6.02 The Most Active
Filmmakers
Introduction: In this content analysis I
count and tabulate the people that have shown the most works in Exploding Cinema
1992 - 1997. This will show both the number of different works shown and repeat
showings of the same work. The hypothesis is that these filmmakers are most
significant, at least in part, by reason of their commitment to repeated
showings at Exploding Cinema.
Any broader
movement of cultural producers is remembered, or represented historically, by a
number of works selected as exemplary from all that were produced. This
selection is often known as a canon. A certain paradox is that a canon usually
refers to a past historical formation decided through the mediation of a
critical apparatus. As this programme of research is active in making
historical representations the study of such intensities may contribute to what
we may call a pre-canonic formation. This is a set or pattern of works that
would be offered up to the broader social processes of legitimation. Canon
formation is assumed to be part of a broader hegemonic struggle and is not as
predictable or fixed a process as we might assume.
Background and context: Canon formation in
commercial cinema is something that is a struggle between an intellectual group
of critics, who are ideally independent of the film industry, and the broad
paying publics which may either be a broad popular or a narrow cult following.[1]
In spite of the reference to the primacy of the judgement of the audience in
Exploding Cinema their judgement can only contribute to the canonisation
process in the limited form of spontaneous applause as the films are not
usually available as commodities through any form of distribution.[2]
Prior to a show the audience do not even know what movies they are coming to
see, as they are not mentioned on the publicity. Nor does the audience register
its evaluation of the works in any formal or measured way. There is only the
spontaneous applause followed by a general buzz of comment. This may be
followed by an individual approach if the filmmaker is present.[3]
Other film
group organisers, who are regularly in the Exploding Cinema audience, will pick
up 'favourites' to show in their own venues. So although the 'audience
decides', according to Exploding Cinema rhetoric, these judgements are, with
few exceptions, in the ephemeral form of oral discourse and memory. Generally
there is an absence of any critical writing.[4]
There are the
occasional films that create an almost tangible effect in the whole crowd
watching - perhaps the mutual recognition of a film which captures a new form
of representation, not yet seen in mainstream media or which validates the
subculture of the audience in a new way. These moments are occasionally
documented. An example is the 'Dead Dog' film by Victoria Kirkwood, which is
discussed by Duncan and Donal in Loo How's' 1994 documentary.[5]
Apart from the
intensity of production measured by this content analysis there are some other
processes which contribute to what I have called a pre-canon formation. These
are two: selections for tour and the selection for a compilation video.
The Tour
selections. Two European tours in 1994 and 1995 have lists which are not
derived from open access contributions quite in the way that the regular shows
are. Many of the films are selected favorites from the past year or so. These
are useful in indicating some of the collective's favorites even if the actual tours
would have a limited direct influence.
The Vacuum
compilation video (1996). Clearly a compilation video is a selective mechanism
in a pre-canon formation. It is currently one of the only sources to which
people might go to find works shown at Exploding Cinema. This is a selection
made by the collective sub-group that put together Vacuum.[6]
Method: I made an alphabetical
list of the approximately 650 filmmakers with the films they had shown at
Exploding Cinema from 1992 to June 1998[7].
This list included the cryptic details that were listed in the show programmes.
The few shows without programmes will not have the films shown listed, so this
is not a complete list of all films shown. It may in fact also contain a few
films that were listed but not shown.
I then selected the
filmmakers who had shown more than three films, subtracted all the people who
had been collective members and re-listed them in order of the number of works
shown.[8]
This was complicated by the repeat showings of films. Assuming that repeats are
due to popularity I have indicated the number of repeat showings in brackets. I
assumed that the fine ordering of the final listing would not be significant,
it would be more like a broad net in which would be caught the most active
filmmakers showing at Exploding Cinema.
This produces
a pre-canonic selection which has been chosen by an index of commitment to
showing work at Exploding Cinema rather than because of any supposed aesthetic
superiority. This approach to canon formation is sympathetic with the Exploding
Cinema ethic of inclusivity. Dates were also included so that the rough period
over which the filmmakers were active in Exploding is made clear.
Before giving
the results I will consider some unitisation problems. There is an assumption
that making many films shows a commitment to the process and to the underground
context. A weakness of this assumption is of reducing all films to a unitary
value. For instance, I have not taken a film's length into account. This gives
an advantage to people who make short films. Steven Houston, the founder of
Exploding Cinema in 1991, is perhaps the main victim of these shortcomings,
compounded by the lack of early records when he was active. Records which do
exist record him showing just one film but that was of 30 minutes and could
have been a major work which took years to make.[9]
The works
listed left out performance, which is an important part of the unique ethos of
an Exploding Cinema show.[10]
However performances were listed if they clearly included an element of
projection.[11] Other
exclusions are the loops and other decor.[12]
If the loops had counted as films then Caroline Kennedy would have scored
relatively higher as she is an enthusiastic maker of loops.
Results:
Filmmakers who have shown
most films:[13]
(+N) indicates
repeat showings
George Barber 15
(+4) 1992/98
Andrew Copeman 15
(+5) 1992/95
Arthur Lager 11
(+5) 1994/98
Alan Dein 10
(+3) 1992/95
Mark Video 7 (+4) 1992/95
Dick Jewel 6 (+4) 1992/93
Andrew Kotting 6 (+2) 1992/98
Ken McDonald 7 1992/93
Paul Murray 5 (+4) 1992/93
John Coffey 6 1995/98
Martin Hedley 4 (+4) 1992/95
Lovely Movies 6 1994/98
Nick G.Smith 6 1992/95
David Leister 5 1992/98
Gordon Mason 5 1993/95
Paul Synott 5 1993/95
Pascael Baes 4 1992
James de
Carteret 4 1994/5
David Fanning 4 1995/98
Halloween
Society 4 1993/96
Rob Ryan 4 1995/97
Small World 4 1995
Victoria
Kirkwood 3 (+4) 1993/95
Guy Edmonds 3 (+2) 1995/98
Michelle
Gallipeau 3 (+3) 1992/94
Sixty four
filmmakers had shown three or more films from 1992 to June 1998 (Counting
groups as one). Twenty one of these had produced just three films and a further
twenty two had been or are members of the collective. A further twenty-three names of filmmakers who had shown two
films, or whose films had been shown repeatedly, were added by cross-reference
with Vacuum and the two tour lists. Of these only two had been members of the
collective. Vacuum yielded two, the 1995 tour list seventeen and the 1994 tour
list a further eight. This implies about eighty-seven filmmakers who should be
considered as significant in this period by reason of their commitment to this
showing format.[14]
Analysis &
Interpretation:
The future understanding of any broad collective phenomena, which produces a
great mass of materials, must be mediated through a selection of material. It
is only the participants who can experience the full range of works especially
as they are not archived. A canon for my purposes is a selection of typical materials,
which convey some, or most of the important or memorable qualities of a broad
phenomenon. Of course the word canon also has a meaning of 'all that was best'
from a particular genre, period or movement and there is perhaps an element of
this in the selections made for Vacuum and the tour lists. Further a canon has
a connotation of arising from a process of validation by authoritative critics,
curators or historians. The lack of literary response to the films shown helps
to focus our attention on the fact that the critical response to over 1000
films by hundreds of people over six years has been oral. And the effects of
these works have been disseminated through oral culture. We can only talk of a
critical discourse if this can be theorised as an almost entirely oral
phenomena. This oral response is difficult to track, especially in retrospect.
Few traces are left by such an organic social process.
Much of what
has been shown at Exploding Cinema is already lost to posterity unless a large
amount of funding was to be found for this purpose in the next few years. Super
8 films in particular often exist in a single copy which is vulnerable. Some
collections are kept of show copies, mostly on VHS, by both the older Exploding
collective members and other film group organisers. But as far as I know these
are not catalogued and have come about by a process of attrition rather than by
an organised process of acquisition.
These are
often films that are left uncollected by filmmakers - a process that does not
favour the more organised filmmaker who supplies a return envelop or collects
her film in person at the screening. If archiving is to be attempted an
important issue is to decide what is most important to collect. The lists of
the most frequently shown filmmakers, largely derived from objective data, may
be a useful part of such a debate.
The energy
that people put in is largely sustained through inner drives to communicate. At
best this is a deeply perceived need to give form to something, which is
otherwise not being adequately expressed. Such creative urges underlie the most
vibrant and useful productions of culture. Of course such needs may also be
incoherent or driven by neurosis and may drive filmmakers to repeat cliches and
encourage those who are drawn by romantic notions of the identity of artist or
filmmaker.[15] But the
noise in any such an arena should not deafen us to such phenomena as crucial
well springs of culture.
The historical
value of such phenomena is not just to be seen in the production of a few
stars, or the technical or aesthetic innovations that spin off, but is rather
in the general and largely oral discourse generated. A discourse whose value is
in its autonomy from mechanistic vested interests. How, then, can a historical
representation be derived from the process of apparently dissipated oral
critical discourse?
The
more we seek after origins the more social creativity becomes obscured and the
more the movements of a living culture are negated by the canon. (Howard
Slater, 2000)
These processes
of communication in which people produce 'statements' from which agreements on
cultural commonalities and symbols are reached by informal oral communications
underpin the spheres of meaning that comprises our social realities.
Conclusion: In some ways the whole
idea of an orderly canon appears antithetical to the anarcho-democratic 'open
access' ethos of Exploding Cinema. But this may be to misunderstand the idea of
non-selection, which is to 'let the audience decide'. This shouldn't imply that
the audience and the collective members couldn't still have their own aesthetic
judgement. There are still standards but these are seen to be dynamic, in flux
and resisting the closure that a canon implies. Any future consideration of
this body of work must surely search out the singular films that impressed, as
well as those filmmakers who showed a commitment to this forum.
A canon is
assumed to be the best of an era but it may be that getting canonised is not
such a pure competition of aesthetic quality.[16]
There is also a large element of commitment, perseverance and getting to know
the right people. The character of an era may well be better reflected by this
crude charting of intensities than by the more esoteric process of critical
filtering and gate keeping.
Canon
formation could be part of a rational and open discourse rather than be formed
through the selection of a few experts. There is no reason why such specialists
could inform the debate. But even with a more rational canon formation there is
the danger that a narrow obsession with canonised works will obscure the
inclusive quality of Exploding Cinemas programming. A major part of the
aesthetic pleasure of an Exploding Cinema experience is being an active part of
a collective synaesthesia, rather than in discovering a great work by an
individual artist. It is, at best, a dynamic bricollage of light, performance,
ad hoc technology and camaraderie. At times its appears to either career along
like a charabanc full of drunken day trippers or be rattling monotonously
through a banal videoscape.
Whilst it is
important to value all artists, a reasoned selection may be a useful or even
necessary tool to understand and appreciate the work of a whole era.
[1] Theories of canon formation
are usually applied to the literary field and more recently in Women's and
Queer studies. The two main references are:
Pierre
Bourdieu's The Field of Cultural Production: essays on art and photography (Columbia UP 1993) and,
John
Guillory's Cultural Capital: the problem of literary canon formation (University of Chicago,
1993). Guillory says, "What a project of canon critique still lacks is an
analysis of how the institutional site of canonical revision mediates its
political effects in the social domain." p6.
In
relation to visual culture see: Bill Mikulak's 'Mickey Meets Mondrian: cartoons
enter the Museum of Modern Art' in Cinema Journal, University of Texas (V36 No
3 spring 1997 pp56 - 72). In relation to film see,
Adrian
Martin's 'Light My Face: the geology and geography of film canons' in, Senses
of Cinema
Issue 14 June 2001
(www.senseofcinema.com)
[2] Exceptions are the film
included in the compilation video Vacuum. See Chapter 10 for more details.
[3] On 8th October 2001 the Exploding Cinema showed a
film called 'The North Sea Circle' directed by Richard Coldman with Alexander
Gorlizki (video 22 mins). This film got a strong positive response from the
audience. Afterwards Jenet Thomas forwarded two emails to me as I knew Richard
and she didn't have his number. These validating enquiries were passed on to
Richard. An example of another form of response.
[4] Early programmes during 1993
did have a few cryptic reviews of the last programme but these were written by
collective members. See Chapter 11.
[5] Loo How. Dir. 'How to Be a
Successful Spectator' 1994. At the
time How was a student at the RCA.
Victoria
Kirkwood's film 'Dead Dog' (Super 8, 3mins), was shown on four separate
occasions from 20th March 1993 to 23rd February 1995.
[6] Vacuum was paid for by James
Stevens but was mainly put together by Duncan Reekie and Colette Rouhier.
[7] A list updated to 1999 will
be included with the thesis as part of the archive materials. The list to June
1998 used in this analysis will also be available.
[8] Collective members comprise
15 of the top 30 of filmmakers listed in this way showing from 32 to 5 works
each. (These are listed in Summary Table 1)
[9] Steven Houston's 'That
Stage' (video, 30mins) was shown on 18th June 1992 and at the Lido
Show on 7th August 1993.
[10] Performances that do not
declare an element of projection are discussed in Chapter 10.
[11] In this way Duncan Reekie,
who has produced a long series of spoken work with slide performances, scores
highly with content that is in the main not moving pictures.
[12] Caroline seems to have
archived her Super 8 loops but I was, unfortunately unable to obtain a copy of
them.
[13] This is only filmmakers
showing from 1992 - June 1998. The list excludes collective members. See table
[14] This comparison with the
selected tour lists showed that the intensity analysis did have a reasonable
predictive value in that it included 60 - 75% of the filmmakers listed in the
selected tour and Vacuum lists. Four of the six non-collective filmmakers
listed in Vacuum appear on the intensity list. Out of 80 filmmakers on the 1995
tour selection 61 are listed on the intensity list. Out of 33 on the 1994 tour
list 24 turn up on the intensity list.
[15] None-the-less certain widely
recognised filmmakers, such as George Barber and Andrew Kotting, are included
on this list.
[16] Let us remember here the
previous discussion of Foucault's Archaeology of Knowledge in Chapter Five.