Reading Response 2: Due Sept. 29 @ 5 p.m.

1. Post a brief response to one of the following Brakhage films: The Wold Shadow, Window Water Baby Moving, Dog Star Man Part 2, Dog Star Man Part 3.
The Wold Shadow by Stan Brakhage took my by surprise. I liked it more the second viewing and felt I got more of what Brakhage was going for as well. I think you need several viewings sometimes to let yourself go and be in the moment.Although there was no movement in the images of the forest except the various lighting, shadows, colors and textures are what I think make everything come together in the film. The screen seemed to come alive rhythmically, almost dance, a sequence of images the forest and the paintings somehow had an aural quality to them. Even though the image changed from the video(photo?) of the forest to the paintings they seemed to seamlessly blend together. It made me look at the forest in a new and fresh way, maybe with the "untutored eye" like Brakhage wanted.

Sitney, “Apocalypses and Picaresques”

2. Why does Sitney argue that synecdoche plays a major role in Christopher Maclaine’s, The End and how does the film anticipate later achievements by Brakhage and the mythopoeic form? (Implicit in this question: what is synecdoche? It is a figure of speech, but what kind?)
Sitney says, "Synecdoche plays a major role in McClaine's film, as does the elipsis. the combination of picture and sound at the conclusion of the next episode exemplifies the latter." I think a synecdoche means a part of a whole or a sub set of something.McClaine's,The End has a tragic hero protagonist like the mythopaethic form that Brakhage is associated with.

3. What are some similarities and differences between the apocalyptic visions of Christopher Maclaine and Bruce Conner?
They both have a vision of doom but Sitney says that unlike Maclaine, "Conner is not naive in his vision of doom."Both use montage style with non linear non narrative structure."Both film-makers extended the technical discoveries of their early woks in films that were less ambitious an prophetic but no less exquisite."


Bruce Jenkins, “Fluxfilms in Three False Starts.”

4. How and why were the “anti-art” Fluxfilms reactions against the avant-garde films of Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger. [Hint: Think about Fluxus in relation to earlier anti-art such as Dada, and Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain."]
I feel like the article is saying that Anger,Bailie and Brakhage felt as thought these films weren't as serious or credible as theirs. They thought their works had purpose and meaning as compared to the Fluxfilms where most of seemingly simple ,light hearted, or humoristic could be a a long take of a tree.

5. What does Jenkins mean by the democratization of production in the Fluxfilms?
I think he is saying that these Fluxfilms with the long takes of simple everyday actions, expressions ,etc... can be made by anyone.

6. Critic Jonas Mekas divided avant-garde filmmaking into the "slow" and the "quick"; which filmmakers were associated with "slow" and which filmmakers were associated with "quick"? Which Fluxus films were "slow" and "quick" (name one of each)? The filmakers who fit in the "slow" category were Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, George Brecht and Nan June Pak. Some "slow" films are Zen For Film and Entrance-Exit. "Quick" were George Maciunas, Wolf Vostal, and Eric Anderson.Some "quick" films are Sun in Your Head and Opus 74 version 2.

7. How is the Fluxus approach to the cinema different from both Godard and Brakhage? Jenkins says, the Fluxfilms approach, "which maintained an immaculate conception of the cinema that was at once chldllike and cunning" while Brakhage who redirected the medium inward toward the personal, private realms of intimate experience and the visions of the camera I/eye and Goddard who opened up the narrative feature film to varied content spearheaded new cinemas.

8. Why does Jenkins argue that Nam June Paik’s Zen for Film “fixed the material and aesthetic terms for the production of subsequent Fluxfilms”? How does it use the materials of the cinema? What kind of aesthetic experience does it offer?
I think Jenkins is saying that anything goes, as seen by this 7 minute film of a white screen. Anything you want to make art can be art. The perception is left up to the viewer. It's kind of funny, it seems like Paik is poking fun at avant-garde films, but the film actually makes sense. The warmly lit screen for 7 minutes can and did put me in a zen like place, thus the title.