Film - This is unedited and spilled out ....

I found myself at the book store yesterday, in the film section of all places. This is a first.

I am looking for something on film that is rather raw and enjoyable for a friend that seems inspired by film and drama at the moment. I slowly passed by every book on every shelf. So many choices, but most such serious reads. I came across a book called "The Age of Gold" Dali, Bunuel, Artaud: Surrealist Cinema. The cover is a still shot of the infamous scene in the film "Un Chien Andalou" just before the straight razor slices through the eye of a woman. Ah hah! That is the film I was looking for on You Tube last week. The film we were required to watch in Art School's, History of Graphic Design class. Unnerving then as it is now, I still find myself so curious about the making of Surrealist art and that includes a very brief history of film making done during at that time. It took a minute to realize, this book was coming home with me.

In the intro there is mentioned of two artists/poets of that time, who found themselves taken with the new art of film. They would roam from cinema to cinema, entering and leaving each film at random places in the production. Creating a visual poetry of their own, in doing so.
Imagine that today, an extravagant spilling out of cash to roam from film to film at your leisure.
Can't be done quite as easily today as it was when each film cost a penny or so.

Got me to thinking though. I have grown less and less interested in television with every year of my life. Growing up in the TV era, I have just had my fill. What I do now is read or crossword puzzle or sleep while my husband controls the clicker, often randomly flipping from scene to scene, from station to station. I have experienced this poetry myself, the same as the artist mentioned above. A random assortment of scenes collaged together, creating its own art form, story, poem or audio visual. In those days, though, it was a silent film, so it was all up to the eyes. Hence the beginning of the film, "Un Chien Andalou" where the movie starts out with a razor slash to the eye, like a reflection of yourself and your own eye being slashed.

So how does the random flipping of television programs, or movies, become a rather personal reflection of who you are? Perhaps, it is the turning on and off the scenes you find most and least stimulating. Controlling what can enter your vision and now your ears, can create quite a poetic escape from reality. Not as romantic as the cinema of silent films, but the amount of viewing pleasure seem endless. I still think I'd like to roam in and out of theaters though.