Heath: In addition to the more abstract Whitney/Belson/CVM/etc. etc. I mentioned FluxFilm thinking of the pieces made with the super high-speed camera, which turn brief bits of banal pro-filmic events into meditative experiences, whether or not that was the intent. Specifically "Disappearing Music For Face" and "Smoking".
Maybe that's the metaphoric angle you already have covered, but that's where your inquiry struck my memories of films I've seen. To expand on why those Fluxfilms seem to fit: don't long takes where very little "action" occurs typically have a meditative quality, and one quite different from the abstractionists who are relatively busy by comparison? The possibly paradigmatic film popping into my head sparking that thought is *Skagafjordur *by Peter Hutton, but again there are numerous very 'slow' experimental films that leave viewers little choice but to focus in and concentrate on things our vision normally skims over. Not that all of that is necessarily meditative in a yogic "go with the flow" way. But maybe there could be interesting discussions on how a film might be liminal, maybe a kind of meditation, maybe not, depending, maybe even meta about the question, again intentionally or not. Film generating that thought: Sky Blue Water Light Sign by JJ Murphy. Hmm, interesting compare/contrast with *Skagafjordur:* lockdown shots of moving elements of nature vs. lockdown shot of a fake nature panning slowly mechanically through the frame. To advertise 3.2 beer. That could land as a joke, or exactly as expanding the ethos Hutton found in a Nordic field into a universality that embraces neighborhood bars in Minnesota and Iowa. (Not that J.J. may have anything that metaphysical in mind.) I wonder if anyone has ever programmed those two films together. Not that I'm trying to make any pragmatic suggestions for your program in any of the ramblings above. I'm just taking time to do some creative thinking out loud, on the possibility there might be some distant value in sharing it. And, frankly, as a bit of respite from thinking silently about the current national hellscape and the ongoing geriatric failings of my body and mind.
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