Absolute Film

When we assembled for class on Wednesday, I have to admit I was apprehensive about giving my own presentation. I knew that I had spent a great deal of time researching, but it's always a wake up call when you get to see the amount of effort that others put it. And wow. The other presenters absolutely killed it. I had no idea they would be able to serve out the amount of information that they did. I felt like they knew almost everything about the filmmakers they were presenting on! 

Richter seemed like quite an interesting guy, and his whole concept of creating a new audio/visual language seemed like an incredibly complex undertaking. I was slightly underwhelmed by the first film if I am to be honest, the squares and rectangles moving around didn't amaze me. But on the first viewing of this, it may be too harsh of a judgement. The second film clip we saw seemed delightfully odd and entertaining, while I may not have fully appreciated the Rhythmus films of Richter's, the charming quality of seeing items coming to life and the unconventional techniques used made for a visually and thematically interesting piece of filmmaking. 

Jonas Mekas. What a guy. Just his life story alone was enough to keep me captivated throughout the entire presentation, but to hear all that he accomplished just floored me. Just like Channing said he did have his hand in so many pots. From making his own documentary films and raising money to support other filmmakers and the creation of the archives, Mekas continues to be a very busy man. Such a celebration of filmmaking and art in such a humble man, Mekas truly amazed me. 

As humble and generous as Mekas was, Harry Smith seemed stark raving mad to me. But wonderfully so. Out of all the presentations, I felt that Smith may have been the greatest and most imaginative artist of the day. While his personal life was questionable, the work he produced and the detail was just incredible. He truly worked and suffered for his art, and lived the life that he wanted to live. His entire life was art, and he cared little for anything else. 

The absolute film article, was just crammed full of information from all kinds of early filmmakers. While Moritz's writing was quite good, if he could have learned to hit the tab button every now and then it would've made it much easier to read than the gigantic run on sentence that was the second half of this article. Formatting flaws aside, the point that "absolute film" is the culmination of all the visual, auditory and sensory possibilities that film can do. Also the term absolute film may be more accurate than terms such as "experimental" (which has implications that the filmmakers doesn't fully understand what he or she is doing, and "avante-garde"which implies military scouts in enemy territory.