[Frameworks] movie scenes

[Gene Youngblood]

Thanks Salhas. We prefer that it not be San Francisco. A few posts ago I mentioned "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” which we are using.


On May 22, 2020 at 12:41:39 PM, salhas at gmail.com (salhas at gmail.com) wrote:

If you would like some San Fran scenery to cut to, I wonder if that Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill documentary from 2003 byJudy Irving would have some footage you’re looking for.

 

It seems that Kanopy, a streaming service used by many public/college libraries, has it available.

From: Gene Youngblood
Sent: May 22, 2020 14:28
To: Experimental Film Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Frameworks] movie scenes

 

Thanks Dave, and everyone else. I apologize. I haven’t been communicating clearly because I didn’t want to explain what I now realize I must explain. It’s this: in at least half of his 232 diaries, George places his camera at some distance from himself outdoors (like 20-50 feet away) and records himself walking along like any normal person would walk. No big drama. Just simply walking around looking at the world. The wide angle shots are intercut with low angle closeups of himself looking (as in “Hold me…”).

 

The “world” he most frequently walks through in this manner is his beloved San Francisco. We have compiled 26 years of those street scenes into a magnificent portrait of that beautiful city. That’s what I mean by “mythic”—George the mythical wayfarer as an emergent property of the whole.

 

The second “world” he most frequently walks through is El Reno, Oklahoma, the location of his weather diaries, where he continues mythologizing himself as the Walt Whitman-esque traveler.

 

We are seeking similar scenes from commercial cinema because we’ve been able to identify what we think are Hollywood inspirations for several other motifs (or single scenes) in the diaries. Some are obvious references, others are more generic, as in the present case, and that seems to be the problem. What we seek now is so generic that it may be invisible to memory, but I thought I’d give it a try.

 

 

On May 22, 2020 at 10:07:49 AM, Dave Tetzlaff (djtet53 at gmail.com) wrote:

Gene:

When you say “mythic shot of protagonist walking” my first thought is Woody Guthrie walking through the migrant camp in “Bound for Glory”. But this may not fit what you’re thinking of as it’s a long take rather than a montage, and the camera is following the protagonist so we don’t see his reactions. There are any number of similar following-long-takes in other films, including the famous onto-the-stage shot in “Primary” and the parody of it in “Spinal Tap”.

If this relates to Kuchar-cam shots, e.g. in “Hold Me…” of course there’s “Pi” (and maybe other?) by Aronofsky.

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