Reading 3: Narrative

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Nadya Devina

I was scrolling and the bit about abstract film forms captured my attention most. Abstract movies are categorized as non-narrative and can be categorized as theme and variations according to Bordwelland. He uses Ballet mecanique as an example. I watched the movie and I suppose like many other people I couldn’t really understand what it was about. I kept wondering though why he shot those subjects / objects and arranged it that way, such as a pair of female eyes in the middle of a machine scene (hey that rhymed!).

“Our engagement with the story depends on our understanding of the
pattern of change and stability, cause and effect, time and space.”

Then does that mean in a way Ballet mecanique does narrate because it has caused me to wonder about it. People watching it can respond in either a negative or positive way but It does generate a response. Maybe the movie was just a random series of shots with totally no meaning, then again it could be symbolizing something.

Something I thought of while writing this. Yoko Ono is known for her avant-garde art and this is a clip of her yelling in an art museum

This art piece can be categorized in abstract form, doesn’t really say or mean anything, but people clapped in the end.

Reading 2: Bjørn Sørenssen

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Nadya Devina

This is a late post. Adrian told us a useful tip would be to treat academic readings as if they were a person and we could ask them anything. “Why are you so swedish?” were one of the examples.

Sorenssen mentioned in the last paragraph that Astruc thought the new ways of media, its accessibility, is a ‘rejuvenation of film form’ and it was ‘liberating it from the old’. Early in the passages he mentions Youtube being flooded with laughing babies and cats. I do agree that new media platforms are a ‘democratization of the medium’. What I want to ask Sorenssen is whether he thinks that this democratization is ruining the old film forms? I feel like through all these new media platforms like Vine its so easy for people to start creating things, and in a way in makes film forms less meaningful.