Explore how far your viewing of experimental and
expanded film/video has made you more aware of
issues in spectatorship.
Through viewing experimental films, after being more familiar with more mainstream techniques used in cinema, my responses to other forms of filmmaking has made me more aware of issues surrounding spectatorship.
Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou relies heavily upon symbolism and non-linear narrative devices to create a 'dream-like' atmosphere in which the director's (and Dali's) unconscious desires can be explored. This can be seen within the sequence where we see a long shot of the main male character pulling two piano's, with dead horses and two priests attached. The female character is seen in close-up with a look of fear in response to these actions, a very conventional reaction to such an event . My initial viewing response to this symbolism was confusion, meaning I was unable to fully comprehend the intended messages and values represented due to their unfamiliarity and surreal approach. However, on repeated viewings my spectatorship altered and I was able to understand how surrealism visually represents ideas by making connections between the actions of the characters and the mise-en-scene. Through discussion and reflection, I now know that surrealism deals with unconscious thoughts and desires. As a result I believe that the piano could represent music and romance, the priests could represent religious ideology, and the horses the animalistic desires of the male character - all of which are subconsciously holding back his true sexual nature. Mainstream cinema would construct this scenario with more recognisable and familiar techniques such as dialogue, editing and cinematography to suggest emotional restraint between the two characters. Upon initial release this taboo subject matter was controversial and even today my spectatorship still felt uncomfortable with the juxtaposition of dead animals and seemingly unrelated objects, as I have been so conditioned to mainstream cinema.
Experimental films, therefore, have made me more aware of my own response to mainstream cinema. They are far more challenging and force the viewer to confront issues in a completely different way. Surrealism challenges the viewer to decode the visual symbolism and goes against the more straightforward ideological approaches that mainstream cinema presents. This was also the case when I viewed Bodysong by Simon Pummell, which uses stock footage, from over 100 years of filmmaking, and a non-diegetic avant-garde film score from Radiohead's guitarist Johnny Greenwood. This film isn't surreal, but relies upon carefully constructed images from a variety of era's and sources to portray the human experience from conception to death in montage. The scored soundtrack and visuals combined inform the spectator how they should emotionally respond. In the sequence featuring World War I footage, the wide panning shot of German soldiers ascending from their trenches in slow-motion to face certain death is accompanied by non-diegetic slow paced sad music that reinforces their fate. Even though this cinematic construction was familiar I still felt challenged as I had no narrative connection to characters. This shot then cuts to an unrelated wartime experience of a young Vietnamese boy being held by a soldier with a knife to his neck. This juxtaposition of time and space emphasises the effects of any warfare and violence as a universal experience. This was a challenge as a spectator as I found it hard to watch, as it was not fiction but reality and therefore not entertaining. Maybe this is the point of experimental cinema; to provoke reaction and not entertain.
Andy Warhol's screen-tests also challenge the viewer and my own experience of spectatorship as they rely upon non-narrative devices. Viewing the 3 minute screen-tests of Dennis Hopper, Salvador Dali and Edie Sedgwick can be both uncomfortable and revealing for a spectator. These static mid-shot, black & white portraits contain no sound and don't rely upon narrative. This is something that Warhol wanted to explore though, the real. They are what 'they are' essentially and act as moving portraits but reveal the reality of human expression. Forced to stare vacantly at the camera the subject becomes the only focus. There is no editing and the person is truthfully revealed to the spectator; this is uncomfortable to watch and unfamiliar for mainstream spectators not familiar with art house cinema. It is designed to challenge what we perceive as not only film, but also what the spectator will think, something that mainstream cinema tends to dictate in terms of meaning.
In conclusion, I feel that my experience with experimental cinema has caused me to have a greater appreciation of cinema as an art form. My spectatorship has been challenged in terms of viewing the impact of real and symbolic messages. This means that to understand the films fully you have to understand the contextual background, but you must also accept the visual and interpret the meaning from a more knowledgable perspective to give a full personal response.
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