From: Myron Ort (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2008 - 20:57:09 PST
Good points, and thanks for the reference.
mo
On Dec 8, 2008, at 8:15 PM, bryan mckay wrote:
> While it's certainly a problem if people feel that Brakhage's
> vocabulary isn't validated unless it's used in the service of a
> traditional narrative, I don't think utilizing the vocabulary
> itself ought to be an issue. Here's Brakhage's own words on having
> his techniques borrowed (particularly with regards to the Superman
> + Text of Light parallels):
>
> When you want to worry about it is when they rip you off and make a
> bad movie or sell some product that's disgusting. We've all had a
> lot of that. But if someone makes a decent movie that's the way it
> should go. Poetry inspires the novelists and the novelists
> sometimes include a little poem at the front of the book or before
> every chapter and vice versa. Great novels have caused poems to
> come into existence.
>
> Bryan
>
> On Dec 8, 2008, at 10:32 PM, Myron Ort wrote:
>
>> Now that you mention it, I think maybe you are right. I am not
>> sure I would be any better taking "criticism" the way Safer
>> brought up a known negative ringer like that. (The critic Hughes
>> did not even "see" what the real Basquat was doing! -- calling
>> him the worst painter to Schabel's second worst -- Hughes, imo,
>> another jerk in all likelihood). Schnabel faired much better when
>> he was interviewed along with David Bowie by Charlie Rose who
>> actually knows his stuff across many areas. This was back when
>> Schnabel had made "Basquiat" and in it Bowie had played Warhol.
>> Incidentally, in that interview, Bowie was the one who came across
>> with a rather surprisingly deeper aesthetic knowledge than the
>> painter turned director, imo. But in any case, it shows how a good
>> interviewer like Rose can bring out the best, and, as you say, in
>> the end, Safer was a network jerk by comparison, and Julian may
>> have been correct saying that the ploy was "lazy" on the part of
>> Safer. But it was amusing how Schnabel couldn't let it go....I
>> probably would have behaved the same though if a supposedly
>> "friendly" interviewer brought up a known nemesis like that.
>>
>> It is easy to be annoyed by this artist's somewhat overblown sukce$
>> $, but more power to him....it enabled him to make movies, and to
>> even make one that has been called (again by all too clever
>> critics) "Brakhage for dummies" for using a smattering of the
>> maestro's camera techniques (approximately) in the service of
>> narrative, which, as we know, is typical of cinema these last few
>> decades especially, however in this case, having chosen Brakhage,
>> instead of just "fast cutting" or a light show dazzle ala Belson
>> etc. , and having stayed on the techniques for a rather extended
>> section. Really extended! Friends assumed I would really like
>> "Butterfly" immensely, but I had to overcome resistance to seeing
>> this type of camera used in that way and I am still not totally
>> comfortable with some kind of assumption that Schnabel seems to
>> have made "utilizing" that vocabulary so uninhibitedly . That is
>> why I wondered if he, Schnabel, ever mentioned anything about
>> seeing Brakhage films. I guess what annoys me, and what is
>> difficult to explain to friends who assume I would be so
>> impressed, is that there is, ever so subtly, the suggestion that
>> this "first person cinematic vocabulary (so elegantly, uniquely,
>> and miraculously innovated by Stan) is now somehow more
>> "justified" because a bit of it is in the service of an otherwise
>> "normal" narrative film. I don't know. Talk me down. Am I being
>> too cranky?
>>
>> So is Schnabel now an "experimental" filmmaker as well as being
>> independent and avant garde etc.?
>> (at least he's not "underground".....yet.)
>>
>> Myron Ort
>>
>> (ps. in my aesthetic arrogance "(in the eye of the beholder...")
>> seemed to me Basquiat often could "organize space and color" quite
>> well, I have yet to see this in Schnabel's work....but that is
>> just my own taste. {eg. remember the Hoyt Sherman link etc.)
>>
>> hmmmm....I am in deep doo doo now......
>>
>> {we are just talking here..... right....?}
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 8, 2008, at 3:16 PM, V Wolfe wrote:
>>
>>> The interviewer is the one who comes across like a jerk. I
>>> especially like where he asks Schnabel
>>> if he was a 'doper' because the artist mention marijuana. What
>>> an idiotic inteview. Kudos to
>>> Schnabel for getting through it. I'm sure it was extremely
>>> irritating, and in order to do the publicity
>>> for his films he had to put up with a lot of stupidity. Anyone
>>> who has tried to live as a professional
>>> artist in NYC knows how difficult that is. I give this guy a lot
>>> of credit. He even changed forms, which
>>> most people only dream about. I think Safer was jealous.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>
>>>> From: jason livingston <email suppressed>
>>>> Date: December 8, 2008 7:27:21 AM PST
>>>> To: email suppressed
>>>> Subject: Re: Schnabel
>>>> Reply-To: Experimental Film Discussion List
>>>> <email suppressed>
>>>>
>>>> I liked the film quite a bit, though Schnabel can come across as
>>>> a bit of a blowhard. Definitely seemed like Kaminski had
>>>> borrowed some of the blue-brown ice melts from Brakhage's Creation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jason
>>>> Ithaca, NY
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://jasontlivingston.com/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Dec 7, 2008, at 11:45 PM, Myron Ort wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Happen to see a repeat interview on 60 minutes. Why does this
>>>>> guy annoy me so much?....ooops, never mind. But I am curious,
>>>>> did he ever, in public or in print, acknowledge, mention, or
>>>>> otherwise credit Stan Brakhage, in any way, after he made that
>>>>> "acclaimed" Diving Bell Butterfly movie of his? Or are we just
>>>>> as glad he didn't?
>>>>>
>>>>> Myron Ort
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> __________________________________________________________________
>>>>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> __________________________________________________________________
>>>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>>
>>> __________________________________________________________________ F
>>> or info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.