Experimental Film Practice – Memories Of Shiqi et al

Experimental film

Film movements

The term avant-garde was first used in the modern sense to typify various aesthetic groupings that appeared immediately before and after World War One: cubism and futurism (both 1909), Dadaism (1916), constructivism (1920), and surrealism (1924). (Hayward, 2018: 39)

While my films employ some of the methods associated with; Dadaism, Surrealism, Structuralist Film, and the genres, for example, City Symphony there is no doubt that my films have been influenced by these important movements and filmmaking techniques. My films are a personal expression, formulated from my research into memory representation in films and my experiences as a filmmaker. Therefore, it is of no surprise to me that my films do indeed share similarities and methods with these movements. My films include montages something that I have employed in documentary filmmaking to rapidly move the timeline of a documentary across years if not decades but in, for example, Memories Of Shiqi they do more than that, they reveal memories of the past and juxtapose them with images of the now, but of course, these images are now also in the past. André Bazin the film critic and film theorist “[o]ffers a definition of montage as ‘the creation of a sense of meaning not proper to the images themselves but derived exclusively from their juxtaposition” (Hayward, 2018: 109) the meaning in my films montage is Shiqi’s age chronologically increasing with the timeline.

experimental film Memories Of Shiqi
Film practice

Memories Of Shiqi (2021), IVY (2021) & Remember (2020)

Daniels argues that “[t]he goal of the experimental film is to offer alternative and different ways of thinking to mainstream films about methods deployed in the mediation of the historical event.” (Daniels, 2014: ii).

My films reflect upon the conceptualisation of memory and historical events viewed through flashbacks and a non-linear timeline. I would include them within the definition of being experimental, whether they are projected in a cinema, screened on a mobile device or as a social media post.
In reflection and production order, “Remember” (2020) is experimental through both its lighting and visuals, the nonlinear editing to represent the memory concepts of flashbacks as explored in chapter one. The follow-up film “Memories Of Shiqi” (2021) with its juxtaposition of analogue and digital film, matching shots, and overlays. This film is almost a definition of flashbacks and prosthetic memories explored in chapter two. The film juxtaposes digital archival film with contemporary analogue film sequences. Memories Of Shiqi is then followed by the film “IVY” (2021) filmed entirely in black and white using both analogue film and digital film, the film sequences overlayed to create a dream-like image emphasised by the isolated lighting of the subject using minimal lighting sources to create deep blacks and bright flares. IVY represents the idea of dreams in combination with reality, flashbacks and collective memories, each sequence a combination of analogue film in flashback overlayed onto the digital images creating mirroring and reflections of the subject in the same physical space.


In my films much as in the majority of experimental films there is no dialogue, no script only visuals and soundtrack, as a limited definition of experimental films Rees states “For the most part they avoid script and dialogue, or approach film and video from an angle which emphasises vision over text and dialogue.” (Rees, 2011: 3). For my experimental films the original aim is to create a conceptualisation of memory, collective memory but with a different meaning for each member of the social group, the spectator, to create confusion, discussion, and meanings, as Daniels states “For the experimental filmmaker, metaphors and metonymy offer a useful rhetorical function that are effective in evoking a sensation or thought beyond the image or sound’s direct indexical link to the historical world. They may also provide additional meaning to the film’s discourse.” (Daniels, 2014: 66). In my films as with other experimental filmmakers they tend to work alone or with minimal cast and crew, controlling all aspects to the films production.

Bordwell, Thompson and Smith state “Experimentalist Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) was shot by her husband, Alexander Hammid, but she scripted, directed, and edited it and performed in the central role.” (Bordwell, Thompson and Smith, 2016: 32).

In my films visuals can be interpreted to have different meanings, my films have a historical reference and invoke both a memory and a location. A place may have different meanings to a spectator in the audience. For example, as Bordwell, Thompson and Smith argue that “. . . the filmmaker may choose to disturb our expectations. We often associate art with pleasure, but many artworks offer us conflict, tension, and shock. An artwork’s form may even strike us as unpleasant because of its imbalances or contradictions. For example, experimental films may jar rather than soothe us.” (Bordwell, Thompson and Smith, 2016: 55). In reflection, my film Memories Of Shiqi begins with a statement, what is the underlining meaning of the dates in the opening credits, they have a start and end date, does this mean Shiqi dies in 2021? My influences here were taken directly from the disclaimer in the opening titles to Fargo (1996), a fictional thriller but with the opening statement, “This is a true story”. As I intended in my film Memories Of Shiqi I wanted the audience to accept this film was a true story but leave them with questions, what is the real story?

Bibliography

Bloom, H. (2004) Christina Rossetti: Comprehensive Research and Study Guide (Bloom’s Major Poets). Chelsea House Pub (L).
Bordwell, D. (2006) The Way Hollywood Tells It. University of California Press.
Bordwell, D. (2017) Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling.
Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. and Smith, J. (2016) Film Art: Creativity, Technology, and Business, Film Art: An Introduction.
Bradley, B. (2016) The Coen Brothers Reveal ‘Fargo’ Is Based On A True Story After All | HuffPost UK Entertainment. Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coen-brothers-fargo-true-story_n_56de2c53e4b0ffe6f8ea78c4 (Accessed: 1 December 2021).
Colman, F. (2012) Film, theory and philosophy: The key thinkers, Film, Theory and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers. doi: 10.5860/choice.48-0157.
Daniels, G. (2014) ‘Memory, Place and Subjectivity : Experiments in Independent Documentary Filmmaking’, (May), p. 235.
Halbwachs, M. (1992) On collective memory. Edited by L. A. Coser. University of Chicago Press (Heritage of sociology).
Hayward, S. (2018) Cinema Studies The Key Concepts. Fitth, Book. Fitth.
Hielscher, Eva; Jacobs, Steven; Kinik, A. (2019) The City Symphony Phenomenon: cinema, art, and urban modernity between the wars. Routledge.
Hutchinson, P. (2017) Where to begin with city symphonies | BFI, BFI. Available at: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/where-begin-city-symphonies (Accessed: 14 March 2022).
Keating, Patrick (2014) Cinematography. Edited by P. Keating. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press (Behind the Silver Screen ; 3).
Pramaggiore, M. (2008) Film : a critical introduction. 2nd ed. Edited by T. Wallis. London: Laurence King.
Rees, A. L. (2011) A History of Experimental Film and Video, A History of Experimental Film and Video. doi: 10.5040/9781838710637.
Sitney, P. A. (2002) Visionary Film The American Avant-garde, 1943-2000, Film. Oxford University Press.

Avant-Garde and the Experimental Film

Reflections of an Experimental Film Practice

Avant-garde and the experimental film are difficult to define, the film theorist A L. Rees argues, “Significantly, the avant-garde has traded under many other names: experimental, absolute, pure, non-narrative, underground, expanded, abstract; none of them satisfactory or generally accepted. “ (Rees, 2011: 2). Experimental film typically is associated with the independent filmmakers and the Auteurs who may also have experienced a toe hold in mainstream filmmaking. Bordwell also argues that . . . “experimental filmmakers often start by photographing real objects. But the filmmakers then juxtapose the images to emphasize relations of shape, color, movement, and so on. As a result, the film is still using abstract organization in spite of the fact that we can recognize the object as a bird, a face, or a spoon. (Bordwell, Thompson and Smith, 2016: 372).

Avant-garde

Avant-garde and Abstract films present the audience with a series of images a montage of shapes and colours, Bordwell then argues “ . . . abstract films as frivolous. Critics may call them “art for art’s sake,” since all they seem to do is present us with a series of interesting patterns. Yet these films make us more aware of such patterns.” (Bordwell, Thompson and Smith, 2016: 373) Bordwell also makes the argument that experimental filmmakers and their films can become mainstream and influence commercial cinema, “Early in the 1940s two of cinema’s greatest directors made their Hollywood debuts. One launched his career, the other reinvented himself on a new scale. They became the most consistently experimental and influential filmmakers of the period . . . ” (Bordwell, 2017: 440). These directors are Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, two of the most influential directors of their time and still relevant today.
I have previously argued that Cinema assumes a privileged position in the creation of memories through film, but there is no definitive consensus with this statement, indeed other definitions of cinema itself exist.

The film theorist A.L Rees states that “[t]he British independent filmmaker Peter Greenaway has recently offered an inclusive definition of cinema. For Greenaway, Cinema is the sum of all technologies which work towards articulating the moving image. Cinema is a continuum. It embraces equally the big movie and the computer screen, the digital image and the handmade film, and importantly such structures as speech and writing, acting, editing light projection and sound. (Rees, 2011: 4-5). While I am not totally convinced by this definition, what does this imply? The experimental film can be independent of the cinema environment, the definition of Cinema in this case, I mean the structure, with its raked seating, and the film projected onto a large, fixed screen. Whereas experimental film is equally embraced when delivered to the small screen (Television), the computer screen, and on mobile devices. It is not limited to its projection in a cinema environment. I would go on to suggest that the ability to view these works on a small screen or mobile device offers the filmmaker more opportunities to be experimental, for example, interactivity with the spectator. Rees argues that “[f]or much of its history the avant-garde has questioned this assumption of cinema as cultural myth and industrial product and offered several alternative ways of seeing. At the same time, the act of seeing and hence of illusion and spectacle is itself put in question.” (Rees, 2011: 5). What does this mean? I would suggest that as technology advances expanding upon our viewing choices audiences may if not already shift their viewing preferences to alternative platforms as technology advances and viewing habits change. Cinema has recognised this and has adapted, this can be identified with the rise of the studios (Disney+) offering video streaming services and the recent trends of the simultaneous release of films in cinemas, with online film premiers, films promoted and streamed directly by the Hollywood studios.

Bibliography

Bloom, H. (2004) Christina Rossetti: Comprehensive Research and Study Guide (Bloom’s Major Poets). Chelsea House Pub (L).
Bordwell, D. (2006) The Way Hollywood Tells It. University of California Press.
Bordwell, D. (2017) Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling.
Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. and Smith, J. (2016) Film Art: Creativity, Technology, and Business, Film Art: An Introduction.
Bradley, B. (2016) The Coen Brothers Reveal ‘Fargo’ Is Based On A True Story After All | HuffPost UK Entertainment. Available at: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coen-brothers-fargo-true-story_n_56de2c53e4b0ffe6f8ea78c4 (Accessed: 1 December 2021).
Colman, F. (2012) Film, theory and philosophy: The key thinkers, Film, Theory and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers. doi: 10.5860/choice.48-0157.
Daniels, G. (2014) ‘Memory, Place and Subjectivity : Experiments in Independent Documentary Filmmaking’, (May), p. 235.
Halbwachs, M. (1992) On collective memory. Edited by L. A. Coser. University of Chicago Press (Heritage of sociology).
Hayward, S. (2018) Cinema Studies The Key Concepts. Fitth, Book. Fitth.
Hielscher, Eva; Jacobs, Steven; Kinik, A. (2019) The City Symphony Phenomenon: cinema, art, and urban modernity between the wars. Routledge.
Hutchinson, P. (2017) Where to begin with city symphonies | BFI, BFI. Available at: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/where-begin-city-symphonies (Accessed: 14 March 2022).
Keating, Patrick (2014) Cinematography. Edited by P. Keating. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press (Behind the Silver Screen ; 3).
Pramaggiore, M. (2008) Film : a critical introduction. 2nd ed. Edited by T. Wallis. London: Laurence King.
Rees, A. L. (2011) A History of Experimental Film and Video, A History of Experimental Film and Video. doi: 10.5040/9781838710637.

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Memories Of Shiqi