Avant-garde & Experimental Filmmaking

Avant-garde filmmakers had a desire to prise film from the grip of conventional and popular theatrical traditions, being wilfully nonconformist and challenged the traditional conventions of cinema. Coming mostly from backgrounds in the fine and plastic arts, which were revolutionised in the first two decades of the century by Futurism, Cubism and Dada, the earliest avant-garde filmmakers wanted express and redefine moving image as an art.
Experimental films are made for many reasons. The filmmaker may wish to express personal experiences or viewpoints in ways that would seem eccentric in rather than the usual, convention perspectives of the mainstream audiences and filmmakers.

 Scorpio Rising - Kenneth Anger – 1964

Still from 'Scorpio Rising'

The subject in this Experimental Film from director Kenneth Anger is the motorcycle culture of the 1960's, and he includes scenes of bikers working on their machines, dressing, revelling and racing. Anger cuts in still photos, comic strips, old movies and Nazi posters.   There is also no dialogue throughout the film, a style in which Anger uses throughout most of his films. Both these techniques alone show experimental techniques and practices. Each segment of the film is accompanied by a rock-and-roll song that adds an ironic or ominous tone to the images. For example, there is a scene in which a young man is tuning up his motorcycle, in which throughout Anger shows the figure of death looming over him. The sequence links biking to a death wish, an idea that returns in cartoons and other imagery throughout the film.
The techniques used in Scorpio Rising creates an elusive but powerful statement, evoking the possibility that people often model their behaviour on images supplied by mass media with the use of cut in imagery of film, photos etc. the genre of rock-and-roll music also reflects the negative biker culture.   

Still from 'Scorpio Rising'

The experimental filmmaker may tell no story, creating poetic reveries or visual collages full of energy such as Ballet Mecanique. The filmmaker may also create a fictional story but is revealed in such a way that challenges the viewer.

Through a series of transitions, Experimental Film can create ideas that might not have any sudden logical connection however, through the juxtaposition of the images, sounds, settings etc. We are encouraged to look for a possible connection between them.

Ballet mecanique (Mechanical Ballet) – Dudley Murphy & Fernard Leger - 1924

Ballet Mecanique one of the earliest abstract films also one of the most influential, remains highly enjoyable avant-garde film and a classic example of how mundane objects can be transformed when their abstract qualities are used as the basis for a films form.
Leger had an interest in machine parts which he often stylized in his distinctive developed versions of his cubism paintings.
Through the focus of obscure objects and human beings and creating a visual and temporal rhythms, the film changes the expectations about the about the nature of movement. Making objects dance and turn human action into mechanical gestures and the repetition of the shots connects humans to machines without actually using them. For example, there is a scene where a woman is swinging back and forth on a swing and turning her head to the side and back again. Another repetitive shot of a close of a woman’s lips smiling and unsmiling. Obscure and quick cut images are repeated throughout the film.