Week of 10/6 - Asparagus

1) I loved the art in Pitt's Asparagus. The potential for physical surrealism, in sets melting together and abstraction of space in general, I feel was fully recognized in an animated platform. There is also a potential in animation for more specific/endless set design, and something in this film I found especially gripping was the color red which, to me, signaled an impenetrable femininity. While there were traces of the feminine (and masculine) loaded into nearly every image, I found the red in this film to represent the female as her own breed, completely separate from that of the male, in that of her subordination: the manicured red lips and nails of the woman as a sexualized animal; as well as of her biology: the red flowers as the menstruating woman's bloodied labia.
2) Incorporating sexuality into art is something that has been very important to myself as an artist, and this was an interesting experience for me as I am not an animator/2D artist, but work for and write live-action films. There is so much leeway in art outside of the photographic human image, as literal (or acted, but nonetheless human) representation gets close to actual sex in a way that makes people uncomfortable. This film reminded me of how I saw the bare asses of cartoon characters on children's television, played as a joke; but you would certainly never see naked human flesh on any children's program.
3) The repetition of action/space and the protagonist's clearly feminine facelessness reminded me of Deren, and it was interesting to read Mayne and see her draw parallels between the two films' representation of the female body in the male world. A connection she didn't make, but that resonated with me, was when she spoke of the presence of the male in Meshes of the Afternoon as "return to order" and as a stark distinction from the dream/feminine space. I found a similar masculine presence in Asparagus, but one that was less on/off and more intertwined: the harsh, rigid, phallic asparagus: still vegetable, but nonetheless disruptive of the graceful order of the garden behind the curtain; the blue of the protagonist's coat, conversely, blends into the coldness of the male-centric city, but nonetheless bears a softness and catches the wind in a way that brings out these store fixtures' harsh, uninterrupted masculinity.

Week of 9/29 - The Fall of the House of Usher

1) Though Melville Webber and J.S. Watson's editing techniques in The Fall of the House of Usher are extremely bold and kaleidoscopic in a way that is impressive not only for its time, but also were unlike anything else I've ever seen--save a few other films we watched during this screening--I was actually most impressed by the camera work in the film. I am amazed by the shots that comprise hallucinogen-like compositions, and even just the framing in some of the more static shots at the beginning. The canted angles and eerily endless motion on more abstracted shots really impressed me, even if the overall effect sometimes felt like too much.
2) I wasn't aware of the short story that this film was based off of, so I didn't pick up on the potentially really frightening narrative, and simultaneously felt distracted by not understanding who people are or being able to tell them apart once things got more distorted. Now knowing a little bit about what the narrative is based off of, the gradual increase of abstraction, superimposition and expressionist-like text as death asserts its presence in the house is really fascinating.
3) Although this film is in no way a depiction of dance and it's animation is limited to the text, Horak's analysis of Danse Macabre helped me get a grip on Webber and Watson's film. Horak spoke a lot of the presence of the masculine experience and of nature in both this film and American avant-garde at large; while that didn't resonate with me at all in any of the films we watched during this screening, other technical and thematic elements of Danse Macabre rang familiar: a simple set that brings out the abstract elements that it chases, while simultaneously attempting to bring across a complex melodramatic narrative. The expressionist-like animation, formal innovations, and layered exposures brings a narrative into something much different, but also different from other breeds of avant-garde we've examined, like nonrepresentational and surrealist films.