Page 17 - Studio International - February 1974

Fifthly: what is structural film ? In dealing with the film, the specific properties of (learning, not teaching) non-empirical works,
structural materialist film, the in/film (not in- what is happening 'on' the screen. The content at the same time not falling into the mystic
frame) and film/viewer material relations, and thus serves as a function upon which, time and romanticisms of individualistic 'higher
shape of the film is primary to any specific time again, a film-maker works to bring forth the sensibility'. The latter problem is avoided when
content; that shape is the content. (This basis of filmic event. The assertion of film material, of structural films at their best avoid primary
structural film intuited by several film-makers necessity, is predicated upon usage of 'content' image-making. Image per se cannot be avoided
and evident in various films of the past decade, inasmuch as 'pure' empty acetate running but rather overcome through persistent and
was provincially verbalized by P. Adams through the projector gate (for example) consequent usage of devices, the elongation of
Sitney in 1969 in Film Culture.) Through usage without image, merely sets off another level of time upon image being the most notable. One is
of specifically filmic devices such as duration abstract associations no less contentual than the not presented with a vision. Visionary
and repetition within duration, one is forced to utilization and representation of object-images film-making is the opposite of structural
attempt to decipher material and construct. from the 'real world'. film-making. Visionary film-making would
The attempt-to decipher, to analyse the given The mental dialectical activation of the encompass the whole range of non-structural
structure (as generated) is primary to any viewer is necessary for the procedure of the film (and art): Classicism, Romanticism,
specific shape. The procedural interaction film's existence. Each film is not only structural, Baroque, Formalism, Mythopoetic,
between viewer and 'viewed' is primary, but structuring. This is extremely important, as Surrealism, etc. One must thus see structural
within a non-associative structure. each moment of film-reality is not an atomistic, film as a radical break with such work. One must
Structural materialist film attempts to be a separate entity but rather a moment in a go on after Warhol, not revert to a 're-
non-model-oriented non-illusionistic relativistic generative system, wherein one can't invigorated' pre-Warholian stance. The reasons
experien; that is, the process of the film's simply break up the experience into elements. for this are connected intimately to film as art,
making deals with devices that would result in The viewer is either forming an equal and more film as politics, film as consciousness, film as
demystification or attempted demystification or less opposite film in his or her head or else philosophical didactic polemics, films as
of that experience. The energy of the dialectic constantly anticipating, correcting, re- educative experience, all concentrated in film
attempt at image-arrestation, at clarification, correcting, . . constantly re-determining the as film which is what is called for. Aesthetics is
at deciphering the given reality, is of greatest confrontation with the given reality, i.e. the ethics. Structural film, at its best, fulfils this
import. That is not to say that one ends each isolated chosen area of each film. function. And lest the impression hasn't been
film-viewing with a precise illustration or More often than not, 'real' time is utilized, in strongly enough inferrable: structural/
arithmetical notation of what the film actually is, the film as a whole or in clearly defined materialist film makes for a viewing that is at
in materialist terms. An avant garde defined by segments, thus breaking from illusionistic time once not condescending to the viewer nor
its development towards increased materialism which would manipulate the viewer through élitest. It demands merely that entertainment
and materialist function does not necessarily identification through hierarchical devices. through illusion, the predominant form of
negate a relativistic position in favour of a Attempted is a non-hierarchical cool separate mind-rape, is not sought, that authoritarian
positivist one. Quite the contrary. Some films enfolding of a perceptual activity. At the same experience is not sought, that a more aware
have a simple overall structure, others have time, this distance does not deny the dialectic consciousness is.
incredibly complex structures, but the feeling of interaction of the viewer with each film-moment, Sixth : there is a range of work which fits
the shape and the structuring aspects thereof, each action. On the contrary, the real-time within the category, and to make any
is primary in all structural/materialist films. element demands precisely such a form of distinction between one person's work and
Such films, whose aim is awareness of the consciousness and will. The deeper problematic another's is dangerous but necessary, for it is as
manipulative devices employed, utilize a of time can only be hinted at here. (i) There is problematic (no more, no less) as using the term
process in such a way that the process of making `real time', that is, time shown as it is for the structural in the first place. The term took as
the film is the film. The film is a record of its film-maker (at the stage the film is dealing with: basic assumption the contexts of three or four
own making. Each act performed by the shooting, editing, printing, projecting, and works not all of more than minor importance
film-maker, whether in shooting, editing, or interrelations of these); commonly 'real time' is (as works, not as concepts), and attached a
printing stage, is part of the record of the film's clearly presented in single takes or film segments theory meant for more than parochial definition
coming into existence. As such the film is about utilized for their actual duration. (2) There is of those works. The original concept also did not
its own making. Thus viewing such a film is at illusionistic time, time made to seem what it is take note of the ideological aspect of the
once viewing a film and viewing the making of not (as in conventional editing techniques function. A post-Warholian romanticism was
the film, i.e. the system of consciousness that cutting from 10.15 London interior, the lovers' hinted at, and three years later verified as a
produced the work. Viewing the film also is kiss, to midnight, near the lake, husband and `new romantic affirmation in recoiling against
that consciousness at work. Each film is thus a wife murder each other, longshot). (3) The the tremendously crucial aesthetic attack that
form of consciousness and an independent work. third aspect of time is post-Newtonian, Warhol made' (Film Culture, Spring 1972,
One can't wipe out content. The form is the Einsteinian time. There is, in the latter, no p 24, Lecture Transcript, P. A. Sitney). To
content. But any represented content that absolute value other than that of the ignore the ideological function is to determine
exists does so beneath the structure. There is interaction of film-moment and viewer. This that structural film becomes merely another
this representational reality one is aiming the relativistic time may, but does not necessarily, aesthetic mode, with a specific set of rules yet
camera at (this remains true even if, for example, connect to 'real' time. (The notion of real time without a crucial thrust outside of its mere
the representational content is pared down to the on its own fails to take into account precisely differentiation per se from previous modes. I
filmstrip itself being pulled through the printer). this relativistic nature of time, the absence of see structural film in a tighter context in terms
The structural/materialist film always some universal clock, though for lack of a more of its materialist function. Another failing was
minimizes the traditional content in attempts to precise definition 'real time' did serve its that the original concept (or verbalization
get through the miasmic aspect of the purpose, for example apropos much of Warhol's thereof) took so little heed of obvious
experience and get on with film as film. Devices work.) connections to previously defined schools of
such as loops, mechanistic or not, (i.e. Structural film is at once total object and a Structuralism that even so voracious a reader as
repetition within duration) as well as a whole procedure. Some are, in addition, blatantly critic Annette Michelson in Artforum _
series of technical possibilities, serve to veer the wholist, others work as obvious fragments, as laboured to point out that it functioned as a
point of contact past internal content to the non-beginning non-end films. At work in both completely separate theory, when in fact nothing
perceptual system one is involved in when is an aesthetic that tries to create didactic could be further from the truth. 'Structuralist
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