Page 26 - Studio International - November December 1975

screening arranged by Durgnat at the ICA in Dover in England means that no work by Sharits or Snow is
Street in the autumn of '67. The only film that impressed included (excepting Sharits' embryonic Sears
him there was the one Kren film shown, significantly one Catalogue etc. in the Fluxus Anthology) and only
of the Kren/Brus 'actions'. ('Significantly', in terms of the Landow's enigmatic Bardo Follies and the related works
state of English film culture — since it was the of Kubelka represent the as yet unlabelled structuralist
'sensational' Kren that tended to get shown : the Kren/ group. England's own emerging structuralists, Le Grice,
Brus, Kren/Muehl actions of '64/5, and the Eating, DuCane and the shortly-to-arrive Peter Gidal continue
Drinking, Pissing, Shitting Film of '67, which we rightly to develop largely under their own steam.
took to be a masterful piece of associative montage.) Two years later I read Sitney's account of his English
The formal strengths of works like Trees in Spring (made tour in Film Culture: 'The university tour of England was
in 1960 !) and TV made in '67, were often passed over as considerably less successful than I had anticipated ...
secondary to the more controversial work). The sponsors sometimes had only a vague or more often
Malcolm's film appeared to be an arbitrary selection of wrong notion of what they were showing. In one
found footage plus occasional shots of a light bulb, university, Essex ... a claque managed to disturb the
assembled according to some predetermined (if random) entire performance with incessant noise and
formula, permutated ad infinitum. It seemed purposeful wisecracks.'
and yet entirely mad. But my Arts Lab colleague Jack The state of knowledge in the provinces was hardly to
Moore admired it (as he admired anything outrageous), be surprised at, given the repertory of films available to us
and we scheduled it to run under Malcolm's pseudonym and the dearth of informed critical writing. The two issues
Mihima Maas (M. Mouse), some weeks later. On that of Cinim, the co-op's own magazine, had included
occasion the film's meaning became somewhat clearer. co-op news, a passionate credo by Hartog and an article
Beside the screen Malcolm hung a real light bulb that on Dwoskin by Durgnat, but otherwise devoted most of
flashed on and off at regular intervals, flooding the screen their space to Godard and the aesthetics of the Nouvelle
and cinema with light, and totally obliterating the Vague. IT published supplements for the 'Spontaneous
projected image. The light bulb and mechanism were Festival' of '66 and for Sitney's tour itself (the latter
borrowed from an earlier painting, but their new role, as composed mainly of reprints from Film Culture) and
described by Malcolm in a programme note of exemplary printed a list of 'films available' compiled in early '67 and
simplicity, appeared to be much more appropriate : my long report on Knokke. But none of the established
'The awareness of the audience is returned to their film magazines devoted even occasional space to the
actual situation (viewing a film) by reference to the bulb underground till after 1970. Sitney's tour itself was a
and the perceptual problems which its flashing creates.' catalyst to the publication of a series of new film
Spring '68. Scotty makes his appearance and magazines at Oxford, Cambridge and Essex, all devoted
threatens to make his Meaningless Movies a permanent to discussion of new forms in film (but destined to share —
installation at the Arts Lab. His Longest Most as Dusinberre points out in his thesis—an addiction to
Meaningless Movie in the World was begun late in '67, NAC that largely precluded coverage of European
but he refers in his co-op catalogue entry to having spent developments). The appearance of these magazines was
four years 'getting together a 25 min. 8mm film called part of a wider provincial response to Sitney's tour, which
Our Honeymoon Winter Sports Atomic Bomb taken together represent the one real instance of direct
Explosion.' The construction of his Longest Most... is of American intervention in this chronology. From their
archetypal simplicity : it consists indiscriminately of any experience of Sitney's programmes one can date the
35mm footage contributed, fragments of features, sustained interest in the underground avant-garde film
rejected re-takes of a single shot, repeated commercials shared by Rayns (already making film) DuCane and
that vary only in colour density or the degree to which Hammond in Cambridge, (Philip) Drummond,
they are scratched, the result being as he puts it 'a Cawkwell and Harding at Oxford (founders of the
maximum amount of variety of content in a maximum 8mm Co-op there and the Oxford New Cinema Club),
amount of footage.' Defensively surrounded by statements and the critic/activists Sainsbury and Field at Essex.
of purpose that invariably stress the frivolous, the 'film' (That the last two should have been part of Sitney's
provides a radical if throw-away critique of commercial noisy audience is one of life's better attempts at irony.)
cinema practice simply by disregarding every known law For these then, the point of departure at least was
of continuity; paradoxically giving its audience a American ; specifically the romantic American tradition of
responsibility to 'build their own experience' that in many Brakhage, Anger, Baillie and Markopoulos.
ways parallels later avant-garde concerns. The location of Sitney's London shows at the N FT,
Late February '68. Malcolm takes me to see works rather than at the Arts Lab or elsewhere on underground
by his students at the Young Contemporaries (which has territory, was itself an indication of another change that
included film for the first time), including Fred was taking place at this time : the further separation of film
Drummond's animation and re-freezing of Muybridge from the rest of avant-garde and underground culture in
(Photo Film Based on Muybridge) and Roger Ackling's England. Its temporary alliance with the NFT audience
Boot Film. was, as it still is on such occasions, tenuous, but its
March '68. To Paris to try to persuade P. Adams Sitney claim to be a legitimate branch of cinema, rather than a
to show his new touring exhibition of New American deviant form of theatre/painting/poetry was becoming
Cinema at the Arts Lab. (I discover he has already agreed increasingly manifest. And through becoming cinema it
to show it at the NFT). At Victor Herbert's I see finally lost the interest of the English art-going public. The
Brakhage's 23 Songs for the first time ... as for many spirit of Better Books was decidedly dead. None of this
they convince me of the value of working on 8mm. concerned us at the time. The prospects for film seemed
My diaries begin that summer. unlimited.
April '68. Hartog and I arrange for Sitney and his June '68. We show Markopoulos's Gamellion at the
programmes to tour 12 universities in England prior to Arts Lab, second-reel-first. He reckons that it can stand it.
his week at the NFT. (Thorold Dickenson refuses his July'68. Mike Dunford, a student introduced by
students' request to invite Sitney to show The Art of Malcolm, shows at the Arts Lab. His films are simple and
Vision at the Slade.) The programmes at the N FT are a logical. They record single events and changes (a girl
broader and more detailed survey of NAC than any walking on and off screen, a slow lap dissolve) through
mounted before or since, corresponding in scope to the most economic means possible ; he accepts
Sheldon Renan's book (An Introduction to the American accident—the lab's return of a stray reel with his own —
Underground Film) which had just become available and includes it; he borrows ideas like painting on film
(illicitly) in England in the American paperback edition. without apology. More important, he seems to have
(Our second reference work !) Breer, Brakhage, Jacobs, begun film-making without feeling the need to make an
Baillie, Kubelka, Markopoulos, Mekas, Rice, Harry extreme stand (of the Malcolm/Scotty variety), the
Smith, Jack Smith, Sonbert, and Warhol (Inner 8 Outer implication being an encouraging one—that film-making
Space and Eat) are all substantially represented, many for is perhaps not so unnatural to the English psyche after all.
the first time. But the two-year delay between the July'68. Peter Gidal arrives in England, shows work
putting together of the show in New York and its arrival at the Arts Lab and immediately joins the co-op.
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