Landscape Suicide/James Benning

ABOUT: "The murderers in James Benning's LANDSCAPE SUICIDE are a paranoiac teenage girl and a taciturn Wisconsin farmer. The reconstructive narratives take the viewer through the slants of minds in disturbance, through the ambiguities that surround any act of violence. Both Bernadette Protti, who killed a more popular classmate with a kitchen knife, and Edward Gein, who shot a storekeeper's wife and then took her body home and cut it up, provide exemplars of 'I couldn't stop.' The homicides allow Benning to deal in emotion that is external to him (yet deeply felt), while imbuing his trademark 'still' images of roads, trucks, billboards, buildings and trees with newly charged meaning. ... As strong as Benning's photography is, it's the talking head sequences that prove most chilling. The power of Rhonda Bell's portrayal of Protti is such that there are moments when we're convinced she's the real killer. So, too, with Elion Sucher's Gein, who looks like he's been struck between the eyes with a heavy object, his head so caved-in by dementia. There is no actual violence here - save the disembowelment of a deer - but LANDSCAPE SUICIDE leaves you feeling like a witness nonetheless." - Katherine Dieckman, The Village Voice

A Fire in My Belly / David Wojnarowicz

David Wojnarowicz (September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s.

A Fire in My Belly was made by Wojnarowicz from footage that he made while visiting Mexico. His use of powerful and sometimes brutal imagery expresses his suffering from AIDS and his need to speak out against those who oppress the afflicted.

Controversy:

In November 2010, G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian, removed Wojnarowicz's short silent film A Fire in My Belly from the exhibit "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" at the National Portrait Gallery after complaints from the Catholic League and Rep. John Boehner. One segment of the film shows ants crawling over a crucifix.

In response, The Andy Warhol Foundation, which had co-sponsored the exhibition, announced that it would not fund future Smithsonian projects, while several institutions, including SFMOMA and Tate Modern, scheduled showings of the removed work.

Человек с киноаппаратом/Dziga Vertov

WIKI: Man with a Movie Camera is an experimental 1929 silent documentary film, with no story and no actors, by Russian director Dziga Vertov.

This film is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invents, deploys or develops, such as double exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, footage played backwards, stop motion animations and a self-reflexive style (at one point it features a split screen tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles).

(nostalgia)/Hollis Frampton

WIKI: (nostalgia), is a 38 minute 1971 film by artist Hollis Frampton (1936–1984). The film is composed of still black and white photographs taken by Frampton during his early artistic explorations which are slowly burned on the element of a hot plate, while the soundtrack offers personal comments on the content of the images, read by fellow artist Michael Snow. Each comment/story is heard in succession before the related photograph appears onscreen, thus causing the viewer to actively engage with the 'past' and 'present' moments as presented within the film.

Borderline/Kenneth MacPherson

WIKI: Borderline is a 1930 experimental silent film by Kenneth MacPherson and the Pool Group, starring Paul Robeson. In the film two couples-White and Black-intersect with racial values, each other, and the small town in which they find themselves. The Pool Group consisted of Winfred Ellerman, her bisexual husband Kenneth McPherson and her lover (and Kenneth MacPherson's), the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). Borderline was the last film that the Pool Group would complete before disbanding and has become a classic of early experimental cinema.

Le Sang d'un Poète/Jean Cocteau

WIKI: The Blood of a Poet (French: Le Sang d'un Poete) (1930) is an avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau and financed by Charles, Vicomte de Noailles. Photographer Lee Miller made her only film appearance in this movie, and it also features an appearance by the famed aerialist Barbette.[1] It is the first part of the Orphic Trilogy, which is continued in Orphée (1950) and was concluded with Testament of Orpheus (1960).

Decasia/Bill Morrison

WIKI: Decasia is a 2002 found footage film by Bill Morrison, featuring an original score by Michael Gordon. The film is a meditation on old, decaying silent films and is similar in spirit to Lyrical Nitrate. It begins and ends with scenes of a dervish and is bookended with old footage showing how film is processed. Some of the deterioration was enhanced with computers to create more meaningful abstract imagery.

The Hart of London/Jack Chambers.

WIKI: The Hart of London is a 1970 experimental Canadian film directed by Jack Chambers. Stan Brakhage proclaimed it as "one of the greatest films ever made". Shot in black and white and colour, the film is preoccupied with the tensions between nature and the city of London, Ontario.

Ten seconds film/Bruce Conner

WIKI: Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was an American artist renowned for his work in assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography, among other disciplines.

His innovative technique of skillfully montaged shots from pre-existing borrowed or found footage can be seen in his first film A MOVIE (1958). His subsequent films are most often fast-paced collages of found footage or of footage shot by Conner; however, he made numerous films, including most notably CROSSROADS, his 30 plus minute meditation on the atom bomb, that are almost achingly deliberate in their pace. Conner was among the first to use pop music for film sound tracks. His films have inspired generations of filmmakers, and are now considered to be the precursors of the music video genre. When told of his impact on music videos, Conner would reply, "don't blame me."

24 Hour Psycho/Douglas Gordon

WIKI: 24 Hour Psycho is a film made and produced by the British artist Douglas Gordon in 1993. The film consists entirely of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 Psycho slowed down to approximately two frames a second, rather than the usual 24. As a result it lasts for exactly 24 hours, rather than the original 109 minutes. The film was an important work in Gordon's early career, and is said to introduce themes common to his work, such as "recognition and repetition, time and memory, complicity and duplicity, authorship and authenticity, darkness and light." Gordon would show the film to interested viewers in his own bedroom.