Anti-film
Definition
Anti-film is film that does not respect the rules of film. For example, Andy Warhol, who forces us to watch a sleeping man during five hours, Chris Marker, who makes a film out of filmed photographs, with no moving images and Guy Debord's Howlings in Favor of de Sade which dispenses with images and narrative altogether. [Jul 2006]
Interestingness and boredom
In defense of interestingness.
Late 2006 I reported on Harry’s ironically titled ‘Boring Art Films’ blog-a-thon. Harry specifies ironically because he does not believe that the type of contemplative cinema he refers to is indeed boring. Others may find these films boring, we think they are interesting.
While my favourite director of contemplative cinema or essay films (as Doug Dilliman has called them) is probably Catherine Breillat, I want to take this opportunity to write about a category of films which are boring if viewed from a to z - films which may not be worth to spend the 90 to 120 minutes to watch them - but that are all the more interesting to read about. These are the kind of films I wrote about on my page anti-film. The introduction went as follows:
Anti-film is film that does not respect the rules of film. For example, Andy Warhol, who forces us to watch a sleeping man during five hours, Chris Marker, who makes a film out of filmed photographs, with no moving images and Guy Debord's Howlings in Favor of de Sade which dispenses with images and narrative altogether. [Jul 2006]
Claiming the aesthetic value of the category anti-film is a further defense of my mini-essays in praise of secondary literature and in praise of the paratext, which takes a meta-approach to the arts stating that films that actually ought to be viewed, books that actually ought to be read are just as interesting to read about.
I mean if you take the title of the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before you Die seriously, you have to exclude the wealth of films which are extremely interesting but boring to watch in their entirety. That's why I call my filmography 199 films you could read about before you die (2006), replacing the word should by could and see by read about.
Which brings me to my contribution to this blog-a-thon, the 1952 film Howlings in Favor of de Sade by Guy Debord (the man who published a book with a sandpaper cover so that it would destroy other books placed next to it):
Hurlements en faveur de Sade (Howlings in Favor of de Sade) (1952) - Guy Debord
image sourced here.Instead of using pictures, Hurlements en faveur de Sade (Howlings in Favor of de Sade) consists of black and white film leader in alternation for some 75 minutes. Debord’s voice is heard during the white sequences, while the black sections, often lasting minutes, are silent.
On April 9, 2002, Guy Debord's films were screened in Paris in the Magic Cinema. Although I stated earlier that my purpose is to showcase films which I wouldn't dream of seeing in their entirety, I would have been tempted to go to this screening (If I had lived in Paris and if I had known about the event). Not for the qualities of these films but from a tribal/sociological point of view: to see who attends this type of screenings.
Sleep (1963) - Andy Warhol
Sleep is a 1963 film by Andy Warhol which consists of long take footage of John Giorno sleeping for over five hours. It was one of Warhol's first experiments with filmmaking, and was created as an "anti-film". Warhol would later extend this technique to his eight-hour-long film Empire. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_%28film%29 [Jun 2006]
Hurlements en faveur de Sade (1952) - Guy Debord
Hurlements en faveur de Sade est le premier film (1952) de Guy Debord. Il dure 64 mn. Il est composé de séquences d'écran blanc, durant lesquelles sont énoncées par quelques voix off des phrases provenant du Code civil ou de romans d'autres auteurs, dont la signification n'est immédiate que pour elles-mêmes, alternant avec des séquences à écran noir silencieuses. La durée totale des périodes blanches n’excède pas une vingtaine de minute qui sont réparties par courts fragments dans 40 minutes de silence. La dernière séquence, qui est noire, est longue de 24 minutes. La première apparition de l’écran blanc est accompagnée d’une improvisation lettriste de Gil J. Wolman, en solo. Le film ne comporte aucun accompagnement ou bruitage, les deux premières répliques constituant seules le générique.
Ce film poursuivant le travail de Gil J. Wolman (l'Anticoncept) qui l'a précédé de quelques mois dans le processus de destruction des conventions, ici, cinématographiques, jugé excessif par certains lettristes, a été le point de départ de la séparation de Guy Debord d'avec cette branche modérée du lettrisme.
Les voix entendues sont celles de Gil J Wolman (voix 1), Guy Debord (voix 2), Serge Berna (Voix 3), Barbara Rosenthal (Voix 4), Jean-Isidore Isou (Voix 5). --http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurlements_en_faveur_de_Sade [Jul 2006]
See also: 1963 - sleeping - anti- - film
Empire (1964) and unwatchability
Empire (1964) - Andy Warhol
Jonas Mekas once claimed that if everyone could sit through Andy Warhol's Empire there would be no more war. It is no overstatement to say that Empire makes bold use of pure real time; a static movie camera records the Empire State Building for eight continuous hours. Like Morgan Fisher's "Production Stills" (1970), Warhol's "Empire" (1963) exemplifies the structuralist film genre, but Empire is also the number one anti-film. Supposedly the very unwatchability of the film was an important part of the reason the film was created.
Empire is a silent, black and white film made in 1964 by Andy Warhol. It consists of eight hours and five minutes of continuous footage of the Empire State Building in New York City. Abridged showings of the film were never allowed; supposedly the very unwatchability of the film was an important part of the reason the film was created. However, a legitimate Italian VHS produced in association with the Andy Warhol Museum in 2000 contains only a 60 min extract. Its use of the long take in extremis is an extension of Warhol's earlier work the previous year with Sleep.
It was filmed on the night of July 25-26 from 8:06 p.m. to 2:42 a.m. from the 41st floor of the Time-Life Building, from the offices of the Rockefeller Foundation. It was shot at 24 frames per second but is projected at 16. The film begins with a totally white screen and as the sun sets, the image of the Empire State Building emerges. The floodlights on its exterior come on, the building's lights flicker on and off for the next 6 1/2 hours, then the floodlights go off again in the next to the last reel so that the remainder of the film takes place in nearly total darkness.
In 2004, "Empire" was added to the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress in recognition of the cultural, historical and aesthetic significance of the movie, as well as the risk of the original movie reel "no longer being preserved" (even though the Andy Warhol Museum's own preservation of the huge Warhol film/videotape catalogue is somewhat unique in the world of underground film). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(1964_film) [Aug 2006]
See also: structural film - anti-film - Andy Warhol - American cinema - 1964
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