A Beginner's Guide to Experimental Cinema

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This is really laking in the internet. It's very appreciated, thanks a lot

Artists like Andy Warhol tested the limits of human stupidity and hubris, and making a point with it. How many of us got this point, is a whole another subject!

I think a very important experimental filmmaker is Toshio Matsumoto who produced a lot of amazing experimental and art house films. His most famous being Funeral Parade of Roses (1969).

1:32 Qatsi Trilogy
4:00 Chronos
4:27 Baraka
4:47 Samsara
5:09 Un Chien Andalou
6:03 Surrealist/Dada Films
7:22 Maya Deren
8:10 Stan Brakhage
9:10 David Lynch
10:16 Man with a Movie Camera
10:58 Animation
12:57 Andy Warhol
13:58 Structural Film
15:29 Kenneth Anger

This is a really phenomenal video. I just took a class in experimental film and we watched most of the films mentioned in this video. One film we watched that was not mentioned is Michael Snow’s Wavelength which is famous for being a 40 minute slow zoom in shot. I didn’t care for it much, but my professor loved it, and it’s definitely worth experiencing because it’s so unique and technically interesting.

The film Daisies (1966) is a good example of experimental film!

This is the most underrated channel I have ever seen (Honestly)!

A film worthy of note would have been ‘Performance’, directed by Nicolas Roeg starring Mick Jagger. Possibly one of the best movies of all time, not exactly experimental or even surrealist but just ‘out there’ and completely original.

Came in looking for a history lesson, came out realizing I've unintentionally watched a good chunk these films on LSD because I was trying to find something interesting to watch.

I´m sooo into experimental films... Thanks for this video... I would like to add to the list apichatpong weerasethakul, one of my favourites directors.

I graduated from film school 6 years ago and I still think about Wavelength by Michael Snow. It's just one shot. Why do I think about it so much!?

Really great for beginners!!! Learned a lot in 16 minutes...

great stuff, thank you

GREAT VIDEO! Thank you!!!

It is amazing to see how this type of cinema influenced and changed for ever the traditional filmmaking.

nice list! I really enjoy Barbara hammer and Cheryl dunye's experimental work as well

Well done. Script and delivery are on point. You hit all the major movements in experimental cinema and helped me rekindle my love for the genre.

Great video! I’ve grown up with film being a big influence on my life, and I’ve just recently(recently as in the past few days lol) started getting into the more experimental territory. I’ve already loved the strange and confusing more mainstream movies like Midsommar and the Lighthouse, two of my favorite from this past year. So, I thought I’d try out something even more confusing and picked some out of my to watch list. So far I’ve watched Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, and Tetsuo. The last of which I think could be classified under experimental, or something of the sort, but correct me if I’m wrong. Either way, I highly enjoyed all of them, especially Tetsuo and Eraserhead. I loved the themes, the style, the absurdity, everything. I’m very excited to see more films like these.

I really need this for my works, thanks.

Honestly been trying to get into experimental film and expand my love for film as a filmmaker and an aspiring cinephile who trying to forge his own unique style

Outstanding! Thank you for sharing this. Your film is engaging, educational and highly entertaining. Kudos and Bravo!!

Great high quality Content. Thanks a lot

HUGE THANKS!

Very nice!

I’ve seen koyaanisqatsi in a theater 30 times, sometimes twice a night from the front row

I absolutely adore Sergei Parajanov's works, with Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors being my favorite. Would you consider him to belong in the experimental category as well? Thanks for another great video essay, loving this channel!

Walerian Borowczyk is another to add to the list. Very influential on Jan Svankmajer and my favorite, the Brothers Quay.

Good content, thanks for sharing.

Lynch also has a lot of really amazing and haunting experimental short films that are easy to find on KRplus !

such an underrated channel,good job man

Good overview of experimental film and video. However, I would like to add some of the other French new wave filmmakers like Truffaut or Melville.

Eraser head is one of the scariest,weird,dream like film of all time and still freaks me out to this day.

Finding this channel is like finding treasure

Ty for this great video! It seems that experimentation=innovation.

Very helpful overview.

Wow finally this is a channel up that actually talks about cinema and not just goes for bs mainstream movies, your channel is definitely not booming but it is great to see that someone does talk about this type of films like your other video on art house cinema

I was really impressed by Elementary Tryptics of Spain, three films by Jose Val del Omar, especially Fire in Castilla. I saw them at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.

Jack Smith is a great one too

Wavelenght is one of my favorite films ever, watching it at a cinema was a catartic experience

Nice vid. Learned some pictures I should check out. If I'd throw my two bits, I'd add Disney's visual interpretation of Bach's Toccata and Fugue. I think for most of us, that's our first exposure to experimental movies.

Thank you so much, I went on search for a film I saw while at university (2008) Stan Brakhage I...Dreaming, your video helped me find it.

I would like to mention Danish Jørgen Leth. Especially his masterpiece "The Perfect Human". He did some stuff with Andy Warhol as well. After watching "The Perfect Human" go watch "The 5 Obstructions" by Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier, its a documentary where Trier tries to make Leth let go of his inner artist while giving him some extreme obstructions when recreating The Perfect Human. Nothing more than a masterpiece.

this is one of the best film channels on youtube. how did you acquire such encyclopedic knowledge of cinema?

What a great summary! I think that there's a lot of potential for experimental animation, particularly with how limitless modern animation technology is today.
I'd love to hear your interpretation of some of the films you mentioned.

Another important name in experimental animation is the Scottish director Norman McLaren. He was a pioneer in the field along with Len Lye and was one of the only experimental filmmakers to win an Oscar.

So, Andy Warhol was the precursor of the livestream in which people sleep.😂

Some of my favorite pieces of abstract/experimental film etc:
Pat o Neil's water and Power 1989
The quay brothers - street of crocodiles
bunker of last gunshots
the zapruder film (im being totally serious)
the butterfly dances 1900?
lost book found - jem cohen
Daybreak express - DA Pennebaker
Vincent - Tim Burton
Begotten - Elias Merhige 1990
Shadowlands - Anthony Lucas
New York Portraits - Peter Hutton
Jordan Belson's work
Necrology - Standish Lawdor
Pink Narcissus 1971
Route 1 USA - Robert Kramer (technically a documentary, but such a wonderful piece)
and of course my personal hero James Benning; 11x14, the Los trilogy, landscape suicide etc...🌝🌞🪐⭐🌟

Subscribed!!! Alumni of SFAI Experimental Film program -- student of animator Larry Jordan

Nice to know this channeI. I wouldn't let out Andrei Tarkovski and Alejandro Jodorowsky

Huh, I came here after seeing your video about Soviet Animation (glad that the algorith is pushing it foward, I hope the same happens for the rest of your videos!), I think that some footage of Reggio's trilogy got into a video of the song "L o s t" by the vaporwave artist Clinton Affair, the cinematography and topic kinda matches.

In the Labyrinth deserves an honorable mention, because it uses five screens at the same time and it became a precursor to IMAX

Might I suggest Guy Maddin's Tales from the Gimli Hospital.

Cool video! Andrei Tarkovsky is also a good one although he is more art house but I think it still applies I suppose?

"human highway" was pretty wild. A really young George Clooney, Neil Young & DEVO..

Just so you know. The 'Quay' in 'Brothers Quay' is pronounced 'Key'.

Eleanor Antin, Sadie Benning, and Martha Rolser

When I was in high school, all my friends were into the MCU, the DCEU etc.
I was into Koyaanisqatsi.

Algorythm, please, please give me more of this

This short piece is a great attempt to summarize experimental films. However experiments in cinema, also reminds me of Anderi Tarkovsky, in parts if not entirely. His dream sequences are definitely visual experiments in the narrative he constructs. Norman McClaren and Ryan Larkin in the world of animation films come to mind. In all I think all cinema is anyways an experiment in time and space, in bold or subtle strokes.

I'd like to argue that George Kuchar was pretty important in the experimental film world.

Hey bro, nice video essay, I enjoyed it. I would like to suggest some of renowned Czechoslovak new wave directors: Juraj Jakubisko, Jaromir Jires, Viera Chytilova, Juraj Herz. They made amazing films with very special unique taste..

I'm going to make an experimental film soon

"PIG" directed by Nico. B., and co-directed by Rozz Williams (former front man of death rock band Christian Death) (R.I.P.)

Jim Jennings' Silvercup"

2:28 Madonna was inspired by that film to shot her 1998 music video Ray Of Light

Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton are my personal favorites! If only James O. Incandenza made the list.

Where can I watch to all of this movies? Amazing, amazing video btw

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

how about nam june paik or gary hill?

Andrei Tarkovsky is well worth a look

Could any of Terrence Malick's films be considered experimental, or just experimentally-informed? (im especially thinking of post Tree of Life ones)

Make a list of the films you talk about in the Letterbox

2:25: Sounds like what I like

Samsara is one of the best films ever. Period.

Nobody is more experimental than Kurt Affair nowadays

Hi,as I can see you have lots of information about different movies,do you know a movie,which is old and about space,and a man in movie actually invents a liquid which has a anti gravity effect,and first he uses this liquid on an apple and then he makes a wooden spaceship and tries to go to the space with one of his friends and his dog,then dog dies in the space and the just leave him in the space,and then when they arrive in another planet,aliens keep them in prison with some solid gold handcuffs.
I've been searching for this movie and no one heard about it,I'd appreciate if you help me

One of the most important experimental directors is probably Jonas Mekas. I wonder why you didn't mentiom him.

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Hello

Check out my experimental videos
krplus.net/p/PLaIGFLOHiiT0TvZacfWi7_dUdK8WpdkQt.html

My films have caused people to feel queasiness, but that's the nature of conceptual inference, and not the visceral representations. The visual technical trick can be pacified by the use of cohesive experimental sensory dubbing. I see more potential in exploiting all of the various human senses, which is a real challenge. It doesn't need to make sense to everyone. Sometimes nonsense is plausibly effective. The work won't dazzle the audience with the truth, so it sufficiently baffles them with B.S.

experimental it's aweome, but not everyone understands what that means = market

16:17

6:45 Sorry, but I must do this
"Ma-ma-ma-ma, ma-ma MA ma-ma. Ma-ma-ma-ma, ma-ma, MA ma-ma....MAAAAN RAAAAAAY!!!!!"

Long ago I used to think it was a tragedy and a crime that the major studio/Hollywood machine effectively hijacked cinema and approaches each project like salesmen, fashioning each film down to a shiny, non offensive, optimally consumable product. I've known now for a while we the audience are at least equally to blame for the current state of cinema. If experimental films brought in a lot of money then you'd better believe every studio would be pumping them out like mad. Too many people favor shallow, hollow, mindless entertainment over rich, challenging, thought and conversation provoking art. I mean you can't force people to like arthouse/avant-garde/ experimental films but it truly is a shame cause the medium of film is so powerful and fulfilling but we'd all prefer the junk food.

Hi recently I made a surreal shortfilm on the present situation(pandemic) blurring the lines between mankind and mannequins. Can I send it to you. It is just 4minutes 🙂

we hope you enjoy our multiple award winning experimental thriller BOX krplus.net/bidio/hpmoqKZ9naOaepw

it's a shame everyone that thinks that any nonesense short is experimental cinema

No gaspar noe? :(

What the actual fuck, since when is Glass "one of the top composers of the 20th century"?

So how do I understand those films? I mean if i can't understand it then how can I praise it?

I was on board until you said one of Lynch's masterpieces was "Twin Peaks: The Return". No, one of his masterpieces is "Twin Peaks", which was a show that aired in the early 90s and was just recently brought back through a reboot of the series. The show's original run is one of the greatest times in television.

It's a good thing all film isn't like this

A film worthy of note would have been ‘Performance’, directed by Nicolas Roeg starring Mick Jagger. Possibly one of the best movies of all time, not exactly experimental or even surrealist but just ‘out there’ and completely original.