University of California Press Hollywood Quarterly

Experimental Cinema in America (Part Two: The Postwar Revival)
Author(s): Lewis Jacobs

Source: Hollywood Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Spring, 1948), pp. 278-292
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1209699
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Experimental Cinema in America
LEWIS JACOBS
LEWIS JACOBS is a writer and director as well as
ical, documentary, educational, and
a film historian and critic. He is currently writing a
book on the structure and art of motion pictures training
for subjects for the first time and
Harcourt, Brace and Co., and acting as editor-in-chief
of ten monographs on the motion picture industry,
developed a taste for experimental and
to be called "The Film Reference Library," for the noncommercial techniques. Moreover,
Borden Publishing Company. thousands of film makers were devel-
Part One of "Experimental Cinema in America"
appeared in Volume III, Number 2, of the Holly- oped in the various branches of service.
wood Quarterly. The full article is to appear in a
forthcoming book, The Experimental Film, a collec-
Many of these, having learned to han-
tion of essays on the avant-garde cinema of America, dle motion picture and sound appara-
Britain, France, Russia, and other countries, edited
by Roger Manvell and published in England
tus, have begun to use their skills to
by the Grey Walls Press. seek out, through their own experi-
ments, the artistic potentialities of the
(PART Two: THE POSTWAR REVIVAL)
medium.
WHEN America entered the war the As the result of these two forces,
experimental film went into limbo, groups
but fostering art in cinema have
with the war's end there was a sharp appeared in various parts of the coun-
and unexpected outburst of interest try. One of the most active is headed by
and activity in experimental movies FrankinStauffacher and Richard Foster
all parts of the United States. Behind in San Francisco. With the assistance of
this phenomenal postwar revivalthe staff of the San Francisco Museum
were
two forces that had been set in motion of Art they were actually the first in
during the war years. The first was thethis country to assemble, document,
circulation of programs from the Film and exhibit on a large scale a series of
Library of the Museum of Modern Art,strictly avant-garde films. The spirited
at a nominal cost, to nonprofit groups.response to the series resulted in the
The Museum's collection of pictures publication of a symposium on the art
and its program notes on the history, of avant-garde films, together with pro-
art, and traditions of cinema went togram notes and references, called Art
hundreds of colleges, universities, mu-in Cinema. This book, a nonprofit pub-
seums, film-appreciation groups, and lication, is a notable contribution to
study groups. These widespread exhi- the growing body of serious film litera-
bitions, as well as the Museum of Mod- ture in this country.
ern Art's own showings in its theater in Among others advancing the cause
New York City, exerted a major influ- of experimental films are Paul Ballard,
ence in preparing the way for broader who organized innumerable avant-
appreciation and production of experi-garde film showings throughout south-
mental films. ern California, and the Creative Film
The second force was the entirelyAssociates and the People's Educa-
new and heightened prestige that filmtional Center, both of Los Angeles and
acquired through its service to the warequally energetic on the behalf of cre-
effort. New, vast audiences saw ideolog- ative cinema.
1 278
EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA IN AMERICA
279
To Maya Deren goes the credit
picture for
attests a unique gift for th
being the first since the medium. Sensitivity
end of the war and cinemat
awareness
to inject a fresh note into are expressed in the cuttin
experimental-
film production. Her four pictures-all
the camera angles, and the feeling fo
short, all silent, all in black and
pace and white-
movement.
have been consistently individual and At Land (1944), an
Her second film,
independent
striking. Moreover, she has effort, starts at a lonel
the organi-
zational ability to assurebeachthat film the waves, movin
upon which
groups, museums, schools, and little
in reverse, deposit a sleeping girl (Mi
Deren).
theaters see her efforts, and theShe slowly awakens, climbs
writing
skill to express her ideasdeadand
tree trunk-her
credosface in innocent and
magazine articles, books, and pam-
expectant, as though she were seeing
the world for the She
phlets which are well circulated. first time,-and arrives
is today, therefore, oneatof a banquet. There, completely ig-
the better-
known film experimenters. nored by the diners, she crawls along
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943),
the length of the dining table to a chess
Maya Deren's first picture, was made
game, snatches the queen, and sees it
in collaboration with Alexander Ham- fall into a hole. She follows it down
mid (co-director with Herbert Klinea of
precipitous slope to a rock forma-
the documentary films Crisis, Lights
tion where the queen is washed away
Out in Europe, and Forgotten Village).
to sea.
It attempted to show the way in which Writing about her intentions in

an apparently simple and casual occur-
film, Miss Deren said, "It present
rence develops subsconciously intorelativistic
a universe ... in which the
critical emotional experience. A girl
problem of the individual, as the sole
continuous element, is to relate herself
(acted by Miss Deren herself) comes
home one afternoon and falls asleep.
to a fluid, apparently incoherent, uni-
In a dream she sees herself returning
verse. It is in a sense a mythological
home, tortured by loneliness and frus-
voyage of the twentieth century."
tration and impusively committing sui-Fraught with complexities of ideas
cide. The story has a double climax,and
in symbols, the film's major cine-
which it appears that the imagined-the
matic value lay in its fresh contiguities
dream-has become the real. of shots, achieved through the tech-
The film utilizes nonactors-Miss nique of beginning a movement in one
Deren and Alexander Hammid-and place and concluding it in another.
Thus
the setting is their actual home. real time and space were de-
The
photography is direct and objective,
stroyed. In their place was created a
although the intent is to evoke acinematic
mood. time-space which enabled
unrelated persons, places, and objects
In this respect the film is not completely
to be related
successful. It skips from objectivity to and brought into a har-
subjectivity without transitionsmony or
of new meaning and form much
in the same way as a poem might
preparation and is often confusing.
achieve
But in the process of unreeling its own its effects through diverse as-
sociations or allegory.
meshes, despite some symbols borrowed
from Cocteau's Blood of a Poet, The
thecinematic conception underly-
280 HOLLYWOOD QUARTERLY
and the camera collaborate on the cre-
ing At Land was further exploited and
more simply pointed in the short film
ation of a single new work of art."
that followed: A Study in Choreogra- Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946),
phy for the Camera (1945). This pic-
Miss Deren's next effort, illustrated, in
ture, featuring the dancer Talley
her words, "a critical metamorphosis,
Beatty, opens with a slow pan ofthea changing of a widow into a bride.
birch-tree forest. In the distance the fig-
Its process, however, is not narrative
ure of a dancer is discovered; while the or dramatic, but choreographic. The
camera continues its circular pan, the attempt here is to create a dance film,
dancer is seen again and again, but not only out of filmic time and space
each time closer to the camera and in relations, but also out of nondance ele-
successive stages of movement. Finally,
ments. Except for the two leading per-
the dancer is revealed in close-up. Asformers, Rita Christiani and Frank
he whirls away (still in the woods), Westbrook, none of the performers are
there is a cut on his movement, which dancers, and save for a final sequence
the actual movements are not dance
completes itself in the next shot as he
lands in the Metropolitan Museum's
movements."
Egyptian Hall. There he begins a The dance quality is best expressed

pirouette; another cut, and he com-
in the heart of the picture, a party
scene. The party is treated as a chor-
pletes the movement in an apartment.
Another leap, another cut, and this eographic pattern of movements. Con-
time he continues the movement on a versational pauses and gestures are
eliminated, leaving only a constantly
high cliff overlooking a river. The next
leap is done in close-up with the move-
moving group of smiling, socially anx-
ment of actual flight carried far beyond
ious people striving to reach one an-
its natural duration by slow motion,other in a continuous ebb and flow of
motion.
thus gaining the effect of the dancer's
soaring nonhumanly through space.Miss Deren calls her picture a ritual.
The effect was not carried out quiteShe bases the concept upon the fact
that, "anthropologically speaking, a
fully, but it was an exciting and stimu-
lating demonstration of what could ritual
be is a form which depersonalizes
done in manipulating space and timeby use of masks, voluminous garments,
and motion. group movements, etc., and in so doing
fuses all elements into a transcendant
Dispensing with the limitations of
form (in actual space and time) upon
tribal power towards the achievement
choreography for the stage, the film
of some extraordinary grace ... usually
achieved a new choreography based
reserved for ... some inversion towards
upon the temporal and spatial re-life; the passage from sterile winter
sources of the camera and the cutting into fertile spring, mortality into im-
process. It was a new kind of film mortality, the child-son into the man-
dance, indigenous to the medium and father."
novel to the screen. John Martin, dance Such a change-"a critical metamor-
critic for the New York Times, called phosis"-takes place at the conclusion
it "the beginnings of a virtually new of the picture. After a dance duet
art of 'chorecinema' in which the dance which culminates the party, one of the
EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA IN AMERICA 281
uncertainties
dancers, whose role resembles that ofof Anger's other film.
Here, despite
a high priest, terrifies the widow when the difficulties of "forbid-
den"
he changes from a man into a statue.subject matter, the film's intensity
of imagery,
As she flees, he becomes a man again, the strength and preci-
pursuing her. Now the widow, inits
sion of theshots and continuity, pro-
black clothes seen at the opening, be- of imaginativeness and
duce an effect
comes, by means of anotherdaring honesty which on the screen is
cinematic
device-using the negative,-astartling.
bride in Ordinary objects-ornaments,
a Roman
a white gown. Upon a close-up of hercandle, a Christmas tree-
take on
metamorphosis the film abruptly extraordinary vitality when
ends.
In its intensity and complexity
AngerRitual
uses them suddenly, arbitrarily,
in Transfigured Time is an unusual
with almost explosive force, as symbols
offurther
accomplishment, as well as a the neurosis which springs from an
advance in power over Miss "ill-starred
Deren's sense of the grandeur of
previous uncommon efforts. catastrophe." The objectivity of the
Less concerned with cinematic form
style captures the incipient violence
and more with human conflict are the and perversion vividly, and the film
pictures of Kenneth Anger. Escape Epi- becomes a frank and deliberate expres-
sode (1946) begins with a boy and girl sion of personality. Consequently the
parting at the edge of the sea. As the film has a rare individuality which no
girl walks away she is watched by a literal summary of its qualities can
woman from a plaster castle. The castle communicate.
turns out to be a spiritualists' temple; Closely related in spirit and tech-
the woman, a medium and the girl's nique to Anger's Fireworks is Curtis
aunt. Both dominate and twist the Harrington's Fragment of Seeking
girl's life until she is in despair. Finally,
(1946-1947). This film has for its theme
the torture of adolescent self-love. A
in a gesture of defiance, the girl invites
the boy to the castle. The aunt,young in- man (acted by the film maker
formed by spirits, becomes enraged himself), troubled by the nature of his
and threatens divine retribution. The narcissism, yet all the time curiously
aware of the presence of girls, is seen
girl is frustrated, becomes bitter, and
resolves to escape. returning home. The long corridors,
The quality of the film is unique
the courtyard surrounded by walls, and
and shows an extreme sensitivity tothe cell-like room suggest a prison. The
personal relationships. But because boy, not quite understanding his agony,
the thoughts, feelings, and ideas of thethrows himself on his cot in despair.
film maker are beyond his command ofSuddenly he rouses himself, to discover
the medium, the effect is often fum- that a girl has entered his room. In a
bling and incomplete; the film's parts
violent gesture of defiance he responds
are superior to the whole. to her invitation. But at the moment
Fireworks (1947), however, which
of embracing her he is struck by a revul-
deals with the neurosis of a homosex- sion of feeling. He pushes her away,
ual, an "outcast" who dreams he is only to discover that she is not a girl
tracked down by some of his own group but a leering skeleton with blond
and brutally beaten, has none of the tresses. He stares incredulously, then
palm to
runs or rather whirls away in horror and a bust of a male on a tomb,"-
another room, where, seeing himself, exciting as it is in itself, emerges in
he is made to face the realization of his
isolation as arabesque.
own nature. The film's structure has a Like the films of Deren, Anger, and
singular simplicity. Unity and totalityHarrington, The Potted Psalm does
of effect make it comparable to some not
of attempt fiction, but expresses a
the stories by Poe. Through overtones, self-revelation. Like the other films, its
suggestions, and relations between its methods are still quite new to the
images it expresses with complete clar-medium.
ity and forthrightness a critical per-In spite of minor technical faults,

sonal experience, leaving the spectatoroccasional lack of structural incisive-
moved by the revelation. ness, and an overabundance of sexual
In the same vein but less concrete symbols, this group of film makers has
is The Potted Psalm (1947) by Sidneymoved boldly away from the electicism
Peterson and James Broughton. of This
the prewar experimental film. Their
films show little or no influence from
picture is the result of a dozen scripts,
each discarded for another, written the European avant-garde. They are
over a period of three months during attempting to create symbolic images-
the actual shooting of thousands of feet feeling images-and to thus increase
of film which eventually were cut down the efficacy of film language itself.
to less than three reels, of 148 parts. Strictly a fresh contribution, it may be
The ambiguity of the film's produc- christened with a phrase taken from
tion process is reflected on the screen. Maya Deren (New Directions No. 9,
What might have been an intense ex- 1946): "The great art expressions will
perience for the spectator remains an come later, as they always have; and
unresolved experiment by the film they will be dedicated, again, to the
makers in a "new method to resolve agony and experience rather than the
both myth and allegory." "The replace- incident." The "agony-and-experience
ment of observation by intuition film" ... of sums up succinctly the work of
an analysis by synthesis and of reality this group.
by symbolism," to quote the film Fundamentally, the films, although
makers, unfortunately results in intel- executed under diverse circumstances,
lectualizing to the point of abstraction.
reveal many qualities in common. First,
Pictorially, the film is strikingproperly,
and there is a real concern for the
stirs the imagination. Structurally, it
integrity of the film as a whole. Then,
has little cinematic cohesion. Shot after
there is a unanimity of approach: an
shot is polished, arresting symbol, but
objective style to portray a subjective
there is insufficient interaction and
conflict. There is no story or plot in the
hardly any progression that adds up conventional
to sense; no interest in lo-
organic form. As a consequence,cality the as such-backgrounds are place-
ornamental imagery-the "field ofless dryalthough manifestly the action of
the films takes place at a beach, in a
grass to the city, to the grave marked
'Mother' and made specific by the house,
ac- a room, the countryside, or the
cident of a crawling caterpillar, tostreets.
the For the most part the action is
form of a spiral, thence to a tattered
in the immediate present, the now, with
EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA IN AMERICA
283
a great proportion of the total action
for meaning, but for plastic beauty.
taking place in the mind
Theyof the
have theirchief
roots in the Eggling-
character. The films exploit dream
Richter-Ruttman European experi-
analysis, not unlike the ments
works of
of the some
early 'twenties, the first
attemptswriters.
of the more advanced younger to create relationships be-
In the main, the "agony-and-experi-
tween plastic forms in movement.
ence" films constitute personal state- and accom-
The most sophisticated
plished member
ments concerned exclusively with the of the nonobjective
school
doings and feelings of the filmis Oscar
makersFischinger, already re-
themselves. In none of the films does ferred to.' Formerly a disciple of Walter
the film maker assume an omniscient Ruttman, the outstanding pre-Hitler
attitude. The camera is nearly always German experimenter, and a leader in
upon the film maker himself-Maya the European avant-garde, Fischinger,
Deren, Kenneth Anger, Curtis Harring- in America for the past ten years, has
ton-or upon his filmic representatives been working steadily on the problems
or symbols. Yet the central characters of design, movement, color, and sound.
are not specific individuals, but Believing
ab- that "the creative artist of
tract or generalized types. In becoming the highest level always works at his
acquainted with the types the spectator best alone," his aim has been "to pro-
apprehends areas of maladjustment.duce only for the highest ideals-not
The problem of adjustment is at the thinking in terms of money or sensa-
thematic core of all the films in this tions or to please the masses."
group. Sometimes it applies to sexual In addition to a color sequence for
morality and the conflict of adolescent Disney based on Bach's Toccata and
self-love and homosexuality; sometimes Fugue that was ultimately eliminated
it applies to racial or other social ten-from the released version of Fantasia,
sions. In portraying psychological dis-Fischinger has made three other color
turbances the film makers are striving pictures in this country: Allegretto, an
for an extension of imaginative as well abstraction based on jazz; Optical
as objective reality that promises a rich,Poem, based on Liszt's Second Hun-
new, filmic development. garian Rhapsody, for Metro-Goldwyn-
Another group of experimental film Mayer; and An American March, based
makers, since the war's end, are carryingon Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever.
on the nonobjective school of abstract Fischinger calls his pictures "abso-
film design. To this group the medium lute film studies." All represent the
is not only an instrument, but an end flood of feeling created through music
in itself. They seek to employ abstract in cinematic terms, by color and
images, color, and rhythm, as experi-graphic design welded together in pat-
ences in themselves, apart from theirterns of rhythmic movement. He ma-
power to express thoughts or ideas. nipulates the simplest kinds of shapes-
They are exclusively concerned with the square, the circle, the triangle-
so organizing shapes, forms, and colors along a curve of changing emotional
in movement that out of their relation-
patterns suggested by the music and
ships comes an emotional experience. 1 In "Experimental Cinema in America,
Their aim is to manipulate images notPart I," Hollywood Quarterly, Vol. III, No. 2.
to an optical wedge in a recording box.
based upon the laws of musical form.
Thus he creates a unique structural
This wedge is caused to oscillate over a
form of his own in which can be sensed light slit by the movement of the swing-
rocket flights, subtly molded curves,ing pendulums, which can be operated
delicate gradations, as well as tight,separately, together, or in selected com-
pure, classical shapliness. All are combinations. The frequency of the pen-
posed in complex movement with dulums can be "tuned" or adjusted to
myriad minute variations and witha full range of audio frequencies.
superb technical control. One of the Their motion, greatly reduced in size,
few original film makers, Fischinger is recorded on motion picture film as
represents the first rank of cinematicpattern which, in the sound projector,
expression in the nonobjective school.generates tone. Both image and sound
Like Fischinger, John and Jamescan easily be varied and controlled.
Whitney are keenly interested in the Thus far the Whitneys have pro-
problems of abstract color, movement,duced five short films, which they call
and sound. However, they feel that the "exercises," conceived as "rehearsals
image structure should dictate or in- for a species of audiovisual perform-
spire the sound structure, or bothances." All are nonrepresentational,
should be reached simultaneously andmade up of geometric shapes, flat and
have a common creative origin. There-contrasting in color, poster-like in pat-
fore, instead of translating previously tern, moving on the surface of the
composed music into some visual equiv-screen or in perspective by shifting,
alent, they have extended their workinterlacing, interlocking and intersect-
into the field of sound and of sound ing, fluent and alive in changing waves
composition. A special techniqueof color. The sound rises and falls, ad-
has
resulted after five years of constantvancing
ex- and receding in beats and
perimentation. tones with the formally designed mov-
Beginning with conventional meth-
ing images.
Cold and formal in structure, the
ods of animation, the Whitney brothers
evolved a process which permits un-
Whitneys' exercises are warm and di-
limited control of images and a verting
new in effect. As distinctive experi-
ments in an independent cinematic
kind of sound track. First, they com-
pose a thematic design in a black-and-
idiom they offer possibilities within the
abstract film that have still to be ex-
white sketch. Then, using an optical
printer, pantograph, and color filters,
plored. They suggest opportunities for
more complex and plastic ensembles
they develop the sketch cinematically
in movement and color. Multiple ex-that can be endowed with power and
posures, enlarging, reducing, andrichness.
in-
verting enable them to achieve an in- A more intuitive approach to non-
finite variety of compositions in time
objective expression is manifested in
and space. the fragmentary color films of Douglas
Their sound is entirely synthetic,
Crockwell: Fantasmagoria, The Chase,
a product of their own ingenuity. and Glenn Falls Sequence. These pic-
Twelve pendulums of various lengthstures might be called "moving paint-
are connected by means of steel wires
ings." Shape, color, and action of
House of Cards-Joseph Vogel
Ritual in Transfigured Time-Maya Deren
Introspection-i-ara Arledge
Dreams That Money Can Buy-Hans Richter
Sidney Peterson-The Cage
Production by Workshop Twenty, California School of Fine Arts
Forest Murmurs
Slavko Vorkapich
changing abstract forms are film based on the theme of the "un-
deliber-
folding of
ately improvised. Full of vagaries, theya dance pattern in the con-
are worked into a situation and out of scious mind of the dancer." Technical
difficulties and lack of funds made it
it by the feeling and imagination of the
film maker at the moment of composi-necessary to present the work as a series
tion, motivated solely by the "play andof loosely connected technical and
hazard of raw material." aesthetic experiments.
Crockwell's technique is an exten-
In the words of Miss Arledge, "effec-
sion of the methods of animation. His tive planning of a dance film has little
in common with stage choreography....
first efforts, the Fantasmagoria series,
were made with an overhead camera The effective movements of a dancer
in film are not necessarily those most

and the surface of a piece of glass upon
satisfactory on the stage." No recog-
which oil colors were spread in mean-
ingless fashion. The colors were ani-
nizable patterns of dance choreography
mated with stop motion. As the work
are seen in this picture. There are none
progressed, colors were added,of
re-
the contiguities of shots indicated in
moved, and otherwise manipulatedthe bydance experiment by Maya Deren;
razor blades, brushes or fingers, norasare any of the various methods of
whim dictated. In a later picture, animation
The used. Instead, disembodied
Chase, nondrying oils were mixed with
parts of dancers are seen moving freely
the colors, other glass levels were
in black space. Dancers wear tights
added, and-which was most impor-blacked out except for particular
tant-the painting surface was shiftedparts-the hand, arm, shoulder, torso,
to the underside of the glass. Thisor last
the entire body,-which are specially
colored and form a moving and rhyth-
gave a finished appearance to the paint
in all stages. In Glenn Falls Sequence,
mic three-dimensional design of semi-
his most recent effort, air brush andabstract shapes. The problem created
pantograph were used, and motionby was
the screen's reducing the dancer to
given to the various glass panels. Also,
a two dimensional-figure was overcome
a new method of photography was byin-
ingenious use of wide-angle lens, a
troduced-shooting along the incident convex reflecting surface, special light-
rays of the light source. This eliminated
ing effects, slow motion, and multiple
superfluous shadows in the lower exposures.
glass
levels. The result is a kind of abstraction, a
The distinguishing trait of Crock-
completely new visual experience espe-
cially heightened when two or three
well's pictures is their spontaneity. Sen-
suous in color, fluid in composition,colored forms are juxtaposed in mul-
the abstractions occasionally move tiple
into exposure. The use of color is
action that is dramatic or humorous, striking and unlike color in any other
the more so for its unexpectedness. experiment thus far. Although episodic
Markedly different in approach, and incomplete, Introspection is origi-
technique, and style from the pictures
nal in style. Its departure in technique
suggests new directions in unconven-
of the other nonobjectivists is the film
by Sara Arledge called Introspection.tional and abstract cinema.
The original plan called for a dance These experiments in nonobjective
films reveal the rich possibilities tic
forfor general release." Both films ex-
press a poet's love for nature and a
the most part still unexplored in this
field. Their development will come film maker's regard for cinematic ex-
pression. Extraordinary camerawork
about through a constantly increasing
command over more varied forms and captures a multitude of intimate im-
plastic means. As structural design pressions
be- of the forest and sea. Animals,
comes more and more paramount,
birds, trees, water, mist, sky-the essence
color more sensuous and complex,
and flavor of natural phenomena is
captured in striking visual sequences
movement and sound more firmly knit
into the continuity, simple decorationthe structural form of which blends
rhythmically with that of the sym-

will give way to deeper aspects of film
form. phonic music. In the rich interplay of
A third group of experimentalists theattwo forms to increase emotion and
work today aim at the exact opposite intensity of sensation Vorkapich's tal-
of the nonobjective school. Theyent at-for agile cinematic expression and
tempt to deal not with subjective his ex-poetic vision are revealed.
periments, but with objective reality. Somewhat similar in its feeling for
Unlike the documentary film makers, nature and form is Storm Warning,
they seek to make personal observa- photographed and directed by Paul
tions and comments on people, nature, Burnford. This picture is a dramatiza-
or the world around them. Concern for tion of weather and the forecasting of
aesthetic values is uppermost. While a storm that sweeps across the United
the subjects in themselves may be
States. Made as a two-reeler, it was pur-
slight, they are given importance by
chased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and
the form and dramatic intensity of ex-distributed, after reediting, as two sepa-
pression and the perception of the film
rate one-reel pictures.
maker. The intact version of Storm Warning
The most widely known of the testifies to a discerning eye for signifi-
group, because of his "montages," iscant detail, high skill in photography,
Slavko Vorkapich. Ever since he col-and an individual sense of cinematic
laborated on A Hollywood Extra2 backconstruction. From the opening se-
in 1928, Vorkapich has been interestedquence, which shows the inadequacy
in film as an artistic medium of ex-
of primitive man to cope with weather,
the picture comes alive. It proceeds
pression. In his fifteen years of working
in Hollywood studios he has tried re-beautiful and expressive shots of
with
peatedly, but without success, to get
people at work, of wind, of rain, snow,
persons in the industry to finance ex- rivers, ships, streets-the tender-
clouds,
periments. ness and the turbulence of weather in
Independently he has made its
twoeffects on modern man. The whole
shorts-pictorial interpretations2The
ofsection on "A Hollywood Extra" in
Wagner's Forest Murmurs and "Experimental
Men- Cinema in America," Part I,
failed to note that in addition to co-directing
delssohn's Fingal's Cave (in collabora-
the film with Robert Florey, Slavko Vorkapich
tion with John Hoffman). Forest Mur-
designed, photographed, and edited it. The
murs was bought by Metro-Goldwyn- close-ups were shot by Greg Toland, today one
Mayer, but was withheld as "too of artis-
Hollywood's outstanding cameramen.
citement.
is made highly dramatic through Furthermore, each of the
selec-
shots becomes
tive camera angles and camera move- progressively darker, so
ments cut for continuous flow and that when the storm reaches its highest
varied rhythms. pitch there is almost a natural fade-out.
Immediately following is a fade-in
The highlight of the picture is the
approaching storm and its climax. on the quiet aftermath. In extreme con-
trast to the violent movement and
This begins with a feeling of apprehen-
darkness of the preceding shots, the
sion. We see leaves, paper, windmills,
and trees blowing in the wind, screen
each now shows an ice-covered tele-
graph
shot moving progressively faster, all pole, sparkling with the sun-
movement in the same direction, cre- light's reflected rays like a star. This is
ating a feeling of mounting intensity. followed by white, scintillating shots
Then, just before the storm breaks, a of ice-covered trees that sway with a
forecaster pencils in the storm line on gentle motion in the breeze. The scenes
a weather map. There is a huge close- take on added beauty by the juxtapo-
up of the forecaster's black pencil ap- sition of extreme contrasts.
proaching the lens. The black pencil Throughout, the music accentuates
quickly dissolves into a black storm the emotion. At the climax of the storm
cloud moving at the same relative the music and the natural sound effects
speed in the same direction, out of rage against each other, clashing, fight-
which flashes a streak of lightning. ing for power. But in the storm's after-
The climax of the storm is reached math, all natural sounds cease and the
when a girl on a city street is caught music
in becomes only background, so
a blizzard. Her hair is violently blown.
soft that it is scarcely heard, as delicate
She covers her head to protect herself and crystal-like as the ice-covered trees.
from the wind. This movement is an The picture is forceful and moving.
upward one. And from this point The on- spectator seems actually to partic-
ward no more persons appear, but only ipate in what is taking place on the
nature in all its violence. The succeed- screen and is swept along on a rising
ing shots are of the sea crashing againsttide of emotion. The extraordinary fa-
a stone wall in upward movements, cility and command of expression that
permeate Storm Warning make it a
progressively quicker, and as each wave
breaks it fills more and more of the notable contribution to experimental
screen until the last wave obliterates cinema.
everything from view. When the last Another film maker experimenting
wave crashes into the camera, the up-in this field of observation and com-
ward movements which the spectator ment is Lewis Jacobs. Tree Trunk to
has come to expect are now suddenly Head was a study of Chaim Gross, the
abandoned, and the final three shots of
modern sculptor, at work in his studio
the sequence-a burst of lightning, carving a head out of the trunk of a
trees violently blowing, and furiously
tree. The personality of the sculptor,
swirling water-move respectively his mannerisms, his characteristic
downward, horizontally, and circu- method of work, and his technique are
larly. The sudden contrast to the intimately disclosed-a sort of candid-
upward movement intensifies the cameraex- study. Dramatic form and cine-
matic structure give the presentation

inary drawing for a portrait. Posing for
excitement, humor, and interest. him is his model. Thus begins the body
The basic structural element of the of the film, which, in contrast to the
film is movement. The shots and the introduction, is made up of static shots
action within the shots are all treated treated as part of a design in move-
as modifications of movement and as- ment by leaving the action within each
pects of movement. The introduction,
shot uncompleted. Each shot is cut on
which deals with inanimate objects-a point of action and continued in the
next shot. No shot is held beyond its
finished works of Gross' sculpture,-is
single point in an effort to instill a
given movement by a series of pans and
tilts. These camera movements are re-
lively internal tempo.
peated in various directions to createA subsidiary design of movement is
a pattern of motion. The sizes and made up from combinations of sizes
shapes of the sculpture in these shots
and shapes of the subject matter. It is
are likewise arranged and edited achieved
in through repetition, progres-
patterns of increasing and diminishing
sion, or contrast of close-ups, medium
progression, to create a sense of motion.
shots, and long shots of the sculptor at
The climax of this sequence presents work. A third design is based upon the
a series of statues with highly polished direction of the action within the shots
waxed surfaces. Unlike those which in terms of patterns of down, up, to
precede them, they are given no camera the left or to the right. Sometimes these
movement, but achieve movement are contrasted or repeated, depending
through a progression of diminishing on the nature of the sculptor's activity.
scale and tempo. The first statue fills By strict regard for tempo in these
the entire screen frame; the second, intermediary designs the over-all struc-
four-fifths; the third, three-quarters;ture maintains a fluid, rhythmic inte-
and so on down the scale until the final gration.
statue-a figurine about the size of a Sunday Beach, another film by Lewis
hand-stands at the very bottom of the Jacobs, tells the story of how people
screen. These shots are all cut progres- spend their Sunday on the beach-any
sively shorter, so that the effect is public
a beach. The camera observes
speeding downward movement to the families, adolescents, children, and the
lonely ones arriving in battered cars,
bottom of the screen. Suddenly the final
shot of the sequence looms up, coveringin buses, and on foot, setting up their
the entire screen frame. In contrast tolittle islands of umbrellas and blankets,
the glistening statues we have just
undressing and removing their outer
seen, this is a massive, dull tree trunk garments, relaxing, bathing, reading,
slowly revolving to reveal a bark of eating, gambling, playing, lovemaking,
rough, corrugated texture and imply- sleeping, quarreling, and returning
home, to leave the beach empty again
ing in effect that all those shiny smooth
works of art originated from this crude,
at the end of the day.
dead piece of wood. The picture was photographed with-
From the tree trunk the camera pansout the subjects' being aware of the
slowly to the right to include thecamera. By the use of long-focus
sculptor at work behind it on a prelim-lenses-four, six, and twelve inches-
and other subterfuges
theof candid-
essential details of expression,
camera photography it was possible
movement, to
and gesture.
The subjects
capture the fleeting honesty of unob- of Bouchard's four
danceof
served activity. The effect films
theare:un-
The Shakers, based on
posed and realistic detail isprimitive
the revealing American theme of re-
and often moving. ligious ecstacy, by Doris Humphrey
Since the subject matter
andcould
Charles at no
Weidman and their group;
the Flamenco
point be staged or controlled-had to dancers, Rosario and
be stolen, so to speak-a formal
Antonio; thedesign
"queen of gypsy dancers,"
as originally planned could
Carmen Amaya;
not be and Hanya Holm's
Golden Fleece. many
executed without eliminating
A versatile
happy accidents of natural behavior.and sensitive photogra-
The preliminary plan had
pher, to
Bouchard
be ad-shows a feeling for
justed to allow the material picturesque
itselfcomposition,
to expressive
dictate the structure. The aim then movement, and a preference for deep,
acid colors. His films show none of the
was so to cut the picture that the under-
lying structural design would be sense
inte-for "chorecinema" expressed in
grated with the spontaneity of theDeren's A Study in Choreography
Maya
for
subject and the intervention of the the Dancer, nor the awareness of
film maker would not be apparent. abstract distortion for the sake of de-
Like the nonobjective film makers,
sign apparent in Sara Arledge's Intro-
this group of what might be calledspection, but indicate rather a natural
"realists" are essentially formalists.
sensitiveness and a productive camera.
Essentially, his pictures are reproduc-
But, unlike the former, they are striv-
ing for a convincing reality in which
tions of dance choreography, not filmic
the means are not the end, but the re-creations. His search is not for an
process by which human values are individual filmic conception, but for
projected. What is essential in that
a rendering of fleeting movement.
process is that it should have individu-More recently, Bouchard has turned
ality and should express the film mak-to painters and painting for subjects of
er's perception of the world in which his films. The New Realism of Fernand
he lives. Leger and Jean Helion-One Artist at
Thomas Bouchard is a film maker Work are his latest efforts. The Leger
who follows none of the tendenciesfilm yet has a commentary by the artist
defined. He has been working inde-
himself and music by Edgar Varese.
Theofintention of this film is to give
pendently, with all the difficulties
restricted space and income, sincean account of the new painting that
about 1938. His first experiments Leger
in did while in America and to
film (influenced by his work in show
still its place in the development of
modern art. It is experimental in its
photography) dealt with the contempo-
rary dance. His purpose was not to
personal approach. Leger is shown
film the narration of the dance, butleisurely
to gathering materials and ideas
catch those movements at which the for his canvases as he wanders in the
dancer has lost awareness of routine and streets of New York and the country-
measure and the camera is able to seize side of New Hampshire. Then he is
their dreams,
shown at work, revealing his method of then sends them back in
"satisfying
abstraction as he draws and paints his doubt" of whether the in-
impressions of the motifs he has nerfound.
world is not just as real as the outer
The Helion film follows a similar one, and more satisfying.
approach, with the painter as his own Each of the visions in the inner eye
is a color sequence directed after sug-
narrator and a score by Stanley Bates.
gestions, drawings, and objects of the
Like the Leger film, it is relaxed and
five artists. Man Ray contributed an
intimate, done in the style of the photo
story. original script. Leger contributed a
In these, as in the dance films, the version of American folklore: the love
medium serves mainly as a recording story of two widow manikins; it is
instrument. Bouchard's camera has a accompanied by the lyrics of John
distinctive rhetoric, but it is the rhet-Latouche. A drawing by Max Ernst in-
oric of still photography. spired the story of the "passion and
Looming up significantly, and now desire of a young man listening to the
dreams
in the final stages of editing or scoring, of a young girl." Paul Bowles
are pictures by Hans Richter,3 Joseph wrote the music, and Ernst supplied
a stream-of-consciousness monologue.
Vogel, and Chester Kessler. These films
might be classified as examples ofMarcel
a Duchamp contributed his color
combined subjective-objective style. records and a "life animation" of his
famous painting, Nude Descending a
They deal with facets of both the outer
and the inner life and rely upon the Staircase. John Cage did the music.
contents of the inward stream of con-
Man Ray's story is a satire on movies
sciousness-a source more and more and movie audiences, in which the
audience imitates the action on the
used for the material of experimental
film makers. screen. Darius Milhaud wrote the score.
The most ambitious productionAlexander
is Calder's mobiles are treated
as a "ballet in the universe." Music by
the feature-length color film, Dreams
That Money Can Buy, directed by Edgar Varese accompanies it. Richter's
Hans Richter, the famous European own sequence, the last in the film, tells
a Narcissus story of a man who meets
avant-garde film pioneer. In produc-
tion for almost two years, the picture
his alter ego, discovers that his real face
is blue, and becomes an outcast from
will be a "documentation of what mod-
ern artists feel." In addition to Richter,
society.
five artists-Max Ernst, Fernand Leger,The total budget for Dreams That
Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Alex- Money Can Buy was less than fifteen
ander Calder-contributed five "sce- thousand dollars, less than the cost
of a Hollywood-produced black-and-
narios" for five separate sequences.
Richter supplied the framework whichwhite one-reel "short." Artist and
ties all the material together. movie maker, Richter feels that the
lack of great sums of money is a chal-
The picture tells the story of seven
lenge to the ingenuity of the film
persons who come to a heavenly psy-
chiatrist to escape the terrible strugglemaker. "If you have no money," he
says, "you have time-and there is
for survival. The psychiatrist looks
into their eyes and sees the images of3 Released.
nothing you cannot do withthe typicaltime
bam-wham andcartoons. They
effort." are original illustrations drawn with
A second picture in the offing
extraordinary is Sensitive
imagination.
House of Cards by Joseph Vogel,tone,
to screen shape, space, a and de-
modern painter. This film sign, attempts
Kessler makes theto commonplace
delineate the thin thread fantastic
of reality by juxtaposing
thatits elements
maintains the precarious balance
and relating of locales,
them to unlikely
sanity in a modern, high-pressure
achieving a subjective transformation
world. Vogel has called it "aappearances.
of its reflection
In addition
in the tarnished mirror held up bytoour
these almost com-
daily press." pleted films there are others in various

"I realized," Vogel said, "that the stages of productions. Except for Hor-
very nature of the story called for a de- ror Dream by Sidney Peterson, with an
parture from conventional approach. original score by John Cage, they are
I felt that the picture must assume a nonobjective experiments: Absolute
style of its own, determined by its Films 2,3,4 by Harry Smith, Transmu-
imagery, its stylized action and acting, tation by Jordan Belson, Meta by Rob-
and a kind of stream-of-consciousness ert Howard, and Suite 12 by Harold
autopsy performed on the brain ofMcCormick
its and Albert Hoflich.
principal character." Perhaps the most encouraging signs

So deliberately free an approach
that the experimental film has gained
a new enhanced status are the financial
afforded Vogel the opportunity of cre-
ating pictorial elements out of hisaids
ex- granted to film makers by two
major foundations in the fields of art
perience as a painter and graphic artist.
His own lithographs serve as settings
and science. In 1946 the John Simon
for a number of backgrounds. AidedGuggenheim Memorial Foundation
by John and James Whitney, the non-
awarded a grant (approximately $2,500)
objective film makers, he devised
for afurther experimental film work to
masking technique in conjunction with Maya Deren. The same year, the Whit-
the optical printer to integrate litho-
ney brothers received a grant from the
graphs with live action into an archi-Solomon Guggenheim Foundation. In
tectural whole. 1947, the Whitneys received a second
A third picture nearing completion grant from the John Simon Guggen-
is Chester Kessler's Plague Summer,heiman Memorial Foundation.
animated cartoon film adapted fromBy its contributions and accomplish-
Kenneth Patchen's novel, The Journal ments the experimental film has had
of Albion Moonlight. It is a record and
of will continue to have an effect on
motion picture progress and on the
a journey of six allegorical characters
through landscapes brutalized by war appreciation of motion pictures as a
and "the chronicle of an inner voyage medium of expression. Many of those
through the mental climate of a sensi-who have begun as experimental film
tive artist in the war-torn summer of makers have gone on to make their
1940." contribution in other fields of film
The drawings for this film made by work. The horizon of Hollywood film
Kessler share nothing in common with makers has been broadened and they
292 HOLLYWOOI QUARTERLY
have often incorporated ideas

Today, a new gleaned
spirit of independence
originality,But
from experimental efforts. and experiment
even in film
more than this, some experimental
making has begun to assert itself. Th
films must be considered as works of old European avant-garde influenc
art in their own right. Despite short-and technique can still be seen, bu
comings and crudities, they have as- many have begun to reach out for mor
sumed more and not less importance indigenous forms and styles. The film
are compelling in terms of their own
with the passage of time. All over the
standards and aims and each beats the
country, in colleges, universities, and
museums, experimental films, old and drum for the experimenter's right to
new, are being revived and exhibited self-expression. The future for experi-
over and over again. Such exhibitionsmental films is more promising than
create new audiences, stimulate criti-
ever before.
cism, and inspire productions.

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Experimental Cinema in America (Part Two: The Postwar Revival)

Author(s): Lewis Jacobs

It attempted to show the way in which Writing about her intentions in

Egyptian Hall. There he begins a The dance quality is best expressed

ity and forthrightness a critical per-In spite of minor technical faults,

Ritual in Transfigured Time-Maya Deren

Dreams That Money Can Buy-Hans Richter

in film are not necessarily those most

rhythmically with that of the sym-

matic structure give the presentation

daily press." pleted films there are others in various

principal character." Perhaps the most encouraging signs

have often incorporated ideas

cism, and inspire productions.

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