Film History & Movements Codexery

Experimental film

A mode of filmmaking opposing standard cinematic conventions.

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Experimental film is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working.[1] Rather than aiming to amuse or produce income, experimental filmmaking may instead seek to express an artist's individual perspective or to generate enthusiasm for novel technological developments.[2] Experimental films are typically produced with extremely limited budgets, often funded by the filmmaker themselves or through modest grants, and are frequently created by just one person or a very small team.[3]

Quick Facts

Field
Film
Known for
  • Non-narrative forms
  • abstract techniques
  • opposition to mainstream commercial cinema
Typical budget
Very low, self-financed or small grants
Typical crew
Minimal crew or single person

Facts from the source article.

Making and release

The Life and Death of 9413—A Hollywood Extra cost less than a hundred dollars and was distributed through a major agency into seven hundred theaters.[4] The film society and self-financing model continued over the next two decades, but by the early 1960s a different outlook became perceptible in the work of American avant-garde filmmakers.[5] In 1931, Douglass Crockwell, who worked as a commercial illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, started producing films; his animation technique involved pressing paint blobs between glass sheets.[6][7] Between 1947 and 1963, the primary organization for showing and distributing experimental film in the United States was Cinema 16, which was based in New York.[8]

Experimental films have typically been shown outside of mainstream movie theaters, finding their audiences instead in small film societies, microcinemas, museums, art galleries, archives, and film festivals.[9]

What the cited sources add

The source "FILM CULTURE IN POSTWAR AMERICA, 1945–1957" states that experimental film makers in the United States tended to become cliquey and inbred, often ignorant of the work of others with similar aims.[4] The same source notes that the principle of montage as presented in the films and writings of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and especially Vertov became by 1931 the aesthetic guide for most experimental film makers in the United States.[4] The "Avant–Garde Ads" program description notes that filmmakers such as Brakhage, Belson and others made advertisements, corporate films and other sponsored films, complicating the idea that the avant-garde and the commercial never meet.[10][11] The "Experimental Film" reference source states that Maya Deren bought an inexpensive 16mm Bolex camera with inherited money and used it to forge a career completely apart from the Hollywood mode of production.[12]

The same source notes that experimental filmmakers are usually the first to try out new ways of making movies, after which these technologies are adopted by Hollywood.[12] The BFI Screenonline account states that in the mid-1920s a number of people connected to the British avant-garde movement began to make films reflecting these interests, with Adrian Brunel and Ivor Montagu as two major practitioners.[13]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Experimental film" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Maria Pramaggiore and Tom Wallis, Film: A Critical Introduction, Laurence King Publishing, London, 2005, pg. 247; Laura Marcus, The Tenth Muse: Writing about Cinema in the Modernist Period, Oxford University Press, New York 2007; * Gene Youngblood, Expanded Cinema (Dutton, 1970) available as pdf at Ubuweb (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Experimental film" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Experimentation in Film / The Avant-Garde", The Museum of Modern Art (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Experimental film" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: GreenCine Experimental/Avant-Garde; "Experimental Film - married, show, name, cinema, scene, book, story, documentary" (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. "FILM CULTURE IN POSTWAR AMERICA, 1945–1957". facts only, no text reused. publishing.cdlib.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Experimental film" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Film Culture Reader", Praeger Publishing, 1970 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Experimental film" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Douglass Crockwell, Alphabet of Illustrators, Chris Mullen Collection"; "FILM CULTURE IN POSTWAR AMERICA, 1945–1957" (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. "Douglass Crockwell, Alphabet of Illustrators, Chris Mullen Collection". facts only, no text reused. fulltable.com
  8. Wikipedia, "Experimental film" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Adams, "Amos Vogel, Founder of the New York Film Festival and Cinema 16, Dies at 91", IndieWire, 2012-04-25 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Experimental film" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Avant-Garde Archive Online", Film Quarterly, 2009-09-01 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Experimental film" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Avant–Garde Ads: Part 1 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Avant–Garde Ads: Part 1. facts only, no text reused. anthologyfilmarchives.org
  12. "Experimental Film - married, show, name, cinema, scene, book, story, documentary". facts only, no text reused. filmreference.com
  13. BFI Screenonline:20s-30s Avant-Garde. facts only, no text reused. screenonline.org.uk

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Experimental film (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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