Week 11: Disruptive Narratives

In the week 11 Friday session our lecture was about Disruptive Narratives, Non-Linear Narratives and the Dada movement.

Notes:

Dada - Zurich 1915.  Throughout 1920s.  Anti-art, films of pure form, explore rhythm and pattern, deconstruction of subject.

French Impressionism - 1919 to 1929, loosely regarded as first avant-garde, comparable to poetry, did use narrative to show psychological level, subjective state of mind, dreams, flashbacks, manipulated plot time, use of irises, masks, point of view and super imposition.

Surrealism - opposite to impressionism, co-existed in same period.  Revolt against rationalism / bourgeoisie.  Makers isolated by artists.  Breton 'Belief in superior reality of certain forms'.  Linked to emergence of Freudian analysis, inner depths, absense of controlled reason.  Balsphemous, violence, eroticism.

Vertical Narrative Progression - Maya Deren called for new cinema of poetry, denies rigours of arts.  Idea of vertical narrative.

Aristotle's Poetics:
Tragic - narrative drama of measured time
Epic - lyrical popetry of emotional time

(Linear - horizontal - sequential - character / plot - cause and effect)

Maya Deren:
Vertical narrative

(Non-linear - vertical - allows focus on mood, tone, atmosphere, rhythm)

Works include: dead time (temps morts), uncanny (strange / unsettling moments), mnemic (memory), choreographic

Sustained Shot - Moments between action, eg, empty landscape shows barrenness of character

Associational Forms - works re-edit found footage, newsreels, adverts, home movies, could be edited with new footage.  Often without dialogue or narrative plot development.  New narratives from pre-recorded material.  Using camera as the viewpoint trajectory of the viewer's eyes.

During the session we watched several films.  Here, I have written up a couple of the notes that I took during the screenings:

 

Symphonie Diagonale Viking Eggeling | 1924 | 7’ | France
http://www.ubu.com/film/eggeling.html (screen 3’ extract from DADA DVD)



I really like this film.  The way that the blocks of (presumably) black paper reveal the patterns underneath is really interesting and cartoon-like.  It gives the patterns movement.


Le Ballet Mécanique Fernand Léger & Dudley Murphy | 1924 | 14’ | France
http://www.ubu.com/film/leger.html (screen 3’ extract from DADA DVD)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez0LuU-Mg34

Close up camera angles, kaleidoscope of images of utensils and machinery, images of girls face and quiet moments in the garden.  I must admit that I find this film a lot more enjoyable with the sound turned off.

 
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dali | 1929 | 17’ | France
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-CC6xdcpCM&feature=related
(screen from DVD)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOKRN3yqTGA&feature=related












"Free association of rational".  Avant Garde anti-artsist sensibility.  I like this film.  I like the imagery of the priests and the piano, the ants in the hand, the 'crucifix'.   I could make my own interpretation of this film.  I saw it as a speaking out about the weight of religion upon a person, the oppresion and suppresion that people must have felt in a rapidly change time (very much like today).