FM4 - Spectatorship - Experimental & Expanded Film/Video

'Alice' (1988): Jan Svankmajer

Definition: Experimental Film

Experimental film, or "experimental cinema," is a term that describes a range of filmmaking styles that are generally quite different from, and often trangress, the practices of mainstream commercial and documentary filmmaking. "Avant-garde film" and "underground" have also been used in the past this kind of cinema, though with slightly different connotations. While "experimental" covers a wide range of practice, an "experimental film" is often characterized by the absence of linear narrative, the use of various abstracting techniques (out of focus, painting or scratching on film, rapid editing), the use of asynchronous (non-diegetic) sound or even the absence of any sound track. 

The goal is often to place the viewer in a more active and more thoughtful relationship to the film. At least through the 1960s, and to some extent after, many experimental films took an oppositional stance toward mainstream culture. Most such films are made on very low budgets, self-financed or financed through small grants, with a minimal crew or, quite often, a crew of only one person, the filmmaker. 

It has been argued that much experimental film is no longer in fact "experimental," but has in fact become a film genre and that many of its more typical features - such as a non-narrative, impressionistic or poetic approaches to the film's construction - define what is generally 
understood to be "experimental".

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Apply this approach to a viewing of Jan Svankmajer's 'Alice' (1988)