Scott MacDonald - A Critical Cinema 2 - Interviews with Independent Filmmakers

title

:

A Critical Cinema : Interviews With Independent Filmmakers

author

:

MacDonald, Scott.

publisher

:

University of California Press

isbn10 | asin

:

0520079183

print isbn13

:

9780520079182

ebook isbn13

:

9780585335100

language

:

English

subject

Experimental films--United States--History and criticism, Independent filmmakers--United States--Interviews.

publication date

:

1992

lcc

:

PN1995.9.E96M34 1992eb

ddc

:

791.43/75/0973

subject

:

Experimental films--United States--History and criticism, Independent filmmakers--United States--Interviews.

Page iii

A Critical Cinema 2

Interviews with Independent Filmmakers

Scott MacDonald

Page iv

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press

Oxford, England

Copyright © 1992 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

MacDonald, Scott, 1942

A critical cinema.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Filmography: p. 423-435.

1. Experimental filmsUnited StatesHistory and

criticism. 2. Motion picture producers and directors

United StatesInterviews. I. Title.

PN1995.9.E96M34 1988 791.43'75'0973 87-6004

ISBN 0-520-05800-3 (v. 1: cloth)

ISBN 0-520-05801-1 (v. 1: pbk.)

ISBN 0-520-07917-5 (v. 2: cloth)

ISBN 0-520-07918-3 (v. 2: pbk.)

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984

Page v

To my best teachers:

Patricia O'Connor, Peter Watkins,

J. J. Murphy, Bob Huot, Morgan Fisher,

Frank Bergmann, Su Friedrich, Ian MacDonald

Page vii

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

Robert Breer

15

Michael Snow

51

Jonas Mekas

77

Bruce Baillie

109

Yoko Ono

139

Anthony McCall

157

Andrew Noren

175

Anne Robertson

206

James Benning

220

Lizzie Borden

249

Ross McElwee

265

Su Friedrich

283

Page viii

Anne Severson (On Near the Big Chakra)

319

Laura Mulvey (On Riddles of the Sphinx)

333

Yvonne Rainer (On Privilege)

344

Trinh T. Minh-ha

355

Godfrey Reggio

378

Peter Watkins

402

Filmography

423

Bibliography

437

Index

449

Page ix

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the following journals for permission to reprint interviews and, in some cases, my introductory comments:

Film Quarterly,

for "Southern Exposure: An Interview with Ross McElwee," vol. 41, no. 4 (Summer 1988), pp. 1323; "Yoko Ono: Ideas on Film (Interview/Scripts)," vol. 43, no. 1 (Fall 1989), pp. 223; ''Illuminations: An Interview with Andrew Noren," vol. 44, no. 3 (Spring 1991), pp. 3043; "Demystifying the Female BodyTwo Interviews: Anne Severson

Near the Big Chakra

/Yvonne Rainer

Privilege,

" vol. 45, no. 1 (Fall 1991), pp. 1832.

Afterimage,

for "Interview with James Benning," vol. 9, no. 5 (December 1981), pp. 1219; "Interview with Anthony McCall," vol. 15, no. 5 (December 1987), pp. 69; "Damned If You Don't: An Interview with Su Friedrich," vol. 15, no. 10 (May 1988), pp. 610.

The Independent,

for "The Nuclear War Film: Peter Watkins Interviewed," vol. 7, no. 9 (October 1984), pp. 2224, 32; "Daddy Dearest: Su Friedrich Talks about Filmmaking, Family, Feminism," vol. 13, no. 10 (December 1990), pp. 2834.

Cinematograph,

for "A Picture a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: An Interview with Anne Robertson," vol. 4 (1991), pp. 5366.

Feminist Studies,

for "Interview with Lizzie Borden." Article reprinted from

Feminist Studies,

vol. 15, no. 2 (Summer 1989), pp. 327345, by permission of the publisher, Feminist Studies, Inc., c/o Women's Studies Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742.

Journal of Film and Video (Journal of the University Film Associa

-

Page x

tion

), for "Interview with Peter Watkins," vol. 34, no. 3 (Summer 1982), pp. 4755.

October,

for "Interview with Jonas Mekas," no. 29 (Summer 1984), pp. 82116.

The Velvet Light Trap,

for "But First a Little Ru Ru: An Interview with Robert BreerRecent Films," no. 24 (Fall 1989), pp. 7584.

The Velvet Light Trap

is published by the University of Texas Press.

Thanks to Utica College of Syracuse University for several research grants, and to my typist Carol Fobes.

Page 1

Introduction

Since nearly all of us are acculturated to expect certain types of experiences in movie theaters and on television, one of the valuable functions of the multifaceted independent cinema that has developed alongside the popular cinema during most of its history is to challenge our expectations. When we see a film that surprises or shocks us, we are forced to question the implicit assumptions about cinema our expectations encode. Of course, this process is inevitable within any area of film history. Even in the standard genres of commercial film, viewers are inevitably comparing each new instance of horror film, Western, and suspense thriller with previous instances and with the sense of the genre's history they have developed. What gives some forms, and some particular instances, of independent film their "critical" edge is the

extent

to which they force us to question our psychological/social/political investment in the conventional. A new instance of a horror film usually confronts, at most, a limited number of the expectations we bring to the genrethe way in which characters are developed or plots resolved, or the type of special effects used, or the overall look of the events dramatizedbut an independent film with a powerful critical edge might challenge our assumption that a film must include characters and plot or must present events within images that confirm Western perspectival conventions or must include recognizable imagery at all. Indeed, one of the signals that one is experiencing a powerfully critical film is the conviction that what we're seeing isn't a

real

movie, even though it is obviously being projected by a movie projector in a movie theater.

A particular critical film can relate to the conventional cinema in

Page 2

various ways. My distinctions in Volume 1 were determined by the degree to which a particular film, or the work of a particular filmmaker, invokes the conventions in order to challenge them. In some instances, filmmakers use just enough of the elements employed in conventional movies to create an aura of the conventional, but use these elements in a consistently challenging way. George Kuchar's films often reveal characters enacting melodramatic plots, but his articulation of conventional elementsthe acting, the costumes and sets, the continuity, the characters' motivationsis so unlike big-budget Hollywood films that for most viewers Kuchar's films are as much about the disparity between the two levels of film practice as about the issues he pretends to explore. Not only do we realize the limits of Kuchar's economic means and see the effects of these limitations in his filmswe are also reminded that the very extensiveness of the resources available to Hollywood directors constricts what big-budget directors can express and how they can express it.