FAV295 Experimental Cinema

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2016
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
PhDr. BcA. Andrea Slováková, Ph.D., MBA (lecturer), prof. PhDr. Jiří Voráč, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
prof. PhDr. Jiří Voráč, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Patrycja Astrid Twardowska
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Thu 7. 4. 12:30–15:45 C34, Thu 21. 4. 12:30–15:45 C34, Thu 28. 4. 12:30–15:45 C34, Thu 5. 5. 12:30–15:45 C34, Thu 12. 5. 12:30–15:45 C34, Thu 19. 5. 12:30–15:45 C34
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 10 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
The course introduces history of experimental cinema – from the times of interwar avant-gardes until contemporary cinema. It shows and analyzes different approaches to experimenting with film language, the cinematographic means of expression..and media of film and video. It focuses on aesthetical questions, shows the discourse of style and also technical procedures used in experimental films ranging from intimate film diaries, through sophisticated found footage collages to socially engaged essays. It includes information on institutional beckground and development of the infrastructure to support and distribute experimental films in different historical periods and territories.
The main aim of the course is to provide students with the basic orientation in this specific part of cinematography and to train a critical reflection of experimental cinema.
Syllabus
  • I. City and avant-garde:
  • City and its everydayness, developing transportation, demographical migration, the speed of the social life in connection with the film rhythm, industry and architecture: from city symphonies to the collages of the surveillance footage.
  • Walter Ruttmann, Jean Vigo, Dziga Vertov, Eugène Deslaw, Bruce Baillie, Dariusz Kowalski.
  • II. Nature and avant-garde:
  • Natural elements, the sea, the forrests, animals and rural surroundings – as an imagery, theme and challenge for material manipulation.
  • Slavko Vorkapich, Jean Painlevé, Ralph Steiner, Philip Hoffman, David Gatten, Bill Viola, Daïchi Saito, John Price.
  • III. Work with found footage:
  • Recycling, manipulation, montage procedures: from the first manifestos to the digital appropriations.
  • Albrecht V. Blum, Bruce Conner, Stan VanDerBeek, Ken Jacobs, Gustav Deutsch, Dietmar Brehm, Peter Tscherkassky, Martin Arnold, Siegfried Fruhauf, Péter Forgács.
  • IV. Diary and intimate film:
  • Thematization of everydayness, image of the body, feminist movies.
  • Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage, András Szirtés, Maya Deren, Carolee Schneeman, John Smith.
  • V. Self-reflective exploration of the nature of film, video and cinematography:
  • From Camera-Eye to net-art: light, film material, work of cinematographer, projection, expanded cinema, materialist film experiments, basic characteristics of the media, films-manifestos, reflection of film genres, remakes of avant-garde classics.
  • Marcel Duchamp, Peter Kubelka, Santiago Álvarez, Sueoka Ichiro, Jacques Perconte.
  • VI. Cinematographic practice of film essay and avant-garde:
  • Films that experiment with the means of expression in order to build a multilayered structure of meanings, political and self-reflective elements, combination of procedures of found footage, deeply subjective perspectives, reflection of the practice of representation and remediation.
  • Harun Farocki, Arthur Lipsett, Craig Baldwin, Mike Hoolboom.
Literature
    required literature
  • ČIHÁK, Martin: Ponorná řeka kinematografie. Praha: NAMU, 2014
  • HAGENER, Malte. Moving forward, looking back : the European avant-garde and the invention of film culture, 1919-1939. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007, 369 s. ISBN 9789053569610. info
  • SKOLLER, Jeffrey. Shadows, specters, shards: making history in avant-garde film [online]. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005 [cit. 2015-12-23]. Dostupné z: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/natl/Doc?id=10194389.
    recommended literature
  • MACDONALD, Scott: Avant-Doc: Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema. Oxford University Press 2014. ISBN 978-0199388714.
  • REEKIE, Duncan: Subversion: The Definitive History of Underground Cinema. Wallflower Press 2007. ISBN 978-1905674213
  • A critical cinema 5interviews with independent filmmakers. Edited by Scott MacDonald. London: University of California Press, 2006, x, 451 p. ISBN 0520245954. info
  • SMITH, Murray -, WARTENBERG, Thomas E. (eds.): Thinking through cinema: film as philosophy. Malden: Blackwell, 2006. ISBN 1-4051-5411-X.
  • SHIEL, Mark - FITZMAURICE, Tony: Screening The City. London: Verso, 2003. ISBN 978-1859844762
  • DO: revue pro dokumentární film. Jihlava: JSAF, 2003-2008. / vybrané kapitoly dle zadání v hodinách.
Teaching methods
Lectures and screenings.
Assessment methods
Written analyses.
Language of instruction
Czech
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course can also be completed outside the examination period.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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