Category Archives: avant-garde

The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes

The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes is a 1971 American film by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage. The film focuses on the relations between documentary and fantasy in what may be called a limit experience. The film consists of a series of autopsies in a Pittsburgh morgue and have been described as hard to watch.

Only recommended for very strong stomachs. Here on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIjkIJvHIzQ, click on for parts two and three.

    Diamond skull by Hirst sold … to himself

     

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    For the Love of God [Google gallery] is a sculpture by artist Damien Hirst produced in 2007. It consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, including a pear-shaped pink diamond located in the forehead of the skull. Costing $28 million to produce, the work went on display at the White Cube gallery in London at an asking price of $100 million. It was sold on August 30, 2007 for its asking price, making it the most expensive single work by a living artist. Sold to an unnamed investment group, Hirst has kept a share in the work.

    The perfect human

    [Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdn6wrM1Hqw]

    Andy Warhol by Jørgen Leth in 66 Scenes from America (1982)

    “My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.”

    Hjort: Some of your documentary films experiment interestingly with the relation between word and image. I’m thinking, for example, of “66 Scenes from America”, which presents a series of almost hyper-real, postcard-like images of America, that are identified, in a series of significantly delayed, laconic and minimalist comments. The longest sequence is that of Andy Warhol fastidiously eating a hamburger. Having completed this exercise, Warhol delivers the following line: ‘My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.’ What, exactly, is the purpose of the intentionally strained and awkward relation between images and words in “66 Scenes from America”? —Jørgen Leth interviewed by Mette Hjort & Ib Bondebjerg, September 2002

    Andalusian Dog #2

    I’ve posted on the surrealist film Un chien andalou which Luis Buñuel calls A desperate and passionate call to murder but want to pick up on it again to share some macabre and other details.

    [Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mBU4KQEWcw]

    A ‘seduction’ scene

    In this ‘seduction’ scene we see a man going after a woman, she recoils, he finally catches up with her and gropes for her breasts, she pushes him a way, but finally gives in overcome with desire, while he is stroking her breasts her dress disappears to reveal her naked body, causing him to gaze with pleasure into the void, she pushes him away a second time.

    Imagine the scene: somewhere in 1929  Luis Buñuel is on set directing Simone Mareuil and Pierre Batcheff in the clip above. He has on a phonograph a recording of Richard Wagner‘s Liebestod which he plays on the background. Little did he know that both protagonists, in a bizarre twist of fate would later commit suicide. Pierre in 1932, Simone in 1954. Not an actual Liebestod, but macabre enough.

    [Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNC4kF1e470&NR=1]

    Full clip with music by Mogwai

    There is so much to be said of this film, watch it for the ‘razor slits the eyeball scene‘  or for some of the early uses of the jarring jump cut. Enjoy.

    Scherzo infernal

    Scherzo infernal (1984) – Walerian Borowczyk

    Scherzo infernal (1984) is a short animated French film by Walerian Borowczyk narrated by Yves Robert and produced by Anatole Dauman‘s Argos Films. Beware when watching the current Youtube version of this film, the descriptive text has gotten mixed up with the descriptive text of Michel Follin‘s Ligeti documentary. In reality, the score of this short was composed by Bernard Parmegiani.