Inside My Mind on the Minds of Jack Smith and Michael Snow

  
Last Saturday evening, I headed over to the Anthology Film Archives to take in some Essential Cinema screenings presented in 16mm. On tap were Jack Smith's Scotch Tape and Flaming Creatures, as well as Michael Snow's Wavelength and < — >. Having not seen the movies before, I brought along my handy notebook to take some notes in between the films as to document my experience. Note-taking is a common practice for me these days (I thank certain professors I've had for that), as I try to jot down as many ideas, theories and emotions as possible while watching a film.  Some films demand intense note-taking more than others.  No observation is too vague and no observation is too obvious, although in retrospect, having done more research, they can seem somewhat innocent and humorous. Still, there's a first time for everything.

Scotch Tape (Jack Smith)

- music.
- daytime.
- working in a landfill/construction site

- is that tape on the film in the right hand corner?

- guys dancing.

Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith)

- classic list style credits (but on a piece of paper which our characters consistently walk in front of). Hollywood opening trope demolished!

- Objectification of body parts? Representation of sexual organs but (I don't want to say desexualizes) as an apparatus necessary for playtime.

- everyone puts on lipstick as audio of what appears to be a lipstick commercial is played. They are enamored with putting their lipstick on, slumping over one another in relaxed fascination and glee.

- A lot of flaccid penis and the touching/jiggling of it. Penis straight on at camera.

- Dude in the audience laughed at this. We then encounter the rape of the woman and the touching/jiggling of the left breast and the laughter stopped. People lay down on the floor, finger each other, eat each other out against their will.

- The screams are prevalent.

- The sound (as well as the score) is very prominent throughout.

- The world explodes and the rape stops. People either die or zone out as debris falls from the sky.

- The camera shakes in a panic.

- Blond bombshell introduced (later lies down and touches himself, trying to get hard).

- Flamenco dancing.

- A party reminiscent of a Hollywood of yesteryear breaks out (overhead shot of flamenco dancer bustling through the congested crowd like a bumper car).

- The victims, abused from before, stare from afar, frozen in time.
- A fly swoops in and makes its presence known.

 

Wavelength (Michael Snow)

- One room.

- camera moves in closely. Like Blowup and Blade Runner, the film takes an image and gets in close.

- We stare intently for so long, our eyes scanning for information and clues (but as to what?) and our brain plays with what to do with them.

- We get closer and closer as the camera uses filters to change the colors, lays image on top of image, etc.

- We look for so long that our eyes start to play tricks on us.   - We think we know what we see and then think again.

- What perceives what we witness? Our eyes or our brain?

- The film takes a theory and practices it.

- A piercing, drone-like sound throughout.
- Women chilling to Strawberry Fields by the Beatles (is the sound in this film diegetic?).
- What's going on at that hardware store across the street?
- Day to night and back.

- Guy lays on floor. Is he dead? Woman (Amy Taubin!) later reports him to be. We hear police sirens in the distance. Perhaps he is.

- This film is playful. Whatyaknow? A narrative developed in front of our eyes and we didn't even know it.

- A part of the film feels like an eye exam, like when you look through different lenses and the optometrists keep playing with the prescription to see how well you can view the image. - It's fuzzy, then clear, then REALLY clear.

- One of the photos on the wall (spoiler alert!) turns out to be one of waves in the ocean. A postcard of peaceful serenity on a wall in a room of urban business.

< — > (Michael Snow) 
- Bradley Eros told me that the film is sometimes called "Back and Forth" by some but that the title is a symbol and so they are wrong to call it "Back and Forth."

- Shot at Fairleigh Dickinson University in NJ in July 1968 with a Bolex camera.

- Like a visual tennis match, left to right, back and forth, accompanied by the sound of what very well could be a tennis ball bit hit.

- Heard at each turn.

- The camera oscillates back and forth inside a classroom (surveillance state metaphor?).

- I hear they do something like this in Paranormal Activity 3. Should check that out.

- The provides not only a left and right image but a left to right image; the spatial imagery matters most of all.

- We see people walk in and out of the classroom.

- They sit at the desks (professor at chalkboard;  "< — >" is displayed on chalkboard.

- A party takes place in the classroom.

- The camera keeps moving.

- How much of this is performance?

- "Characters" appear and disappear from the frame in an instant (their souls inhabit the classroom).

- The swooshing back and forth induces paranoia at times.

- It's like a television set scanning information from left to right, attempting to transmit an image.

- The camera becomes a representation of a viewer's darting eyes.

- Later the camera movement switches to up and down, up and down.

- A cop peers in through the window.

- The camera's movement speeds up.
- Accelerated speed makes it all a blur.
- The images do not change but the speed and intensity creates a new image out of this chaotic order.

- A collage of previous moments we've seen (left to right and up to down) is played, one image on top of the other.