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An Experimental Experience

By: Didar Merve

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When we try to explain what does the experimental film mean, according to many definition, we can say that, it’s what tries the new and untried methods, in other words, “avant-garde”.

In this list, I want to talk about eperimental cinema’s brief history and I will start with pre-experimental cinema, I will continue with experimental cinema country by country and in the end, I will talk about the experimental cinema in my country, Turkey.

PRE-EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA

Experimental cinema’s birth is France and artists from France such as Louis Feuillade, Emile Cohl, Jean Durand and Georges Méliès did not lead up only the debut of cinema, but also eperimental cinema.
Louis Feuillade
Emile Cohl
Jean Durand
Georges Méliès
Roberto Rosselini
Jean Cocteau

EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA

GERMANY

Thanks to UFA which is one of the biggest and the most important movie studio of the time, in Germany there was already a built movie culture. Especially Robert Wien’s Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari has affected whole the world and even it was created a term called “Caligarism”.
Viking Eggeling
Oskar Fischinger
Hans Richter
Walter Ruttmann

FRANCE

According to Jacques Brunius, French Experimental cinema could be divided into three steps. First two steps were basically commercial. Movies were highly artistic however they did not innovate anything. The third step included all characteristics of experimental cinema.
FIRST STEP
Louis Delluc
SECOND STEP
Charlotte-Elisabeth-Germaine Dulac
Marcel L’Herbier
Jean Epstein
Claude Autant-Lara
Jean Renoir
Abel Gance
Dimitri Kirsanov
THIRD STEP
René Clair
Luis Buñuel
Fernand Léger
Man Ray
Marcel Duchamp
Henri Chomette
Jean Grémillon
Jean Vigo
RUSSIA
In Soviet Union, movie culture which has been already very limited, after The October Revolution, dissapeared completely and cinema has been put into revolution’s service.
Lev Kuleshov
Dziga Vertov
Grigori Kozintsev
Leonid Trauberg
Yakov Protozanov
U.S.A
Stan Brakhage
Robert Breer
Grigori Markopoulos
Jonas Mekas
Jack Smith
Ron Rice
Stan Vanderbeek
Andy Warhol
ENGLAND
Len Lye
Norman McLaren
TURKEY
In Turkey, experimental cinema practically never existed with a few exceptions. However some directors used few characteristics of experimental cinema.
Alp Zeki Heper
Metin Erksan
Reha Erdem

 

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naturedesert

19Mar13

This is brilliant! Experimental films are rarely appreciated in our country. It's always great to see someone who does.

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Lis

25Nov11

Thanks for putting this together, much obliged!

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nicolas perge

9Mar11

Congratulations. Really good list.

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Arsaib

7Mar11

Terrific list.

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