Page 16 - Studio International - February 1974

compromises between the two. film-makers started out as painters, as opposed the core of basic work in this field of research
A second basic function of the current avant to writers or journalists. It is well known that the (the anti-illusionist project).
garde, particularly in what is termed structural best Hollywood scriptwriters, such as Hecht, As to structural music, Bach's preludes and
film, is the dialectic function. The overused Hellman, Faulkner, started out as the latter, fugues relate strongly to early work of Terry
term dialectic is appropriate to the work of the that Malcolm Le Grice, Mike Dunford, David Riley, and much of Steve Reich. (For an essay on
current avant garde as it has never been in the Crosswaite, William Raban, Jill Eatherley, structural art encompassing in some detail the
commercial cinema and rarely in underground Annabel Nicolson, Steve Dwoskin, Matin Seip above mentioned see Art and Artists, June 1973,
film. Little film-work outside England at this started out as the former. John D uCane was a Peter Gidal : 'Beckett & Art: A System of
point in historical time utilizes the dialectic student of linguistics; Roger Hammond an art Contemporary Consciousness').
function of the film-experience, possibly because historian. The fourth point of basic importance to the
the avant-garde work outside England, while Two art movements have had their special current avant garde: reflexiveness. A cinema
overlapping m some concerns, has not been able effect on the current avant garde; Abstract wherein one watches oneself watching, wherein
to destroy the spectre of romantic illusionism Expressionism and Minimalism. The the act of self-perception, of consciousness
and the mystique of the individual, the `abstract-expressionist' sensibility which per se, becomes the basic context of one's
reactionary concept of waist as god, artist as formed the movement in painting in the confrontation with the work. To reflect, but to
magician, artist as purveyor of beauty, artist as States after World War Two was an important do so constantly (continuously); that is, to no
fascist. (There are notable exceptions.) In the influence in terms of aesthetics; the notion that longer separate in reactionary dichotomy the
past, a film would set up (cardboard) the act of creation remains visible in the product; functions of 'feeling' and 'thinking', the mental
characters, and through identification and that a movement of a hand, a wrist, an arm, from the physical (or, rather, to no longer be
various reversals, climaxes, complications, etc, becomes an aesthetic event, that a record of the under illusion when seeming to do so, i.e. to be
(usually in that order) one would align oneself action of the artist creating the work is aware of such, decidedly). A frustration may
with one or another or both or more characters. inseparable from that work. indeed grow precisely from this tension; the
The internal connections between viewer and The ethic of process is the root concern of concept of such a non-dichotomy is the root of
viewed were thus based on systems of Abstract Expressionism. Post abstract- aesthetic concern. The attempt to retain the self
identification which primarily demand a expressionist Minimalism dealt with basic during experience, the attempt to not feel
passive viewer, one who is involved, in the structures, artworks wherein the whole and the the need for separation of feelings from thoughts,
meaning that that word has taken on within parts are readily visible, analysable. The is basic to this form of consciousness.
film-journalese, i.e. to be not involved, to be emphasis is on seriality, repetitive elements The commercial cinema could not do without
not oneself, to get swept along through (structures), pieced together to form a 'whole', the mechanism of identification, it thrives
persuasive emotive devices employed by the an overall form. Paring down the artwork to a thereon. Identification demands a passive
film director. So: identification through minimum of 'essential' qualities lay at the basis audience, a passive mental posture in the face of
`involvement'. This system of cinematic of Minimalism; minute variations in tone, a life unlived, a fantasy identified with for the
functioning, on both the film director's and colour, shape, weight, line etc, become sake of 90 minutes' illusion. Mystification, and
viewer's part (not to mention the producer) essential to each work. (In film, duration as a manipulation; the techniques of which, in
rules out categorically any dialectic. What some material piece of time becomes the basic unit). commercial cinema, ought to be well known,
of the more (self-defined) 'left-wing' directors So: the abstract expressionist aesthetic and though they are not. In structural reflexive
would rationalize in terms of dialectic are ethic of process combined with the more rigid film, the reflexive attitude of the viewer is
merely coverups for the old identification analytical structurally synthetic/analytic inculcated by filmic manipulations, and one is
(viz. Losey, Fellini, Antonioni, and the less minimalist aesthetic. The structural film grew made conscious of the manipulation through
talented Huston, Pasolini, Bertolucci, not to out of that sensibility. That is not to say there various technical means; also the form of the
mention the committed right-wing intellectual is a direct cause and effect, as some structural manipulation is different, it is not towards a
film directors Kazan, Ford, Visconti, Russell, films were made before, during, and after these specific or even ambiguous interpretation of the
etc). Thus if a character is somewhat more concerns were being dealt with in painting and work. Rather, it is utilized toward non-
complex, or if the acting is of a higher order, or sculpture. Also not to be forgotten is the fact interpretive perceptual investigation, analyses of
if the lighting-cameraman does most of the that there are roots for Abstract Expressionism, the full material. The access to an involvement
work (as is the case in most first-rate movies), Minimalism, and Structuralism in earlier with technique is the formidable basis of all art;
then the director comes out and rationalizes for avant gardes; the work of Vertov, Maholy- from there the question arises as to which
the work, which would seem to imply that he is Nagy, Ruttman, Klee, early Kafka, Beckett, way one uses the inherent manipulatory
as taken in by the fantasy as the viewer. The Giacometti, Dadaism, Concrete Poetry. devices which techniques not only offer but
ambiguousness of an identification process is `Does a painting come into existence all at force, in all media, in all art, in all areas that
not the same as a dialectic functioning. It is once ? No, it's built up piece by piece, not interrupt (mediate) direct confrontation
merely what is known in the short story as the different from a house. When a point becomes between people. The alternatives remain:
complication, or in the novel as 'the plot movement and line, it takes up time. Similarly whether or not to use these devices to force the
thickens'. Were such devices actually part of a when a line pulls itself out into a plane. And the (passive) viewer into the mould of voyeuristic
willed dialectic functioning, then mystery same when a flat plane becomes a three- identification.
novels by Chandler and McLean would be the dimensional enclosure. And the viewer, does `That's exactly:what so many multiple
highest dialectic literature. It seems many he respond to the work as a whole ? Often yes, murderers say when I go into talking about a
critics actually believe this to be the case, unfortunately.' (Paul Klee, Schöpferische specific crime ... they will use that exact image of
especially those in the British Film Institute Konfession.) feeling as if they're watching a movie when
Education Department and at the now defunct The problematic of reading duration when they're doing it. They'll say, "Well, it was like I
journal, Screen, judging from the high praise viewing a painting was important to Klee, and wasn't there, it's like I was outside of my own
for Ford, Sirk, Losey, and the total others. Actual duration can only exist in film, in control, and was watching myself on film." '
misunderstanding a Welles evokes. But let us terms of the i :1 relationship between work and (From a Truman Capote/Andy Warhol
concern ourselves with the film culture of the viewer (production-time and 'reading' time). interview. It seems Capote has made an
avant garde instead. Vertov's Enthusiasm and Man With a Movie interesting observation in spite of himself.)
The third point of basic importance to the Camera and Dovshenko's Earth, with The loss of self is most dangerous, except in
current avant garde is that many of the Eisenstein's Strike and Lumière's work, from fucking.
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