Week Twelve (Monday 4-21-08)

Both of the films we watched in class this week involved JFK in some way. Ant Farm's Media Burn had a JFK impersonator playing an "artist president". This was much lighter than the second film involving JFK. Bruce Connor's Report was a very odd, yet very intense film about Kennedy's assassination. The film was unconventional throughout. It was essentially a document of the assassination, just done in a very non-traditional way. Probably the oddest section of the film for me at least was when the film didn't actually show us anything at all. It was just blank frames with a black flicker backed up by audio of the actual assassination. We hear a reporter or newsman commentating in terror as the assassination played out. The flicker was very rapid and was difficult to look at for a long period of time. But perhaps this was Connor's intention. Instead of actually showing us the footage of JFK being shot, having this white screen with a rapid flicker is more subliminally unsettling. I mean, obviously, actually seeing the assassination would certainly be disturbing, but I think that this choice to not show anything makes us try and envision the scene for ourselves - which in some cases can be just as disturbing. The second half of the film was equally as odd. We saw several images that had nothing to do with Kennedy's assassination - a bullfight, a 60s refrigerator commercial. The bullfight, for example, could be taken as a symbol for the killing of JFK. The bull, like Kennedy, was essentially innocent and unaware that it would be killed. We see a shot of the bull being speared, and it is visually disturbing. This is a counter-balance to the blank screen from the first half of the film. In that, we didn't see the killing but with the bull, we do see the killing. Also, another violent image was quickly shown in the second half of the film - the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. This could have been inserted for many reasons. I personally think this is some kind of comment of the endless cycle of violence in our culture. The killer himself is killed by someone who thus becomes a killer. Overall, Report, was a very unique document or artistic look at one of the most controversial and iconic events in American history.

Week Eleven (Monday 4-14-08)

ANDY WARHOL

He was involved in many different areas of art - painting, filmmaking, writing, and even music producing. His range is so wide it is difficult to just talk about one or two aspects of his art career. However, he is probably best known for his painting and filmmaking. He was a central figure in the movement known as Pop Art, and his painting played a big role in that.

Point 1
As a Pop Artist, Warhol's paintings contained images from cartoons and advertisements of the time (1960s). One of his most famous Pop Art paintings was the Campbell's Soup cans.

Point 2
Warhol is said to have a unifying element of deadpan style in all of his work. He would also play "dumb" for the media and refuse to explain his work. He was famous for saying that everything you need to know about him and his work is already there, "on the surface". He had a series of "do it yourself" paintings and Rorschach blots that were said to be pop comments about art and what art could be.

Point 3
Here is Warhol's Campbell's Soup painting:

As a music producer, Warhol worked with The Velvet Underground and created their first album cover:

Week Ten (Monday 4-7-08)

Frampton's formula for determining what a film is about is an interesting concept. He basically says that a film is about whatever appears most often in it. This can be applied to many films, but I don't think it always works. Certainly, many narrative films are about much more than just what appears frequently in them. However, regarding the films we saw in class this week, Frampton's idea is applicable. In Dorsky's film, Love's Refrain, there is definitely a common thread I noticed. This thread runs throughout the entire film. In many shots, we are shown living things in their various forms - people, animals, and nature. I think this is really what Dorsky's film is about. A good number of his shots contain average people going about their daily lives (almost as if they don't even know they're being filmed). There were also many shots of birds (some perched, some flying). And then Dorsky made use of several nature shots - these were of trees as well as various plants and vegetation. I think he was just trying to capture life from as many different angles, both figuratively and literally. The former was covered by having different types/species of life while the latter was accomplished by using a variety of actual camera angles. In between these shots, there were others that captured such things as buildings. I can't quite remember what else Dorsky shot but I definitely remember that he had a few shots of what looked like apartment complexes. Perhaps these shots supplemented the life shots. First off, in an obvious way, these shots were transitions between the others. Secondly, there might have been a deeper reason for Dorsky to use these shots. Maybe he was trying to show the habitats of the various forms of life. He shows us apartment complexes, which house people. He shows us natural spaces, which house all forms of nature. And he shows us trees and other places were birds perch and make their homes.

I think that these facts do help me understand the film better. Since I have some idea of what Dorsky was trying to do, the film itself has more meaning. It doesn't seem like just a bunch of different shots strung together for no apparent reason. The fact that the film had no soundtrack made watching the images a much more delicate affair. It had a slight calming effect, I think. Overall, I feel like I have a fairly good grasp on what Dorsky was doing with Love's Refrain. And Frampton's formula absolutely plays a major role in that.

Week Nine (Monday 3-31-08)

James Benning, if anything, was definitely unique. If I hadn't been previously informed, I would have never guessed that a visiting filmmaker would perform a math demonstration. The fact that he used math as a way of articulating a sense of art was interesting. He made some points that made sense to me and a few that didn't. But I think that's okay - I don't think that the demonstration was meant for everyone to understand in its entirety. His connection between math and art was occasionally not clear, but that might be because of the way that he performed. Benning jumped from concept to concept quite rapidly, not always finishing one idea. I did, however, really connect with his work with the square root of 2 proof. The main point of that proof was the idea of solving a complex problem through very simple means. I liked that. I can absolutely see applying that to an art form, especially filmmaking. If one is having trouble with a certain aspect of filmmaking that seems too complicated, there is most likely a simple way of getting around it. I would consider myself to be fairly proficient with math, so most of the equations he did made sense to me. Although, despite this, math is not one of my favorite things - I might have been good with it, but I never really liked it. It may have been a little easier for me to understand his concepts than someone who was less proficient with math, but I don't think that was the point. It doesn't matter who is better at math, Benning's point could be received by anyone, regardless of his or her math skill. Like we said in discussion, people got what they wanted to from Benning's performance. I definitely liked how Benning never directly related math to art - it was more abstract. I think that this made the performance more interesting. It forced to audience (if they wanted) to think about Benning's concepts and work out for themselves what it all meant. The idea of coming full circle was a good way to end the performance. I only wish that Benning had been my math teacher.