Hi Morgan: Suppose we imagine a catalogue of documents and a hand-written journal. The moving image is now collectable into something like a digital scrap-book. There are artists (Jayce Salloum comes to mind) who go through very large amounts of footage. Such a practice, as in Salloum's case, might also be involved in various kinds of recordable media, documentation and collection, exhibition strategies and approaches to identification or commentary - the art gallery begins to look like a storage room, archive, or library display. It would oppressive to insist on the lyricism of a strong writer in the traditional sense. For me it has been valuable to move out of the cinematic context and to return to other formats and means of dissemination. Whatever it is that is satisifying about this would not, in my opinion, qualify as an essay, which on paper is a particular way of organizing sentences, and a general approach to the kinds of sentences one can use. But I would not consider a diary video a work suitable for comparison with the conventional essay. There is a measured and composed dimension of what would best qualify as an essay film (Harun Farocki and Chris Marker come to mind, Abraham Ravett and Birgit Hein, too; and here I have to withdraw my dismissal of the term made with the student paper assignment in mind). In any event, the first milestone is dropping this obsession with film festivals (if it were that simple). The next would be, perhaps, to ask what the value of the image to be used is. At this point I give up the digital image altogether, and return to the photographic frame, paring down to an essence what would be a mere word in such an "essay." You can now introduce the word "poetry" to join ranks, but these terms seem to me to be without a lot interest, a way to label for a book index that could just as well have gone very differently. Check out a shorts program at the Chicago Underground Film Festival next month and ask yourself how much these terms are doing for you.
Bernie ______________ Here are my thoughts, if I'm reading this correctly, is that the term "essay" is a loose excuse for someone cobbling together a bunch of moving images which might be a free flowing stream of consciousness that they are not quite aware of. I say this because I feel like I'm falling into this category. For the past few years I've been doing my own "documentary" or "essay" on a particular group of people and I feel like it's the only vague description I can feed anyone should they question my motives for filming. My intent is much more deeper and personal, but I'd rather reveal it when I feel the product is finished. But in terms of trying to make a "documentary" to cover a particular subjects with a specific rhetoric, setting itself out to covering something as 'real', 'truthful', 'problematic' and 'fixable' is indeed a theme that has been done plenty of times. Because of this, I think a lot of people in my age range in particular will fall back on the theme of "essay" or "diary-film" in hopes to avoid scoffs, eye rolls and ridicule. The group that I'm focusing on in particular has pushed out Documentary after Documentary after Documentary after Documentary. Honestly, there's that many. And everyone of them contain the same 101, introductary message "we're good people, please don't say mean things about us". Perhaps this is something I should keep in mind for myself. Although I am keeping a journal of my personal accounts with this group, good times, bad times, shits and giggles alike, I do feel like I've been shooting with a stream of consciousness. Everything is a bunch of scrabbled eggs. As a lost, semi-frustrated, caffeinated 31 year old, I ask photographers, journalists, and poets alike. What would you have me do? M -------------------------------------------- On Wed, 5/22/19, Bernard Roddy <roddybp0 at gmail.com <https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks>> wrote: Subject: [Frameworks] essay film To: frameworks at jonasmekasfilms.com <https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks> Date: Wednesday, May 22, 2019, 9:35 PM Friends and colleagues, the essay is not really a suitable expression, form, or metaphor for what can be done in the medium of the moving image. The whole idea belongs to an undergraduate class that has to make the case to someone who is in college. The closer the works look and feel like essays, the worse they are. To a certain extent, we can hear the request: one wants to assign something to someone, one wants to make progress with a new generation of scholars and students, one wants to be legitimized, authorized, admitted into the syllabi and a table of contents. There will then be an easy passage from one kind of reading to another, between the page and screen. I couldn't really distinguish between accompanying someone and seeing such a work. I couldn't really say I cared until I found myself a witness. To be a witness to something, and to approach what it might have been like if the artist had witnessed it without the means of recording it, that is what makes or breaks an essay film. Bernie_______________________________________________ FrameWorks mailing list
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