History Of Experimental Film

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Keith Ballard History of Exp. Film In the last essay I spent my time marking the differences between experimental film and video art. I used those differences to build some sort of argument to why I think I like video art better then experimental film. Since that essay I have tried to not judge the films based on my affinity to video. Since the last essay I have found more things to enjoy about the films that are beneficial to my video practice. I found the Experimental Feature day particularly exciting. I have always been a Kenneth Anger fan so that may have woken me up a little bit. I have seen Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet in a few different contexts now and for some reason, this time around, I was particularly struck by the film. Every time I have seen this movie I have considered it to be cheesy. It was still cheesy this time but I enjoyed the sculptural aspects of the movie. A lot of the time the frame was filled with sculptural elements that make up a single image. I was particularly drawn to the image of the man lying on the couch with a spinning thing above him. Man Ray is one of my favorite filmmakers from the surrealist era. Usually I’m attracted to the implied violence of his work. This movie however did not seem to allude to violence like his other films do. This film was seductive in a more sedative way. A lot of the film was shot in a dreamy way almost as if the viewer was looking through water. It had the same mechanical looking imagery that I’m always attracted to in Man Ray’s work. I remember there being one segment that was collaged of a few different films. One of the images I remember specifically was a starfish spinning in its cage. I always enjoy watching objects move and perform with one another and Man Ray had a remarkable way of doing

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