Most Experimental Films?
No one mentioned James Fotopoulos? Zero is as severe and as dedicated to its end as e.g. Schneider’s Film was…
meshes in the afternoon
dreams for sale
fantasia, the early disney one
the magical clock, or the little girl that wanted to be a princess
hausu
orpheus
tetsuo the ironman
baron prasil
at least some of the more experimental ones that i like
Add Michael Snow’s Wavelength to the list.
Yeah, I wouldn’t consider films such as Thin Red Line, Crank, and Inland Empire experimental by any stretch of the imagination.
It’s hard to determine the most experimental which is incredibly vague. So as I understand the topic, I would list Begotten, Eraserhead, Alice (by Svankmajer), Third Part of the Night – and still, the last two I listed are only ‘experimental’ in a narrative way.
But I’m not sure those would necessarily qualify because I often think of the word ‘experimental’ as ‘avant-garde’. I don’t include every film (or whatever work of art) that uses an occasional experimental technique as an experimental film because many many films (even commercial Hollywood films) use experimental techniques.
So I guess it all depends on what your definition of experimental is and what type of experimental film you mean.
Georges Méliès
Now that’s experimenting.
I see no mention of Jeff Keen here! (making movies since early 60s) How can he have been
ignored in this forum? Check out GAZWRX ( BFI dvd) and let us know what you think!
Deckard why doesn’t Inland Empire count as experimental “by any stretch of the imagination”? Thin Red Line, I agree. But in what ways is IE not experimental? Given its surrealism, its more or less antinarrative approach, etc it seems to fit a lot of obvious criteria.
KENNETH ANGER
STAN BRAKHAGE
LUIS BUNUEL (Un Chien Andalou and L’Age d’Or)
MAYA DEREN
GERMAINE DULAC
ALEXANDER HAMMID
JORIS IVENS
JONAS MEKAS
GEORGES MELIES
MAN RAY
HANS RICHTER
JACK SMITH
MICHAEL SNOW
SLAVO VORKAPICH
ANDY WARHOL
La Revelateur, The Inner Scan, The Hautes Solitudes, from Philippe Garrel
Rope was pretty experimental, whether or not you think it worked.
@David Ehrenstein, did you see Warhol’s 25 hour movie? Was it something worthwhile? I need something new to be obsessed about while knowing i’ll never see it.
No one has mentioned Nathaniel Dorsky.
DONNIE DARKO!
Wavelength,
and Brakhage’s stuff like Window Water Baby Moving, Mothlight,
Necrology.
Scorpio Rising. Kenneth Anger came and lectured at my university a few years ago and he was CRAZY. Really emotional, mood-swingy. It was kind of unsettling!
I saw this thread bump up and scanned it just to see if someone had posted Wavelength. Nice.
Someone needs to get more Garrel out on DVD. Snow needs to stop hating the format. I have found Wavelength and La Region Centrale but i can’t find Corpus Callosum anywhere. Damn you Michael Snow!
John Ford’s Seven Women!
Now that’s experimental, folks.
I don’t think I have ever seen what I think was a truly experimental film. To elaborate, I mean a film that doesn’t just toy with the usual elements of film, but a film that is a complete breakaway from those elements. Something thats a real head trip. A film to be interpreted like a painting or something? Do many exsist?
It was incredibly worthwhile.
It relaced life itself for me for at least a month. Quite a difficult expeiriece to “get over.” As I knew Warhol in the 60’s, and came to know Patrick Close personally some years later it’s now less a film than something that happened to me personally.
Imitation of Christ, The Loves of Ondine, and Tub Girls were all parts of ****.
Jodorowsky and Lynch are as experimental as it gets in a narrative sense (Kenneth Anger, Warhol/Morrisey,Brakhage would have my picks as pure imagery)…just about ready to watch the Le Constellation doc. on the Fando Y lis disc in the Jodorowsky box set
color of pomegranates, some of lynch’s short films
The Fall
Charlie Ahearns’s Doing Time In Times Square.
Please check out this film. Its great, its real and experimental.
The films of Bruce Conner
http://www.theauteurs.com/lists/1221 ’nuff said ;-)
Justin Biberkopf
We shouldn’t leave Georges Melies off any list of great experimental filmmakers. It all sort of begins with him.
Bunuel/Dali, Un Chien Andalou and L’Age d’Or
Man Ray
Marcel Duchamp
Jean Epstein
Germaine Dulac
Maya Deren
Marie Menken
the Kuchars
Kenneth Anger
Jack Smith
Andy Warhol
Jean-Luc Godard
Stan Brakhage
Hans-Jurgen Syberberg
Andrei Tarkovsky
Bela Tarr
David Lynch