Gray Gardens

Having seen the more recent film with Drew Barrymore a few months ago I have to give credit to both the old and new filmmakers. I think Gray Gardens is one of the truest of documentaries. I feel The Maysles did an awesome job of showing us the lives of 2 women, besides the fact of them being extragravent, they were just people and that's what he showed. They did not focus on the filthy home or the zany acts of Edie and her mom. That would of only sensationalized a true documentary, my favorite types of films. I just love seeing the inside of people, how they live, think and feel. This raw footage of real life was a pleasure to watch and the recent Gray Gardens with Barrymore did an great job in keeping with the Maysles style of documentary film.

The Whitney's, very patient men

It's hard to believe how long it took the Whitney's to complete 1 dot, let alone the millions they used in their first computerized films. I can see how they had IT backgrounds and not film originally, It takes a special brain to figure out the complicated process to make a computer do the types of things they did and to see past the functional side to the possibilities of using the computer creatively is pure genius. During class I could not remember the name of the game/craft I had as a kid that reminded me of their films it was the Spirograph! I'm going to order one on e-bay for my kids for Christmas, soooo cool. Art at that time was also similar, remember the nails with the yarn pictures? Anyway, I can really appreciate the work they did and how quickly it advanced, the scene in 2001 Space Odyssey was really impressive for 1968.

Bruce Conner's Breakaway gotta see it!

Bruce Conner was a genius in his time. The movies we saw in class were interesting in that he was a recycler who turned various throw aways from panty hose to film scraps into art. I think he used alot of irony to point out the way society was living. The readings made me want to see more of his stuff and I did. I have to say Breakawy featuring Toni Basil was my favorite it is just awesome. I love the editing, lighting-sometimes strobe, the outfits and sometimes lack of. It was so fresh and creative. A quote from the readings sums up Mr. Conner best "to create art For better and sometimes worse, scores of other filmmakers in both the avant-garde and the commercial mainstream have been influenced by Mr. Conner’s shocking juxtapositions and propulsive, rhythmically sophisticated montage. MTV should have paid him royalties." If more of this type of work was features on MTV I might start watching again.

Patterson & Bailey

The Cage, Patterson being from the West Coast and having a background with Hollywood work used The Cage successfully I feel to let those who might not be exposed to the work going on on the East Coast see what was happening in film. He did a great job incorporating all the works of the other artists in his film to make a film that summed up so many different ideas and techniques of the artists already doing Avant Gard. The one thing I remember most from The Cage is the eye falling and the view from the eye, it was clever and unexpected.
I really enjoyed Baily's work, I'm a nature lover and enjoy documentaries and felt the film had a documentary feeling, telling the story of how people were making tracks into the wilderness with the train. He was ahead of the industry in pointing out social awareness as to what humans were doing to invade nature. He did a great job with the blue tint in making the ocean more beautiful than it already is and the quick cut to the contrast of the deep red of the fish blood. Castor St. reminded me of the mechanical films we saw previously, showing the flow of the machines and the cuts in the music, hearing the Grateful Dead Good Lovin' was a surprise, it's the first time we've heard contemporary music in our films, I guess as the years progress we are in the 1960's we will notice things such as the music used becoming more familiar to us.