Discussion Questions #1

Sitney, “Ritual and Nature”

1. What are some characteristics of the American psychodrama in the 1940s?
-Some characteristics of American psychodrama’s of the 1940’s are dreams, rituals, dance, and sexual metaphors.

2. What does Sitney mean by an “imagist” structure replacing narrative structure in Choreography for the Camera?
- Before this film, abstract narrative forms and thematic compositions were the closest to the “imagist” structure shown in Choreography for the Camera. This film however is does not have any kind of plausible narrative form whatsoever, it is simply showing the motions of dance and focusing only on the image.

3. According to Sitney, Ritual in Transfigured Time represents a transition between the psychodrama and what kind of film?
-Ritual in Transfigured Time takes the “trance” film in a whole new complex direction. This form leads to the architectonic films of the early 1960’s.

4. Respond briefly to Sitney’s reading of Ritual in Transfigured Time (27-28); Is his interpretation compatible with your experience of the film?
- After reading Sitney’s interpretation of Ritual in Transfigured Time the film makes sense to me in ways it didn’t before. While it still doesn’t make complete sense, when I read the words that are associated with the images I saw in Maya Deren’s film, I began to see links between them, even though they are not connected in a way that we are used to in a narrative sense.

Sitney, “The Magus”

5. Paraphrase the paragraph on p. 90 that begins “The filmic dream constituted…” in your own words.
- Most Avant-garde films of the 1940’s shared the same view that the camera is a kind of working mind, and the objects it films are things that the mind is viewing. The idea is that it is almost like seeing a dream from a different set of eyes (the camera).

6. According to Sitney, what is the ultimate result at the end of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome?
- The ultimate result of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, according to Sitney, is that all of the gods are absorbed into the magus.


Scott MacDonald, “Cinema 16: Introduction”

7. What were some general tendencies in the programming at Cinema 16, and how were films arranged within individual programs?
- The way cinema 16 was set-up closely mirrored the construction of the films it showed. They would often try to set-up films to clash with one another to give the audience an experience similar to the experience the films give themselves.

8. What kinds of venues rented Kenneth Anger’s Fireworks?
-This film would definitely not be seen in conventional movie houses because of the themes. It was however shown at Cinema 16 in 1952 and 1953. Pretty much any movie house that wasn’t mainstream and didn’t have to censor their films.

9. What impact did Cinema 16 have on New York City film culture?
- Cinema 16 definitely broadened the film scene for film lovers and filmmakers in New York City. Cinema 16 brought in the films from across seas and the films that you couldn’t see anywhere else. It allowed film to be displayed and received as an art form, not merely a form of entertainment.

Hans Richter, “A History of the Avantgarde”

10. What conditions in Europe made the avant-garde film movement possible after World War I?
- After the war, Europe was “taut with economic, social, political and cultural unrest. Revolutions all over the Continent had loosened traditions and opened the mind for new things.” Avant-garde filmmaking was one of these new things. After the war there was a feeling of starting over and new beginnings. This left most people open to new things and wanting to discover new things.

11. If the goal of Impressionist art is “Nature Interpreted by Temperament,” what are the goals of abstract art?
- The goals of abstract art are almost the opposite of normal art (that which has a tangible goal for the artist.) Abstract are often doesn’t have the same meaning for different persons. Because it is not easily interpreted as one person’s work of art, it is more of a vision of what he wants the viewers to be able to interpret themselves. They try to find a universal way to create their art. With that being said, “the general tendency for abstract art was to overcome pure individualistic emotional expression and to find instead the way for the expression of universal feeling.”