Question due 1/20/09

1. According to Sitney, the main differences between the films deal in the motivation of each of the images. In Meshes of the Afternoon the heroin encounters objects that are capable of revealing truths of the mystery of ones self, Un Chien Andalou "depends on the mad on the power of the film to evoke a mad voyeurism and to imitate the very discontinuity , the horror, and irrationality of the unconscious." While Derens film explicitly simulates a dream experience by showing a situation, having the heroin fall asleep, and then exploring the dream itself; Un Chien Andalou is dreamlike because of the realness and ferocity of its images, ie. the eyeball slicing scene.
Differences also lie in the presentation of the violence. Andalou presents us with a broken, unstable, violent world with no reference to a "more conventional actuality" while Meshes offers and extended view of the mind with ambivalence between stable actuality and unconscious violence.
The two films also differ in terms of their use of metaphors. While Andalou is full of them Meshes repeats each symbolic object so that it's purpose (both figuratively and literally) becomes obvious by the end of the film.
Space is also used differently as Andalou uses deep space along all four lateral directions while Meshes only uses depth in the subjective shots.

2. One characteristic of the american psychodrama of the 1940s is it's dealings with a visionary experience. It's protagonist are somnambulists who "wander through a potent environment towards a climactic scene of self realization." The protagonist also has to remain detached from what he is confronted with thus there can be no character interaction in these films. "The protagonist passes invisibly among people, dramatic landscapes to a climactic confrontation with ones self and ones past.

3. In describing Choreography for Camera uses the term "imagist" to describe isolating a single gesture as a complete film form. Imagism in poetry refers to the use of imagery and clear, precise, and sharp language. In film it refers to the use of clear and precise shots where lateral or foreign material is introduced around a central action without completely disrupting it's continuity or unity.

4. Sitney states the Ritual in Transfigured Time represents a transition between the psychodrama and the "architectonic" film. This would refer to use of architecture or musical/poetic structure in a film.

5. The way Sitney describes Ritual in Transfigured Time is pretty much the same way I would have described it, albeit a more verbose description. I did not, however, give much thought to the intricacies of the crowd scene and how much direction that would have taken on Derens part. I do not recall catching the connection between the widow entering the water and then becoming dressed as the mans bride, though I would probably need to see it again. I feel my biggest problem with the film was when the man was changing from a statue to a person because I felt it was over stylized to the point of being campy; though that could be more of a technical issue more than anything.


6. What Sitney is saying in the paragraph is that there is a set model for how subjective films worked in that time period. When the camera is showing a specific scene, it's actually showing a scene inside the filmmakers (and coincidently the films subjects) mind. By showing pictures and other objects they simply further this model by showing things that the filmmaker would have thought of.


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