Selected Topics in Avant-Garde Film 1

Display Schedule

Subject guarantor:

Henry Lyman HILLS, Eric ROSENZVEIG

Name of lecturer(s):

Henry Lyman HILLS, Eric ROSENZVEIG

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

Course contents:

class 1: EXPERIMENTAL SOUND FILM

W.K.L. Dickson DICKSON EXPERIMENTAL SOUND FILM (1894) 1m

Hollis Frampton CRITICAL MASS (1971) 26m

Lis Rhodes DRESDEN DYNAMO (1971) 5m

Henry Hills MONEY (1985) 15m

Abigail Child COVERT ACTION (1984) 10m

Martin Arnold PASSAGE L'ACTE (1993) 12m

Bruce Conner COSMIC RAY (Brice Posner 3-screen version)

class 2: RE-EXAMINING BRAKHAGE

23rd Psalm Branch (1967) 64m

The Garden of Earthly Delights (1981) 2m

Rage Net (1988) 1m

Glaze of Cathexis (1990) 2m

From: First Hymn to the Night ? Novalis (1994) 3m

Persian Series 1-3 (1999) 6m

Seasons...(2002) 16m, co-maker: Phil Solomon

Recommended or required reading:

-

Assessment methods and criteria:

GRADING 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.

To be sent to: henry@henryhills.com

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 2015/2016:

Date	Day	Time	Tutor	Location	Notes	No. of paralel
23.10.2015		14:30–17:30	Henry Lyman HILLS	Projekce FAMU Lažanský palác		přednášková par. 1
24.10.2015		10:30–17:30	Henry Lyman HILLS	Projekce FAMU Lažanský palác		přednášková par. 1

Schedule for summer semester 2015/2016:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans: