Page 18 - Studio International - November December 1975

EDITORIAL

Although avant-garde film-making has developed into Cinema remains, for better or worse, bound up with the
a widespread and important activity over the last decade evolution of American painting, and it would have been
or more, remarkably little space has been devoted perfectly legitimate to devote this issue of Studio to an
anywhere to an informed, critical discussion of its aims examination of film-making in the US. That American
and implications. So far as art magazines are concerned, activity has been largely excluded here is due to two
the New American Cinema has penetrated the pages of main factors : the greater amount of critical attention
Artforum in particular, but most of the film work which it has received already on its own home ground,
produced in England and Europe has encountered a and the widely felt desire for a more sustained analysis of
conspicuous lack of verbal response in its countries of English and European developments as a whole. It is both
origin. The resulting lacuna can only be damaging : every astonishing and disgraceful that scarcely any of the many
medium needs to examine itself and be reviewed on a considerable film-makers surveyed in the present issue
regular basis if it wants to evolve an adequate theoretical have yet attracted a bibliography worthy of the name :
base, and the comparatively recent birth of experimental to take only one example, Malcolm Le Grice's essay on
film has been deprived of such a midwife for too long. Kurt Kren — an enormously influential figure with more
But why should Studio International, as opposed to a than twenty years of film-making behind him —
journal devoted exclusively to film per se, feel any constitutes the first detailed investigation of his work to
overriding obligations in this area ? The answer is have been published so far. And Barbara Meter's report
complex and, in a very real sense, unresolved. One prime on the stunted state of avant-garde film in Holland
source for contemporary independent film-making can be shows how much the Dutch situation has suffered from
found in attempts by artists like Picabia, Moholy-Nagy, (among other things) a dearth of critical support.
Richter and Leger to widen painting's terms of reference. Hence Studio's editorial decision to concentrate on the
A surprising number of today's film-makers have European scene, in the belief that it might help in the
emerged from a painting context as well, and Birgit Hein overall process of redressing this imbalance and fostering
even feels able in her article to claim that both she and the a greater awareness of activities outside the relatively
West German film-makers who engage her closest charmed American situation. The whole of this issue
attention consider 'their system of reference is that of the could, of course, have justifiably been restricted to
fine arts, where artists work at the same problems. The England alone, where a number of film-makers both
common ground is work on an aesthetic in the visual inside and outside the co-op ambience deserve to be
area and the conditions of the material.' dealt with in a far more comprehensive manner than space
The point is succinctly made, and yet the fact remains has permitted here. Producing a film number can only
that film cannot finally be narrowed down to the prompt an acute realization of how much remains to be
concerns of painting alone. Peter Wollen, who properly done in this whole area ; and until more film magazines
acknowledges here the influence of visual art on many attempt to ameliorate the dissatisfaction which Peter
early avant-garde film pioneers, stresses at the same Gidal voices in his statement that 'as to the theoretical
time how many 'affinities with almost all the other arts' practice of film, nothing at all seems to have been even
film possesses. Any thoroughgoing attempt to define begun,' there is every reason for Studio to commit itself to
film as an autonomous medium must clearly take this an ongoing review of avant-garde film.
multiplicity of resources — music, dance, projected light, Strictly speaking, it would be more appropriate for an
written or spoken language, theatre and others— art magazine to restrict its coverage to artists who just use
into full account, alongside more purely 'filmic' devices film as one element in their work, rather than concerning
such as editing and the articulation of frame units. Even itself with film-makers who have only a tangential
if Peter Weibel is quite justified in pointing out that the relationship with art and see film as an all-absorbing
younger generation of Austrian film-makers regard 'not central medium. The clear-cut distinction implied in that
so much music as a model but rather painting and last sentence does not exist at present, but it still seems
sculpture,' the heterogeneous nature of film should never right to emphasize the desirability of a future issue
be ignored. devoted to artists' films as well. The presence here of
Its links with visual art, amounting almost to a kind of Alan Sheridan's full-length article on David Dye
'special relationship' (the terminology of diplomacy is actually goes some way towards bridging these two
oddly appropriate), nevertheless persist. David Curtis's areas — even though Dye's work proves how difficult it is
article, referring to this year's 'First Festival of rigidly to separate the one from the other. As Sheridan
Independent British Cinema' at Bristol, concludes that explains, 'it is not that Dye is an artist who shows in
'the extent to which the [film] avant-garde has invaded galleries and who also happens to make films. Since 1971
the art school — the traditional source of English artists' all his works, without exception, have had film as their
income — is very evident.' And although this marriage may material.'
well be a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon phenomenon (it The very ambiguity of Dye's stance, hovering half-way
could in fact be claimed that the strong art-school between the designations film/art, art/film and making
connection gives English film-making a special nonsense of them both, is itself symptomatic of how
character), the interrelationship between art and film little has yet been done to clarify the situation. Artists and
does transcend national boundaries as well. In his film-makers alike can only benefit from a greater degree
article on the area now designated as 'expanded cinema', of definition, a closer and harder look at the precise
for instance, Deke Dusinberre asserts that its 'various nature of the problems which remain unresolved. And if it
works are specifically engaged in the modernist aesthetic seems appropriate to place the horse in its correct
of process ; though they do it in different ways, they position before the cart in this first film issue of Studio,
insist on concentrating creative effort on the means of our motives are not entirely altruistic. For artists who use
image-production, subordinating or eliminating content.' the resources of film, either at present or in the future,
But if this involves a fundamentally cinematic context, it stand to gain from a more complete understanding of the
also involves a considerable amount of borrowing from medium they too often employ as a documentary device
the stategies employed by Happenings and Fluxus with no intrinsic codes of its own. Art thrives on an
events. exact correlation between idea and material embodiment,
The art/film interface is therefore pervasive in its and in that sense the November/December Studio
ramifications. The evolution of the New American dedicates itself to furthering this end.
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