AMERICAN AVANT GARDE
Henry HillsÕ
American Avant-Garde class will meet this semester as 3 modules (the second
week of each month), which can be taken separately for 1 credit each, or all
together for 3 credits. There will be 4 class sessions each module, plus 2
outside screenings. Each of the weeks there will be a visiting guest American
experimental filmmaker.
MODULE 1
classes:
1a. Friday, October 9, 10:00-13:00 FAMU Auditorium
2a. Friday, October 9, 15:00-18:00 FAMU Auditorium
3a. Saturday, October 10, 9:00-12:00 classroom 3
4a. Saturday, October 10, 13:30-16:00 classroom 3
additional screenings:
5:30 Tuesday Oct 6, Ponrepo, Michael SnowÕs RAMEAUÕS NEPHEW (4 ½ hours)
8:00 Thursday, Oct 8, Ponrepo, guest filmmaker ABRAHAM RAVETT with 16mm films
MODULE 2
classes:
1b. Friday, November 13, 10:00-13:00 FAMU Auditorium
2b. Friday, November 13, 15:00-18:00 FAMU Auditorium
3b. Saturday, November 14, 9:00-12:00 classroom 3
4b. Saturday, November 14, 13:30-16:00 classroom 3
additional screenings:
8:00 Wednesday, Nov 11, Ponrepo, visiting filmmaker PETER HUTTON with AT SEA
7:00 Thursday, Nov 12, Skolska 28 Gallery, visiting filmmaker PETER HUTTON with early 16mm films
MODULE 3
classes:
1c. Friday, December 11, 10:00-13:00 FAMU Auditorium
2c. Friday, December 11, 15:00-18:00 FAMU Auditorium
3c. Saturday, December 12, 9:00-12:00 classroom 3
4c. Saturday, December 12, 13:30-16:00 classroom 3
additional screenings:
8:00 Tuesday, December 8, Ponrepo,
S:TREAM:S:S:ECTION:S:ECTION:S:S:S:ECTIONED by Paul Sharits, FLEMING FALOONS by
Owen Land (George Landow), & EYE WASH by Robert Breer (new 16mm
restorations from Anthology Film Archives)
8:00 Thursday, Dec 10, Ponrepo,
guest filmmaker STEPHANIE BARBER with 16mm films
Course description
Viewing the dominance of narrative in film and the
consequent hegemony of Hollywood as an historical anomaly owing to the
economics of film production (an issue from the pre-digital past, now that
filmmaking, like record collecting, has become essentially free), we will explore
fringe work as an alternative reality which contains seeds of a positive future
vision for moving-imagery, i.e., avant-garde film will be viewed as a model of
consciousness seeking expansion. Ideally this will be a study of works in which
form and content are perfectly merged, the focus being on film as a thing
itself, not films ÒaboutÓ something. We will view as many films as possible,
films that bounce off each other in different ways. Availability on DVD is
redefining film history, and such access plays a major role in the structure of
this course.
Evaluation
Students must keep a JOURNAL of experimental films they see,
both in class and outside. This should include sufficient information to
convince me that you have seen the films, plus commentary indicating that some
of what you have seen has given you some thoughts. These journals are due (by
e-mail) the week after each module. All four screening must be attended to
receive credit for that module!
Details
class 1a : ÒEarly Cinema and ItÕs InfluenceÓ
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson EARLIEST EDISON FILMS vs. Andy WarholÕs
BLOW JOB, the Library of Congress Paperprint Collection vs. Ken Jacobs
class 2a: Guest
Filmmaker Abraham Ravett
class 3a: 60Õs Underground Film pt 1 (San
Francisco): Christopher MacLaine, Jordan Belson, Bruce Conner, Robert Nelson
class 4a. Maya Deren
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class 1b: Stan
Brakhage
class 2b: 60Õs Underground Film pt 2:
Harry Smith, Marie Menken, Kenneth Anger, Wallace Berman, William Burroughs,
Pat OÕNeill
class 3b: 20Õs & 30Õs: Man Ray, the American
version of BALLET MECANIQUE, Ralph Steiner, Joseph Cornell, Busby Berkeley
class 4b: Hollis Frampton ZORNSÕS LEMMA, Robert Beavers
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF
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class 1c: Jack Smith (FLAMING CREATURES by Smith, CHUMLUM by
Ron Rice, BLOND COBRA by Ken Jacobs)
class 2c: Guest Filmmaker Stephanie Barber
class 3c: Leslie Thornton, Su Friedrich, Peggy Ahwesh, &
Abigail Child
class 4c: new films by Lewis Klahr, Jennifer Reeves, Ben
Russell, Fred Worden, & Henry Hills
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HENRY HILLS (http://www.henryhills.com/), a 2009 John
Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow, has been making dense, intensely rhythmic
experimental films since 1975. Owing to a personal involvement in film scenes
in San Francisco in the 70Õs & 80Õs & in New York from the 80s to the
present, and his activities as a curator, he has a personal relationship with
almost all the major figures in the Experimental Film movement. He is intimate
with the evolving concerns and thus can present a first-hand history, both
anecdotal and theoretical. His own work, which seeks abstraction within
sharply-focused naturalistic imagery, the eternal within the temporal, and the
ethereal within the mundane, promotes an active attentiveness through a
relentlessly concentrated montage. He brings a long association with various
other art scenes as well, including
ÒlanguageÓ poetry, John Zorn & the ÒdowntownÓ improvised music
scene, and Sally Silvers & post-modern dance. His work is in the permanent
collection of the Museum of Modern Art, was included in the Whitney Museum ÒThe
American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000Ó program, and screened in last
yearÕs New York and San Francisco film festivals. A DVD of his selected 16mm
films has just been released by Tzadik (http://www.tzadik.com/).
ABRAHAM RAVETT (http://wonka.hampshire.edu/~arPF/)
is the child of Auschwitz survivors and much of his poignant work is concerned
with remembering and trying to comprehend the atrocity of the holocaust. Born
in Poland in 1947, he was raised in Israel and emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1955.
A prolific, widely screened, and much honored filmmaker, Ravett teaches
filmmaking and photography at Hampshire College, Amherst, MA.
PETER HUTTON is known
primarily for his silent cinematic portraits of cities and landscapes. A former merchant seaman, he has spent nearly forty years
voyaging around the world to create sublimely meditative, luminously
photographed, and intimately diaristic studies of place, from the Yangtze River
to the Polish industrial city of Lodz, and from northern Iceland to a ship
graveyard on the Bangladeshi shore. He has also worked as a professional
cinematographer, most notably for his former student Ken Burns. Since 1989 he
has served as the director of the Film and Electronic Arts Program at Bard
College. In May 2008 the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a full
retrospective of Hutton's films.
STEPHANIE BARBER (http://www.stephaniebarber.com), a strange and energetic younger filmmaker and poet
currently living in Baltimore, who has been extremely active over the decade
producing works which are Ôby turns homespun and
high-philosophic, lo-fi and literary, delicate and punk-rock,Õ and has had
recent screenings at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New
York & Rotterdam Film Festivals.