Article Responses

http://silvacine.com/classreadings/shannons/HansRichter.pdf


Many films are made in order to attract the largest audience possible, causing film-makers to remain traditional in their story telling methods so the audience won't be "lost." It has always taken a significant amount of talent to appeal to the masses, oversimplifying the full potential of film-making. Personally, I am going to be optimistic about the direction the newer generation is headed. The world is continuing to move faster, and seemingly more chaotic, as time passes. I believe that as this continues to happen, the modern art of film will evolve into a creative outlet for a younger generation that will surely be well prepared to react against any mindless nonsense we're exposed to. Just as in the last paragraph of Richter's article, I too hope that film entertainment and film art can become identical. The highlight of this article for me was the paragraph referring to film as "the orchestration of motion in visual rhythms--the plastic expression of an object in motion under varying light conditions." Awesome.

http://silvacine.com/classreadings/shannons/ScottMacDonald.pdf

The description Scott MacDonald gave of the audience member's first response to an avant garde film was definitely accurate. I must admit I have seen some experimental movies that were amazing, and others that I thought were terrible and in fact did give me a headache. I appreciate them, and the ones that I like, I tend to like a lot. If more people took the opportunity to research the history of Avant Garde, I think they could have a much better understanding and appreciation for the genre. It is amazing to think that the images on the screen can elicit such emotion and thought from audience members...MacDonald says it best in this article in regards to the Lumiere brothers. Even now, their films prove to be a "meditation" on beauty seen everyday; captured on a canvas of film and slowly unfolding to give the audience enough time to emotionally connect with the image. I would like to see more of that incorporated in film today.