The CBS goes Underground thread, and the exchange with Jonathan about
TIME articles, got me thinking about this, I don't know why. I guess
it's part of "our" history. I wonder if others can add to my short list:
1. An early (1950s?) article by Henry Hart in "Films in Review." This
was maybe the worst. It described a screening of Markopoulos films at an
NYU class in coded terms that left no doubt for those in the know that
the films were being attacked for being "homosexual," though I don't
think that or any related word was ever used. I have a copy somewhere
but can't find it easily.
2. Jonas Mekas himself, in FILM CULTURE 3, issued a nasty attack that he
has long since retracted, explaining that he really didn't understand
the US very well at the time. Once again "homosexuality" was one of the
bases of his attack. One should note that acceptance of homosexuality in
1950s America was close to zero.
3. Worse was Andrew Sarris's mid-1970s attack in the VILLAGE VOICE. This
was in conjunction with a Whitney Museum-organized series on the history
of the movement. Most shamefully, he quoted Mekas's article without ever
mentioning that Mekas himself had long since retracted it (if I remember
right).
(Maybe I should add that I remain a great admirer of the best writings
of both Sarris and Mekas.)
4. Doubtless there have been numerous negative reviews from the early
years of the movement that were totally non-comprehending. But as late
as the 1970s the New York Times was printing idiocies such as the Hollis
Frampton review by Richard Eder. (Searching for those two names on the
Times's site brings me to a page with links to the review, but in
several attempts I could not get it to load, though I'm a Times
subscriber. If anyone else can retrieve it, please post.) It had an
obscure comment griping about Frampton's use of "time," which apparently
meant that Eder felt bored.
For better or (possibly) for worse, the copying of avant-garde
techniques in TV commercials and music videos had, by the 1980s, greatly
reduced the complaints about "rapid cutting," "gives me a headache," and
so on. Even the old "masturbatory" accusation, found in the TIME article
that Jonathan posted, is heard more rarely today, perhaps because more
people now understand that there is nothing wrong with this sexual practice.
Today, with people of all ages posting all sorts of work, including work
that has all the techniques and the "look" of avant-garde" film, the
"movement" does not, I think, have the same meaning that it had for me
when I discovered it in 1963. This is not to say that great new work
cannot be made, but, even more so than when I wrote my article
proclaiming the movement's "death" in Millennium Film Journal's
twentieth anniversary issue (1987), filmmakers should understand that
simply scratching on film, or creating abstract imagery, has no
particular originality or merit in itself. Of course this was always
true, but it grows ever more true.
Fred Camper
Chicago
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