[Frameworks] Experimental Documentary

[nicky.hamlyn at talktalk.net]

It's funny, because painters do this all the time, in the sense of  
trying things out -"experimenting"- but in a moment to moment kind of  
way, trying to push their practice on, yet this is an activity that  
they wouldn't necessarily consider experimental in the rather self- 
conscious sense in which it's used by the experimental film community.

So to some extent (stating the obvious here) the whole issue of  
experimental film arises because of its peculiar relationship to  
cinema: in other words it's really an institutional question, at least  
as much as it's an aesthetic one (Peter Wollen used to like to  
emphasise that Hitchock was an experimental filmmaker). Their having a  
medium in common clearly has given rise to the "surface" issues that  
preoccupies filmmakers, and which Jonathan mentions in his email.

Nicky Hamlyn.




On 19 Jul 2010, at 16:15, Jonathan Walley wrote:

>
> Of course all filmmakers "experiment," if we use that term in the  
> broad, non-scientific sense of trying out new things without a fully  
> defined sense of what the outcome will be, and doing that to achieve  
> new and different results (e.g. to learn something new, create new  
> experiences, etc.). But I don't believe that's the way we use the  
> term when we refer to the thing called "Experimental film." As Fred  
> points out, it is a term that denotes a relatively specific artistic  
> tradition into which an artist enters (knowingly or not).