Looking Backwards Forward.

    The Experimental Film. AH when I hear that I picture the POP vistas of New York city in shimmering black and white. Art parties and reel to reels. Or hand spliced 8mm and 16mm celluloid collages and the animation from the film board of Canada. Something happened though in the 1990s as a result of the commercialization of the independent film movement. America's great experimental film makers, our new firebrands, where were their stunning works? Well they were on MTV as music videos (see Works of the Director series if you have any doubts to this, Michel Gondry, Spike Jones, Chris Cunningham, ) or increasingly on television as commercials. 

Art selling .

    Three films in the last year have reminded me what I miss about the challenging avant garde days of yore.   Across The Universe (dir. Julie Taymor), INLAND EMPIRE (dir. David Lynch) and I'm Not There (dir. Todd Haynes). Interestingly two of these films the Bob Dylan, not Bob Dylan drama I'm Not There and the Beattles' musical Across The Universe both invoke a time and place in the pop lexicon where experimentation was encouraged, expected and needed. Is it no longer needed?