Page 34 - Studio International - November December 1975

uncommon but risky sexual deviation) into the woman's
mouth. After a conventional fuck whilst still hanging, he
comes down. She is then strung up and fucked from
behind, after which she proceeds to shit copiously into
the eye of God in one corner, whilst the caption 'Aber
Otto' ('but Otto', a cryptic reference to Muehl) appears
in the other. The whole film is over in thirty seconds and
is hand-drawn animation, originally made directly, frame
by frame on 35mm (reduced to 16mm for the projection
version). As one would expect from the technique used,
the film has the visual comedy of a Popeye cartoon,
counteracting the psychological weight of the imagery.
This film illustrates Kren's extreme self-irony and the
ambivalent attachment-detachment of his
accommodation structure. In the Muehl, Brus axis of his
work, this element of content is more accessible. But in a
way more difficult to define, such ambivalence imparts a
charge, through a knife-edge of rejection, to the imagery
in all his work. 6/64- Papa und Mama 1964 (diagram for the film)
The psychological approach is inevitable for many of
Kren's films, but almost all his work raises philosophical more classical compositional ideas. As with Kubelka's
questions about the relationship between experience and Adebar and Schwechater, this visual abstraction of the
structure. Almost all, including the middle period, have shots and musical concept of montage is consistent with
used systems to govern either the editing or shooting. In the aims of the early avant-garde abstract films, though
most cases this has taken the form of preparatory diagrams in Kren this never becomes a graphic light-play, and
and graphs drawn with mathematical precision, always maintains some link with associative identity,
indicating the various correlations of shots and their particularly in these films with tactile, body associations.
durations. Whatever the general implications of using Even though initiated within a similar compositional
mathematical systems for ordering experience, concept of system, certain of his works lead in another
considering how, with constant projection speed, the direction. In 20/60-48 Köpfe aus dem Szondi Test and
single frame unit of cinematography provides a simple 11/65-Bild Helga Philip, for example, the element of
link between duration and number, in film, system perceptual enquiry becomes dominant. Watching the
becomes particularly apt. In his attempts to order films provides the basis of information about optical and
experience through film, Kren has made this number- cinematic functioning, which becomes the films' chief
duration correlation basic, discovering for it a variety of
functions and potentialities. The germ for most of these
functions can be traced to his first four films, but because
the development is not tidy and some films characterize
a direction well, whilst others contain a number of
directions in one film, I will not take the work
chronologically.
In classical montage, shots follow each other in a
combination intended either to maintain the illusory
flow of action, or as in the Eisenstein sense, to maximise
the dramatic, expressive collision between them. From
his first 16mm film, Kren has counteracted both the
narrative and expressive concepts of montage through
mathematically organized montage configurations.
Consequently, many of his films make use of a limited
number of repeated shots in various combinations and
lengths. Though some of his films, like 3/60— Bäume
im Herbst, employ system at the shooting stage. In these
the connection between shots should not be considered
as montage in any sense, a problem to which I shall return
when considering the structuralist question. 20/60-48 Köpfe aus dem Szöndi Test 1960
I will again begin with some of the middle period films,
for whilst I find the Muehl action films, like 6/64—Papa content. Especially in 48-Köpfe aus dem Szondi Test,
und Mama, 7/64 — Leda und der Schwan or 9/64-0 where a set of still photographs of faces (the contents of a
Tannenbaum, quite satisfactory works as a whole, I find box originally intended for an obscure psychological
their use of system the least aesthetically challenging. In test) are sequentially permutated using different rates
spite of the strong content, it is in these films that the of image change, the system provides the visual
montage is most abstract, in a sense, with the greatest changes in information but does not constitute a
divorce between image and system. As in most of his unifying composition in the classical sense. This shift in
work, these films are constructed from shots fragmented attitude, where the film becomes, as it were, perceptual
into very short lengths, rarely longer than one second, and raw material, makes way for a reflexive engagement by
frequently as short as a few frames. In the Muehl action the viewer, where his own, rather than the film-maker's
films, the result of this fragmentation is to minimize perception and reaction become the primary content.
recognition of the objects in favour of increasing attention Kren's use of system provides an opportunity to look
to their abstract qualities of colour, texture and for some clearer edge to the loose terminology of
movement. The systems explore an intricate network of structural film. In my view, there are very few cases
links based on these abstract qualities. In addition, the where any useful relationship can be drawn between the
rhythm of the montage itself in these films tends to work so-called structuralist films and the broad field of
as a 'musical' composition, the system giving an overall Structuralism in general. System and structure should
co-ordinating shape. Although the rhythm of movements not be used synonymously. Almost all Kren's films are
within the shots in these films may combine with the systemic, but only a certain group raise structuralist
rhythm of the montage, because Kren more typically questions. (Though in the loose concept of
uses fairly static images and camera, the montage rhythm structuralist film which persists, all his work would be
is frequently a dominant feature of his work. Kren has classed as structural).
developed a considerable control over visual rhythm in Broadly, I see structuralism as a result of the dialectical
this musical sense, the concepts being comparable with problem of the concept of order (ordering) in
the note-row techniques of Schoenberg rather than with relationship to experience. In this respect, far from being
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