Page 69 - Studio International - November 1971

own and his intuitive sensitivity tells him that involved with their heads and their hearts in
`research must be made of visual phenomena. A the right direction. That is the case with
system of these "incidents" must be organised.' Mekas. But it is also Mekas who said, with
This emphasis on research into the medium is vigour, 'Every time I enter the commercial
one which few attempted, fewer mastered, cinema, I automatically have to lower my
until the new beginnings by the underground standards; I may like the film I am seeing, but
film-makers (Warhol with Sleep, etc, in 1963; the standards are immediately lower.' And that
Mike Snow with Wavelength in 1967, etc). should drive you out of the commercial cinema,
Sitney, on Structural Film, talks of cinematic once and for all. This vision of cinema haunts
sensibility that 'tries to shape the whole film... the book, and should haunt the reader. It is the
and it is that shape that is the primal impression attitude that is the only feasible one today with
of the film', rather than 'attempting to make the alienated, manipulatory and decrepit
disparate elements cohere' (as in the work of capitalist industry unavoidably present in
Kubelka, Brakhage, Anger, Markopoulos). He one's inner and outer space. Sitney knows this
sets up a system of structural cinema, which too. And he edited the collection, brilliantly. q
includes precise fixed-frame (and framing), PETER GIDAL
out-of-focus image-shape, loop material,
in-camera repetition, zoom-focusing, obvious Rosicrucians and
splicing/cutting, etc. The basis of the most radicals
important film-movement around is
Dreamers of Decadence by Philippe Jullian.
theoretically set by this piece, even though the Pall Mall. With 149 ill., 16 in colour. £3.50.
article has been (and must be) disputed on its
weaknesses, a tendency mainly to be too Symbolists and Decadents by John Milner.
Studio Vista Paperback. 80p.
inclusive, not hard enough, not consequent The Arts and Crafts Movement by Gillian
enough. But the article was written; exists. Naylor. Studio Vista. With 101 ill. £4.80.
Other writings in the book range from the
rather naive, romantic notions of Jonas Mekas William de Morgan by William Gaunt and
(but almost always positive and helpful), to the M. D. E. Clayton-Stamm. Studio Vista.
With 143 illustrations, Bib. £6.40.
happy-go-lucky-gossipy-sarcastic-arty essays
of Herman Weinberg (owner of the first The fact that two books should have
'art-cinema' in the States). Of course the appeared at the same time on 'decadent'
necessarily straight, intellectually completely painting is not surprising. How long is it, after
`respectable' writers also appear: Hans all, since Beardsley reproductions first appeared
Richter's The Film as an Original Art Form; down Carnaby Street, or hair became the
Arnheim's Portrait of An Artist; Sarris' Notes essential emblem of an androgenous style ?
on the Auteur Theory in 1962. A long symposium Orientalism. The cult of jewellery. Hashish.
on 'Poetry and the Film' with Arthur Miller, The occult. Nostalgia for the absolute (L'Azur !
Maya Deren (the surrealist-american L'Azur! L'Azur! Spaced out!) Diabolism.
film-pioneer), Parker Tyler, Willard Maas and Synaesthesia. Low energy as social criticism.
Dylan Thomas, is also presented; it is `It is from our brains that the seed of life spurts
fascinating reading. The importance of the to fecundate the stars, those miraculous ovaries
book isn't in any definitive 'objective' pointing of the infinite...' Actually Mirbeau is sending
to the real truth about cinema or cinema the style up, although it is beyond the reach of
criticism; much more, it concerns itself with sarcasm, beyond exaggeration, as is
the continuing avant garde (experimental, post-Burroughs SF, from whose pages the
underground, personal, independent, poetic). lines might have been paraphrased. 'As for
It concerns itself, in other words, with the women, on the shores of poisoned lakes, on
underground cinema as the only film-direction noxious beaches, among deadly flowers, they
worth wasting words about, and not always will couple among themselves, in acts of
wasting, at that. It establishes the underground imperfect, painful and demoniacal possession.'
filmmakers and their direction; it clarifies, What is adumbrated in these two books,
analyses, and uses up space and time to assert although not brought fully into focus, is the
the importance of a movement. The imaginative furnishing of the symbolist
underground 'emerged' through the pages of movement—not the impact of symbolism on
Film Culture in the late fifties and through the serious painting, so vital to it in the retreat from
sixties; these are the notations which the frontiers of impressionism, but rather the
accompanied it. Writings by many filmmakers decor that perfumed and padded the symbolist
are also included; and many stills, all valuable. cult. The artists are those that des Esseintes
There are criticisms, in-fights, etc, but the admired—Rossetti, Puvis, Redon, Moreau—and
movement is there (after the initial overconcern then the large numbers of more or less obscure
with the 'art' film). The most forceful names who were of the cult and illustrated its
filmmaking being 'indulged' in today, themes from the inside. They were a mixed
underground filmmaking (whatever that means : bunch : pompiers gone wrong like Jean Delville
find out) is covered in these pages. whose Kaballistic portrait of Mrs Stuart
Of course one can't judge the collection as Merill adorns the covers of both these books
a whole: some writers are romantic and like a trade-mark; nuts from the fringes of
mystified (and mystifying), though they are Pont Aven like Filiger; tough operators like
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