Finally got to Volume 6 of Unseen Cinema, "The Amatuer as Auteur". Well, they're really stretching use of the term "avant-garde" with this set of what are, essentially, early home movies. Yes, there's some of the first use of synchronized sound (1924-25, Theodore Case, E Sponable) and there's some interest in that aspect, narrowly defined. And I suppose that offering some of, at least ostensibly, the earliest home movies as such, there's some documentary interest there as well. But, hey, they're home movies. Aside from giving one a bit of a view as to how folks in Maine or Santa Fe spent their daily leisure time (not notably different from 2007 if you substitute XBox for Bicycle polo or climbing on rocks....), it just ain't that fascinating. Several Joseph Cornell collages are at structurally sort of intriguing, but overall, feh.
This leaves a single volume. Now, I'm not the world's biggest dance fan which is the theme here. And it's called, um, "Viva la Dance". Oy. Might take me a while to get here.
Listening:
Jason Kahn - Fields (Cut)
Gunter Muller - Reframed (Cut)
1 comment:
Of minimal musical note, several of the earliest soundies consisted of brief performances by singers, an asian ukelele player and one rather strange old gentleman who simultaneously played a full sized harp with his right hand and an object he held against the main harp stem with the other. This latter he blew into and fingered. To the extent you could see it, it almost looked like a pocket trumpet with a small bell at one end but, due to the flute-like tones emanating from it, I'm guessing a kind of ocarina.
Never sen anything quite like it.
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