Pure Cinema, Abstract Movies, and Experimental Visual Films
I love a lot of the films featured on this website. What I especially love about Baraka is the cinematic technique. I love the amazing cinematography, the exquisite editing, the slow motion and time-lapse, and the incredible music and sounds. So exhilirating and beautiful.
Has anyone seen any other kinds of abstract non-story non-acted visual cinema? I love Dziga Vertov's "Man With the Movie Camera"
Jordan Belson's 16mm abstract films
Arthur Lipsett's "21-87"
Bruce Conner's "A Movie"
Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia"
"60 Cycles"
Rene Clair's "Entr'acte"
Norman McLaren's "Pas de deux"
George Lucas's abstract and experimental 16mm films from the 1960s like "Herbie", 6-18-67", 1:42.08", "Look At Life", and "The Emperor",
Slavko Vorkapich's great hollywood montages and his 2 visual tone poems with montagist John Hoffman, "Forest Murmurs" and "Moods of the Sea",
Sergei Eisenstein's "Sentimental Romance"
Stan Brakhage's "Dog Star Man" and "Co-mingled Containers"
I think Dziga Vertov is one of the all time greats. I also really like "Three Songs of Lenin". Some really remarkable camerawork and editing.
Man with the Movie Camera is an amazing rush of motion and montage and powerful imagery. I love how stylized it is. Very thrilling! And it can be fun and playful at times, then sardonic and subversive and then switch over to emotionally dramatic and intense, all through the visuals and sounds alone.
I've always wondered if Mr. Fricke was inspired by this film? I hope I can interview him after Samsara is completed. I have so many questions I would love to ask him.
I fully agree with the uniqueness of "man with the movie camera" or, "Chelovek.S.Kinoapparatom" as the original film title is called. It puts the work of the great Riefenstahl and much later Fricke in the right perspective. Allthough this movie was released in 1929, a few years earlier in 1927 Walter Ruttman directed the movie `Berlin, Symphony einer grossstadt´(Berlin, Symphony of a Great City). This film also contains a number of scenes that gave Dziga Vertov definitely some of his inspiration.
cheers, Buzablani
i have media course and teacher gave us project:watch a move and report about move. anyone can help me my english not so good.
I also really like Walter Ruttmann's "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City" but as Mr. Vertov wrote to the German pressin 1929 the similar cinematic techniques and images had been developed and employed by him in his Kino-Pravda newsreels and documentaries for the last ten years, all of which predate "Berlin". So Vertov's pioneering cinematic concepts actually inspired other abstract films by filmmakers like Walter Ruttmann.
Please feel free to check out my new Pure Cinema Celluloid site http://www.purecinema-celluloid.webs.com/
It is for fellow lovers of this kind of Absolute Cinema, Abstract Movies, Experimental Visual and Avant-garde filmmaking.
It contains articles on abstract and cinematic filmmakers such as Slavko Vorkapich, Dziga Vertov, Ron Fricke, Arthur Lipsett, Leni Riefenstahl, Jordan Belson, George Lucas, Stan Brakhage, Geoffrey Jones, Bruce Conner, and movie title designers Saul Bass and Kyle Cooper.
You should look also at films by Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton and Bruce Bailie, and especially Maya Deren.
Thanks for the suggestions. So far I have seen Bruce Baillie's "Mass For The Dakota Sioux" and it was really stark, eerie, and emotional. I loved it a lot, the black and white 16mm cinematography and the double exposures(superimpositions?). I can't wait to see "Castro Street", "Valentin De Las Sierras" and all of his other poetic visual movies.
I have seen Maya Deren's work and I really enjoyed "At Land" and "Meshes of the Afternoon" but I think I will appreciate all of her films more, now that i am older. As soon as I can i am going to purchase the DVD of her films.
So far i have not been able to get ino the "formal" or "structural" materialist films of Hollis Frampton but I respect what he was doing at least in my own intellectual way. I could not stand "Wavelength" but I want to give it another try someday and I want to see the rest of Michael Snow's films.
Thanks again for the note. feel free to check out my website and email me any other recommendations you might have.
Thanks,
Doug
SpiritOfBaraka is brought to you by Darren Lambert. A huge fan of the these films,
I love the quality and consideration that Baraka shows all of the way through its journey. A true masterpiece.
I have seen Man With the Movie Camera, and found it interesting.