Structural Film from sometime in March

2. How is structural film different from the tradition of Deren/Brakhage/Anger, and what are its four typical characteristics?
4 Characteristics: fixed camera, flicker effect, loop printing, and rephotography. Structural film became more simplistic and moved away from anything complicated.

3. If Brakhage’s cinema emphasized metaphors of perception, vision, and body movement, what is the central metaphor of structural film? Hint: It fits into Sitney’s central argument about the American avant-garde that we have discussed previously in class.

Sitney postulates that the avant-garde tries to represent the human conscious - Structural film is aligns itself with this argument because it too uses metaphors of the human conscious.

4. Why does Sitney argue that Andy Warhol is the major precursor to the structural film?

The 4 primary attributes of Structural film were basically introduced to the avant-garde by Warhol.

5. The trickiest part of Sitney’s chapter is to understand the similarities and differences between Warhol and the structural filmmakers. He argues that Warhol in a sense is anti-Romantic and stands in opposition to the visionary tradition represented by psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical films. But for Sitney’s central argument to make sense, he needs to place structural film within the tradition of psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical films. Trace the steps in this argument by following the following questions:

a. Why does Sitney call Warhol anti-Romantic?

Romantics are in control of their art. Warhol was the anti-thesis to this idea. He stepped back and avoided control of the camera.

c. What is meant by the phrase “conscious ontology of the viewing experience”? How does this relate to Warhol’s films? How does this relate to structural films?

That means that the viewer is aware of their own viewing experience. Warhol did this but not necessarily on purpose while Structural film did this for the conscious experience of the mind.

d. Why does Sitney argue that structural film is related to the psychodrama/mythopoeic/lyrical tradition, and in fact responds to Warhol’s attack on that tradition by using Warhol’s own tactics?

In reaction to Warhol's lack of artistic control or care Structural film used the same methods Warhol used but employed them as agents to create metaphors for the human mind.

6. What metaphor is crucial to Sitney’s and Annette Michelson’s interpretation of Michael Snow’s Wavelength?

A metaphor for human consciousness.