Presentation Reflections & Absolute Film


I think Matthew was a perfect fit for Jonas Mekas and I like how he perfectly captured the energy of his pieces. Mekas has always been one of my favorite experimental filmmaker as I love the intimacy behind his home-video type style of film and the quick cuts he uses to show life events in a stream of conscious way. I always feel like I'm floating in another universe and getting a glimpse of someone else's being. It's so simple yet remarkably intimate.

Melody-Fayth's presentation on Viking Eggeling and Hans Richter was interesting too and I still can't help but wonder the exact nature of their relationship. How do you have such a close friendship splinter so quickly? They obviously kept each other's influence throughout the rest of the career. I wonder what their work would have looked like if they stayed friends and collaborated more. But then again, it's probably for the better that they didn't, as they both went on to pioneer early abstract animation.

Speaking of animation, Len Lye's "Rainbow Dance" has to be one of the most beautiful pieces of early animation that I have seen. The short was made in 1936 but the technique and skill of the short is way ahead of its time, making it appear to be on par with 1950's animation in my opinion. "Rainbow Dance" was also rather trippy, the multiple colors interlaced together in rotoscope was brilliant and gave me the sensory feeling that comes with dreaming. The commercialism in his films also surprisingly adds a very creative element to his work, and I feel like his work should be studied in business marketing classes as an example of how to integrate product endorsement without destroying the creative vision of the piece.

Harry Smith is so idiosyncratic in his filmmaking that I do not know what to talk about first. The pieces sampled in class felt like such a unique experience, and I have a great appreciation for his animation. I'm still amazed by how many layers of film stock he used to create his early abstract works. I can't imagine spending so much time painstakingly examining each frame, painting onto each frame, taking perhaps years to complete a single short. Watching his technique made me very interested in experimenting with film stock - I've never worked with film stock before and I feel like attempting to create an animation would give me much more appreciation for his work.

Having a more hands-on approach with film stock would also allow me to appreciate Absolute Film more too. I'll admit, when I first read the Moritz article, I didn't quite understand the concept of absolute film or the impact those like Eggeling and Richter had on film. But then, after sampling more absolute film work, the fluidity of the animation and the rhythm grew on me. Imagine painting shapes directly onto film strips while maintaining a rhythm, and one that is non-diegetic in the film. Imagining filmmakers struggling to experiment with such a medium has really opened my eyes but at the same time I am very glad that technology was so limited in the past. It led to great innovations in animation and I see some leftover influence of absolute leftover in films today.

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