, DEVOTIONAL CINEMA, in which he outlines his Buddhist aesthetics. An exquisite cinematographer, he has supported himself over the years as an editor, particularly as a ?film doctor? for the long running POV series. His entire body of work, which has received support form the Guggenheim and the Rockefeller Foundations, is in the retrospective at the Pompidou Center. ?Silence in cinema is undoubtedly an acquired taste, but the freedom it unveils has many rich rewards. The major part of my work is both silent and paced to be projected at 18 fps. (silent speed)... It is the direct connection of light and audience that interests me. The screen continually shifts dimensionally from being an image-window, to a floating energy field, to simply light on the wall. In my films, the black space surrounding the screen is as significant as the square itself. Silence allows these articulations, which are both poetic and sculptural at the same time, to be revealed and appreciated.? -N.D.

NAOMI UMAN

Former private chef to Malcolm Forbes, Calvin Klein and Gloria Vanderbilt, Naomi Uman traded in her eggbeater and oven mitts for a 16mm Bolex. Uman´s work is marked by a signature DIY aesthetic, often shooting, hand-processing and editing her films with the most rudimentary of practices. She moved from Los Angeles, where she had taught a CalArts,. to Mexico City some years ago, but has been living in the Ukraine the past year on a Fulbright Fellowship. Her work, which is widely screened at festivals and museums, has also received support from the Guggenheim Foundation and Creative Capital.

Schedule for winter semester 2010/2011:

	06:00–08:0008:00–10:0010:00–12:0012:00–14:0014:00–16:0016:00–18:0018:00–20:0020:00–22:0022:00–24:00
Mon
Tue
Fri
Thu
Fri

Schedule for summer semester 2010/2011:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans:

Animovaná tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
Dokumentární tvorba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Dokumentární tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
Animovaná tvorba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Scenáristika a dramaturgie - bakalář (optional subject)
Scenáristika a dramaturgie - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Režie - bakalář (optional subject)
Režie - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Kamera - bakalář (optional subject)
Kamera - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Produkce - bakalář (optional subject)
Produkce - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Audiovizuální studia - bakalář (optional subject)
Střihová skladba - bakalář (optional subject)
Střihová skladba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Zvuková tvorba - bakalář (optional subject)
Zvuková tvorba - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Fotografie CZ - bakalář (optional subject)
Fotografie CZ - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Fotografie EN - bakalář (optional subject)
Fotografie EN - magistr (optional subject)
Audiovizuální studia - magistr (faculty subject, optional subject)
Cinema and Digital Media - Cinematography (qualification subject, optional subject)
Cinema and Digital Media - Screenwriting (qualification subject, optional subject)
Fotografie CZ - magistr: restaurování (faculty subject, optional subject)
Cinema and Digital Media - Directing (qualification subject, optional subject)
Fotografie EN - magistr: restaurování (optional subject)