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Welcome page > FAMU > Department of Audiovisual Studies > Selected Topics in Avant-Garde Film

Selected Topics in Avant-Garde Film

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Code Completion Credits Range Language Instruction Semester
373MTAF Z 1 6/H English summer
Subject guarantor:
Henry Lyman HILLS
Name of lecturer(s):
Henry Lyman HILLS
Learning outcomes of the course unit:

Supplementary to a historical survey of avant-garde film, it is useful to examine aspects of this often difficult but generally very rewarding approach to filmmaking and film thought from a variety of different perspectives. In this series of mini-modules we will explore lesser known works and longer works or we will explore a series of more familiar works thematically or juxtaposed in an unfamiliar manner or order, in order to open your eyes and hopefully give you some new ideas.

Mode of study:

VIEWING AND DISCUSSING

Prerequisites and co-requisites:

none

Recommended optional programme components:

none

Course contents:

class 1: VERTOV BEFORE AND AFTER MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

?Man with a Movie Camera?, though forgotten from the beginning of WW2 until the mid-60's, is now regarded as one of the immortal masterpieces of cinema and is screened on a frequent basis in many classes at FAMU.

Although inexhaustibly interesting, it is only one work from the prolific and thoroughly uncompromised career of Dziga Vertov. In this class we will view and discuss two of his masterpieces which are subtly just as radical as (and radically different from) MWMC.

LENINIST KINO PRAVDA (#21) (1925) 43 min

ENTHUSIASM (1931) (Kubelka restoration) 104 min

class 2: FIVE MINUTES OR LESS FROM THE 20TH CENTURY AND IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

#3 Harry Smith (2 soundtracks) 3 min each

48 KÖPFE AUS DEM SZONDI-TEST (2/60) Kurt Kren silent 4 min

AT THE ACADEMY Guy Sherwin 5 min

LE BAQUET DE MESMER George Melies silent 3 min

BLACK ICE Stan Brakhage silent 2 min

LE CERCEAU MAGIQUE Emil Cohl silent 5 min

COMMINGLED CONTAINERS Stan Brakhage silent 3 min

COSMIC RAY Bruce Conner 4 min

DICKSON EXPERIMENTAL SOUND FILM W.K.L.Dickson 2 min

EYE WASH Robert Breer (2 versions) silent 3 min each

FREE RADICALS Len Lye 5 min

THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS Brakhage silent 2 min

GLIMPSE OF THE GARDEN Marie Menken 5 min

L?HALLUCINATION DE L?ALCHIMISTE George Melies silent 3 min

HAND MOVIE Yvonne Rainer silent 6 min

HOT LEATHERETTE Robert Nelson 4 min

INTERIOR NEW YORK SUBWAY Billy Bitzer silent 5 min

KINO DA! Henry Hills 2 min

LE KIRIKI Segundo de Chomon silent 3 min

KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS Kenneth Anger 3 min

KREISE Oskar Fischinger 2 min

LAPIN, RETOURNEMENT Etienne-Jules Marey & Georges Demeny 1 min

LULU Lewis Klahr 3 min

MARIO BANANA Andy Warhol (2 versions) silent 3 min each

NOIR ET BLANC Tacita Dean 5 min

NOTE TO COLEEN Saul Levine silent 5 min

NYMPH Ken Jacobs silent 2 min

LE RETOUR A LA RAISON Man Ray silent 3 min

SPIRALS Oskar Fischinger silent 3 min

TAUSENDJAHREKINO (49/95) Kurt Kren 3 min

TRADE TATTOO Len Lye 5 min

TV (15/67) Kurt Kren silent 4 min

WRESTLERS Marie Menken silent 2 min

Recommended or required reading:

prior to class you are urged to view some of Vertov's earliest work, the Kinonedelia newsreel series, which are available streaming here:

http://www.filmmuseum.at/jart/prj3/filmmuseum/main.jart?rel=en&content-id=1336731140070&reserve-mode=active

Planned learning activities and teaching methods:

SCREENING AND TALKING

Assessment methods and criteria:

EVALUATION BASED ON ATTENDANCE AND JOURNAL. JOURNAL SHOULD INDICATE THAT STUDENTS HAVE WATCHED THESE FILMS AND PAID ATTENTION.

To receive credit, attendance at all screenings is mandatory. A journal describing your experience of these films (3 page minimum; plagiarism off the internet will result in failure) is due after the last class, in order to have your credit posted.

Course web page:
Note:

HENRY HILLS has been making dense, intensely rhythmic experimental films since 1975. A longtime resident of New York's East Village, he has been primarily living in Vienna since 2008. His work, which seeks abstraction within sharply-focused naturalistic imagery, the eternal within the temporal & the ethereal within the mundane, promotes an active attentiveness through a relentlessly concentrated montage.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, he received an M.F.A in 1978 from the San Francisco Art Institute. He edited the avant-garde film journal CINEMANEWS from 1977-80. Moving to New York 1978, he began ongoing working relationships with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poets, composer John Zorn & various musicians in the Downtown Improv scene, and choreographer Sally Silvers. Since 2005 has been Visiting Professor at FAMU, the Czech national film academy in Prague, where he administers a visiting filmmaker series and programs avant-garde films for the Czech National Film Archive at their theater Ponrepo. He edited the last three features by his wife Austrian documentary director Martina Kudlacek (IN THE MIRROR OF MAYA DEREN, NOTES ON MARIE MENKEN, FRAGMENTS OF KUBELKA).

Hills was a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship recipient, and his films, which are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, are available on DVD from Tzadik (www.tzadik.com). His most recent work, „arcana“, was awarded Best Experimental Film at both Curtas Vila do Conde festival in Portugal and the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia. Retrospectives of his work were presented by the Austrian Film Museum in October, 2013, by the Flatpack Festival in Birmingham UK in March, 2014, in Los Angeles at REDCAT and the L.A.Filmforum in April/May 2014, at Media City in Windsor, Ontario in July 2014, and at the Experimentla Film Club of the Irish Film Institute in Dublin in December 2014.

Schedule for winter semester 2014/2015:
The schedule has not yet been prepared
Schedule for summer semester 2014/2015:
Date Day Time Tutor Location Notes No. of paralel
20.02.2015 10:00–18:00 HILLS H. Projekce FAMU
Lažanský palác 		The screenings are open to anyone wishing to attend even if not enrolled in class. paralelka 1
The subject is a part of the following study plans:
Generated on 2015-06-16