Reclaiming the avant-garde

People have long associated Los Angeles with Hollywood and major
studio films. But for David E. James, that isn’t enough. The
author and USC film professor believes the city is getting left out
of the credits when it comes to its contributions to avant-garde
cinema, saying that many view San Francisco and New York as the
centers of American experimental and minor cinema.

In his new book, “The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History
and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles,” James
disputes this view.

“There is a tremendous history of non-commercial
filmmaking in Los Angeles that has never been accepted into the
official histories of cinema,” he said. In the context of the
widespread lack of awareness of Los Angeles’ contribution to
the American experimental film forum, James argues that Los Angeles
is the true center of avant-garde cinema.

As a step toward remedying film history’s failure to
recognize Los Angeles’ contribution to experimental and
unconventional filmmaking, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, in
collaboration with Los Angeles Filmforum, has created a series of
Los Angeles-based avant-garde cinema. Beginning with the
revolutionary “Soul of the Cypress,” Dudley
Murphy’s 1920 masterpiece, the series will complement
James’ book. He will also speak before each of the
screenings, which begin Nov. 2 and run through Nov. 9 at the James
Bridges Theater.

Not only will UCLA be the showcase for much of the series, but
UCLA alumni have also historically had a significant impact on the
development of Los Angeles avant-garde and American experimental
cinema as a whole.

“UCLA filmmakers have significantly contributed to
avant-garde filmmaking and enriching our cinematic
vocabulary,” said Cheng-Sim Lim, co-chairman of the archive
and co-creator of the series.

Just out of UCLA in the early 1960s, film student Reg Childs
founded Genesis, a short-film distribution company that provided
exposure for many experimental filmmakers of the time.

When Chick Strand entered the UCLA film program, she wove
together elements of various sources to shape the idea of cinema
collage, creating meaning out of the unrelated through
juxtaposition and collision.

In the mid-1960s, alumni such as Jim Morrison (later of the
Doors) and Peter Mays contributed to the counter-culture that
culminated in the socially aversive Sunset Strip Riots in 1966.
This axis of social reform greatly inspired artistic reform as
well.

In fact, the combination of social and artistic reform resulted
in a new era of avant-garde film ““ minority filmmaking,
including ethnic, feminist and gay.

“UCLA was the front line in minority filmmaking,
especially African American, but also Asian American and Latino
American,” James said.

“Minorities often turned to the avant-garde because it was
more immediate and accessible than Hollywood,” added Chon
Noriega, a UCLA professor of Chicana/o studies who has taught a
course on avant-garde cinema. “The avant-garde also allowed
for a wider range of expression than Hollywood.”

Los Angeles native Dave Lebrun, who attended UCLA’s
graduate film program, focused on ways of seeing and thinking about
specific cultures, inspired by his background in philosophy and
anthropology. For example, in “Sanctus” (1966), Lebrun
intercut three Mexican rituals (the Catholic mass, the bullfight
and the Mazatec sacred mushroom ceremony) using parallels to create
a meta-ritual on film.

Lebrun’s revolutionary combination of documentary,
experimental, and animated structure and technique has maintained
influence even today.

Nina Menkes, a professor, prolific writer and alumna of the UCLA
School of Theater, Film and Television, was among the most
important feminist filmmakers to emerge.

Like ethnic minorities, women were often considered falsely
represented in Hollywood. Menkes utilized harsh outer realities to
create inner dream worlds laden with controversial feminist
sensibility and visual intensity.

Most recently, UCLA’s research into topographical theory
has spawned a new genre of experimental film: geography-based
filmmaking.

Urban structure once followed the model of cities such as
Chicago, but research by UCLA proposed Los Angeles as the
prototypical modern city, contributing to a wave of avant-garde
films discussing the geography of Southern California and Los
Angeles.

For example, UCLA graduate Thom Andersen’s “Los
Angeles Plays Itself” (2003) is an extensive document of how
the metropolis of Southern California has been represented through
film.

While UCLA has influenced Los Angeles greatly, the foundation
for the city’s experimental film began much earlier in the
century.

Avant-garde cinema is a concept originally borrowed from French
filmmakers, who began concerning themselves with the production of
film simply as an art. Following the example of Murphy, Americans
soon began to follow suit.

“The distinction between the avant-garde and the industry
was very porous,” said James. “A lot of people that
worked in the industry made films on the weekends, and they were
able to get commercial distributions.”

As the center of Hollywood, Los Angeles was then the source of a
growing avant-garde film market. With the coming the Great
Depression, though, distribution became more and more segregated
and the avant-garde became culturally marginalized.

Then, with the coming of World War II and the Hollywood
blacklists, Los Angeles lost its place as a budding center for the
experimental.

“Most progressive cultural activity in L.A. was destroyed
during the blacklist. It re-began in New York and San Francisco …
and since L.A. was Hollywood, the other parts of film in L.A. just
got written out of the books,” James said.

Lim agrees that part of the problem has been the shadow cast by
Hollywood over the rest of Los Angeles.

“Los Angeles has primarily been thought as a film-industry
town. Experimental cinema has generally been overlooked by the
mainstream,” Lim said. “It is very provocative subject
matter.”

Despite being overlooked, Los Angeles-based avant-garde film
continued to have profound influence through the 1940s and
beyond.

For example, Maya Deren’s “Meshes of the
Afternoon” is widely considered one of the most important
avant-garde films to date. Utilizing the emotions of war, dramatic
irony and untried style and structure, Deren and her works
indelibly inspired a new era of avant-garde filmmakers.

“In the 1940s there were several different strands of
experimental film going on in Los Angeles at the same time. Los
Angeles was the most important city by far,” James said.

Among Deren’s peers were abstract animators John and James
Whitney, spiritually based director Kenneth Anger, and the creators
of psycho-dramas ““ short, poetic films in which filmmakers
often investigate their own psycho-sexual identities ““ all
based in Los Angeles.

Filmmakers, such as Pat O’Neill of UCLA, an innovator in
animation and special effects, gained much of their avant-garde
education from the Los Angeles Coronet Theater, which held many
screenings during the 1950s, and other non-commercially driven Los
Angeles showcases.

Inevitably, Noriega argues, Hollywood and the Los Angeles avant
garde partake in a constant collaboration. One art cannot exist
without influencing another.

“Hollywood has regularly turned to the avant garde as a
source for new ways of storytelling and new visual style,” he
said. “Hollywood co-opts the avant garde because there is
useful stuff there, but it does not necessarily support the avant
garde as a separate activity, outside a commercial
framework.”

Thus, experimental cinema is still at the disadvantage in this
relationship. And “The Most Typical Avant-Garde: Minor
Cinemas in Los Angeles” film series works to resolve this
concern.

“And we’re not against Hollywood,” Lim said.
“We’re trying to give people exposure to a wider range
of cinema than the Arclight would give you. We essentially show the
films the theaters won’t show.”

Although the future of experimental film is inevitably in the
hands of the digital revolution ““ with creativity expanding
with each new technology ““ David James, the archive and Los
Angeles Filmforum understand the importance of respecting
history.

The series focuses on films not screened in Los Angeles
recently, from Busby Berkeley’s “Lullaby of
Broadway” sequence from “Gold Diggers of 1935″ to
the 1967 student version of George Lucas’ first feature film,
“THX1138: 4EB,” and other relatively unknown works.

“There are so many nostalgias about Los Angeles, even held
by the people who live here. There’s so much we don’t
even know about our own city,” said Lim.

“The series is not really a survey of everything up to
this point ““ it’s to illustrate for people and show
evidence of the work that has been done in L.A.”

“The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography
of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles” Film screenings Nov. 2 – 9,
7:30 p.m. James Bridges Theatre; $8 For a complete schedule of
screenings for “The Most Typical Avant-Garde” series,
visit www.cinema.ucla.edu or www.lafilmforum.org.

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