Tomislav Gotovac, Lying Naked on the Pavement, Kissing the Pavement (Zagreb, I Love You!). Homage to Howard Hawks' Hatari!, performance, Zagreb 1981.
No film can be too personal. The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments. Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.
- Excerpt Free Cinema Manifesto, Lindsay Anderson. 2004. Never Apologise - The Collected Writings.
Čim ujutro otvorim oči, vidim film. [As I open my eyes in the morning, I see film.]
- Tomislav Gotovac
This semester we will dream in strange colors, and learn to “listen to images”. The idea is to understand architecture as a narrative and also a non-narrative practice that can be realised in film. We will focus on the works of visual artist, filmmaker and “failed architect” Arthur Jafa and learn from his practice, along with what he calls “Black Visual Intonation”.
We will turn to a wide array of film and sound practices that transgress the mainstream and reconceptualize the art of cinema– Free Cinema, Third Cinema, and Black Wave Cinema among others. This will ground our understanding of film in very concrete and specific places, ideas and forms that will help us unpack what film might do.
Within the course we will immerse ourselves in these worlds by watching films, discussing music and sound, film theory, and politics. With ongoing exercises in editing, sampling and expanded cinematic practices, students will develop their own short films as a response to and position arising from the course.