Page 56 - Studio International - July August 1971

or who utilized sound in a less manipulatory you have to shell out for it. our understanding of Jason, to his act of
(or more consciously manipulatory) way, Parker Tyler's book is ostensibly about impersonation of famous 'camp' stars, to Jason
thereby forcing the viewers' awareness away Underground Film. Mostly it mentions films himself, or to Shirley Clarke's film as such.
from the dream factory and onto themselves. that are totally impossible to obtain in England, Tyler just babbles on and on.
Curtis's occasional over-rating of Hollywood (or and is therefore worthless in terms of widening Brakhage has said that 'the pictorial essay
rather of the centralization of the industry), the scope of the viewing audience. Alas, Paul alone is worth the price of the book'. I'd say
leads him, in a similar vein, to over-rate Morrissey's Flesh is. Anger's films, Kubelka's, round sixty smallish pictures, most of them
technique for its own sake, or for the sake of and Brakhage's are available (from the London already well known, doesn't encourage one to
`content', in his discussions of films by Kubelka Filmmakers Cooperative); the Co-op also has buy a 23o-page book at nearly three quid.
(Unsere Afrikareise), Hindle (Chinese Firedrill; Michael Snow's hard, beautiful film, The Film Director as Superstar has sixteen
Billabong) and Bartlett (Moon 69). It's Wavelength. All the other films are only interviews, among them Mailer, Warhol,
precisely the cheap Madison-Avenue available across the Atlantic. That is one Polanski, Bertolucci, and Kubrick. There are
glossiness of Hindle's and Bartlett's films which handicap. Another is that Parker Tyler doesn't also, for reasons which cannot be figured out,
is leading West Coast American really like underground films, and tries to cleverly interviews with Francis Ford Coppola and
experimentalists into a rut-but more obfuscate this basic truth with nifty arguments Robert Downey. The interviewer tries to keep
unfortunately, is gaining recognition by other and on-the-scene gossip. He also makes some out as much as possible which, in Gelmis' case,
film-makers who somehow still have the unfortunate categories, such as 'fetish footage', is good. The jacket design by Steve Dwoskin,
Hollywood-inferiority syndrome. That is, they `pad infantilism', etc. His stance is that of of Warhol, is excellent.q
are still susceptible to criticism such as 'Why amateur psychiatrist to the movement PETER GIDAL
doesn't your film excite me like a surfing movie (unwanted). He over-rates the sentimental
does ?!' or 'Why are the colours better in an Old Brakhage, quoting approvingly, ... I can not
Spice After-Shave ad ?!' Curtis writes : 'Like tolerate ... thoughtless self-expression, dope, The acquisitive instinct
many West Coast film-makers, Bartlett had Nihilism, violence to ... society.' Tyler sees The Collector in America with an introduction
extensive experience in image control, through Warhol's work as the rejection of the by Alan Pryce-Jones. 272 pp with 8o colour
his work in light-shows-an art form in which mature vocabulary of film effects', little realizing and zoo monochrome illustrations. Weidenfeld
the ability to make creative (rather than that effects are exactly what creative and Nicolson. £6.00.
interruptive) transitions between one film-makers are finally sick of. I should say Calouste Gulbenkian-Collector by José de
configuration and the next is of extreme though that I agree that most underground Azeredo Perdigao. 237 pp with 35 colour and
importance' [All italics mine]. Unfortunately, films are bad, from any standpoint, except that 25 monochrome plates. Calouste Gulbenkian
Curtis does not define 'art-form', 'creative', or most commercial films and most Foundation. £5.00.
the implications of 'image-control'. The whole non-commercial 'art' films are bad too; and of
point, it seems to me, is to make interruptive (as the films in either category that are good, This is a handsome book of a not entirely
opposed to 'creative') transitions between one underground films seem to have a more honest, unfamiliar kind-it celebrates and illustrates the
image (configuration, shape-human or one-to-one relationship between film-maker magnificent possessions of a number of leading
otherwise) and another. Curtis himself hints at and film. That is why a bad underground film is art collectors in the United States. The
this when he explains, elsewhere in the book, infinitely more satisfying than a bad commercial collections themselves cover quite a span-from
that commercialized usage of montage is film. I think Tyler might realize this too, and the relatively conventional, such as those of
utilized to take away from the audience's that is his one strength. He does, after all, go to Jock Whitney and Henry P. McIlhenny, to the
awareness of what is actually happening on film, watch such films and write about them, which is relatively far out, such as the Glenn collection
as in your local Western-film, Car-race-film, or more than most critics do. Still, he finds of Pop Art in Kansas City. The adverb is
`Man-and-a-Woman' Love-Story romance ... many undergrounders lacking in general important, because in fact the span of taste
from beach to car to bedroom to boardroom to culture' [italics mine]. The generation gap represented is not so enormously wide: it
beach, etcetera, without any obvious trickery. becomes very obvious with Tyler, even though ranges from the beginning of the nineteenth
The value of this book is, to sum up, his attitudes prevail among every generation to century to the present day, with excursions into
primarily in its readable account of the work of an unfortunate degree (largely thanks to him ?). primitive art and Americana.
the early film-makers, directors, artists (its His big favourites are the Surrealists (mostly Anyone who has visited some of the great
explication of Russian versus American dead), and he can't believe that anyone making American private collections, as I have, will
montage; its explication of French versus film might want to re-invent the cinema rather know that it is wrong to sneer at their owners,
Richter's German Surrealism; etc). The value than become a grandchild of 1920's who are almost invariably knowledgeable,
of the book is in its tracing of filmic growth and experimentation by artists mostly intent on generous and enthusiastic. They are also
innovation from Melies and Abel Gance making films based on fantasies. Which is not to worriers, as Alan Pryce-Jones points out in his
through to Structuralists like Mike Snow say that Maya Deren's films (i.e. Meshes in the surprisingly candid introduction: 'The actual
(Wavelength). Afternoon), and Hans Richter's are not great in making of works of art may not seem a
The book's greatest weakness is in not their own right. Mr Tyler resents the fact that prestigious occupation to conventional society,
carefully differentiating when 'a film is about contrary to the Surrealists 'the underground but their acquisition always is. Rich men who
film': whether the subject of the film is film as film ...encourages beatnik expression ...' worry about their image in society have always
material (physical; non-illusory), or film as Fascinating are some of the little stories been drawn towards the collection of beautiful
representation of material (i.e. innovative Tyler tells, such as of Brakhage's enraged and expensive things.' Good reason, perhaps,
techniques visible on-film). Both categories quitting of the New York Co-op because of bad why this is finally an uneasy-making book.
would exclude Markopoulos, Anger, Brakhage, influences gaining hold; such as of Maya When, as in Calouste Gulbenkian's day-and
and others, whom Curtis seems hell-bent on Deren's objecting to Brakhage's childbirth even at the time when the more conservative of
including even if they don't fit his basic thesis, movie, an objection based on ... woman's these American collections were formed-art
either way. privacy having been tactlessly invaded'. Tyler seemed to have a purpose which could be fairly
There are hundreds of excellently selected complains that Jason in Shirley Clarke's stringently defined, the collector's passion made
stills, which give a clear insight into what the excellent Portrait of Jason, 'lacks that worldly a kind of sense, and still more sense if his
text is actually about. The book, in contrast to essential expressed in what the French call possessions actually fell into the public domain,
most other recent film-books, is worth the cash chic'. As if such a critique has any relevance to through gifts or legacies to public institutions.
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