I've given this issue, along with that of "experimental," more thought
than it perhaps deserves.
I don't think "underground" works at all today. It only barely worked in
the 60s. It might work in a repressive country in which you could not
really show your films. Our culture, whatever one thinks of it, has
become too open and too diverse for this word. But I don't think
"avant-garde" works either. So much has been done; most filmmakers are
working within existing traditions. Nor is "experimental" of much use,
except for a minority who, for better or for worse, feel that the word
is right for them. A response to that word from one filmmaker decades
ago: "I made many experiments while working on this film. I left them
behind in my editing room. What you will see is a finished work."
On the other hand, just calling these works "films" doesn't work either;
your viewers will be for most such films be disappointed to find no
evidence of Batman, or Luke Skywalker, or similarFrame. We need a
neologism, but I have never found one.
Fred Camper
Chicago
On 3/2/2021 2:33 AM, Jaime Cleeland wrote:
Hi,
How would y’all differentiate between calling a filmmaker ‘Underground’ as
opposed to ‘Avant-Garde’?
Best,
Jaime
Sent from my iPad
--
Frameworks mailing list
[email protected]
https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org
