[Frameworks] Difference between

[Fred Camper]

I've given this issue, along with that of "experimental," more thought 
than it perhaps deserves.

I don't think "underground" works at all today. It only barely worked in 
the 60s. It might work in a repressive country in which you could not 
really show your films. Our culture, whatever one thinks of it, has 
become too open and too diverse for this word. But I don't think 
"avant-garde" works either. So much has been done; most filmmakers are 
working within existing traditions. Nor is "experimental" of much use, 
except for a minority who, for better or for worse, feel that the word 
is right for them. A response to that word from one filmmaker decades 
ago: "I made many experiments while working on this film. I left them 
behind in my editing room. What you will see is a finished work."

On the other hand, just calling these works "films" doesn't work either; 
your viewers will be for most such films be disappointed to find no 
evidence of Batman, or Luke Skywalker, or similarFrame. We need a 
neologism, but I have never found one.

Fred Camper
Chicago

On 3/2/2021 2:33 AM, Jaime Cleeland wrote:
> Hi,
> How would y’all differentiate between calling a filmmaker ‘Underground’ as opposed to ‘Avant-Garde’?
>
> Best,
> Jaime
>
> Sent from my iPad
>