Remodernist film developed in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
in the late 1990s and early 21st century and is related to the British art movement
StuckismStuckism is an international art movement that was founded in 1999 in Britain by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. The Stuckists stated their opposition to the Charles Saatchi-patronised Young British Artists...
and its manifesto,
RemodernismRemodernism is a 21st century art movement that revives aspects of modernism, particularly in its early form, and follows postmodernism, which it is in contrast to...
.
Remodernist film calls for a return to emotional and spiritual meaning in cinema, as well as an emphasis on new ideas of narrative structure and subjectivity. Elements of
French New WaveThe New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema...
,
No Wave CinemaNo Wave Cinema was a Colab sponsored boom in underground filmmaking on the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. Its name, much like its cousin No Wave music, was a stripped down style of guerilla/punk filmmaking that emphasized mood and texture above everything else.This brief movement,...
,
punk filmPunk film is a type of film associated with the punk subculture. Many punk films have been made, and punk rock music videos and punk skate videos are common. The use of stock footage typifies punk film. Several famous groups have participated in movies, such as the Ramones in Rock 'n' Roll High...
, expressionist, spiritual and transcendental filmmaking, as well as
Antonin ArtaudAntoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
's ideas on the
Theatre of CrueltyThe Theatre of Cruelty is a concept in Antonin Artaud's book The Theatre and its Double. “Without an element of cruelty at the root of every spectacle, the theatre is not possible. In our present state of degeneration it is through the skin that metaphysics must be made to re-enter our minds”...
helped lead to this new film movement .
Remodernist film developed in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
in the late 1990s and early 21st century and is related to the British art movement
StuckismStuckism is an international art movement that was founded in 1999 in Britain by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. The Stuckists stated their opposition to the Charles Saatchi-patronised Young British Artists...
and its manifesto,
RemodernismRemodernism is a 21st century art movement that revives aspects of modernism, particularly in its early form, and follows postmodernism, which it is in contrast to...
.
History
Remodernist film calls for a return to emotional and spiritual meaning in cinema, as well as an emphasis on new ideas of narrative structure and subjectivity. Elements of
French New WaveThe New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema...
,
No Wave CinemaNo Wave Cinema was a Colab sponsored boom in underground filmmaking on the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. Its name, much like its cousin No Wave music, was a stripped down style of guerilla/punk filmmaking that emphasized mood and texture above everything else.This brief movement,...
,
punk filmPunk film is a type of film associated with the punk subculture. Many punk films have been made, and punk rock music videos and punk skate videos are common. The use of stock footage typifies punk film. Several famous groups have participated in movies, such as the Ramones in Rock 'n' Roll High...
, expressionist, spiritual and transcendental filmmaking, as well as
Antonin ArtaudAntoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
's ideas on the
Theatre of CrueltyThe Theatre of Cruelty is a concept in Antonin Artaud's book The Theatre and its Double. “Without an element of cruelty at the root of every spectacle, the theatre is not possible. In our present state of degeneration it is through the skin that metaphysics must be made to re-enter our minds”...
helped lead to this new film movement . They champion the works of
Andrei TarkovskyAndrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist and opera director....
,
Yasujiro Ozuwas a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed since the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationship between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work.-Life:Ozu was born in the...
,
Robert BressonRobert Bresson was a French film director known for his spiritual, ascetic style.-Life:...
,
Jean RollinJean Michel Rollin Le Gentil is a French film director, actor, and novelist best known for his films in the fantastique genre. Rollin is credited as having made the first French vampire film as well as the first French gore film...
,
Michelangelo AntonioniMichelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director.-Life:Michelangelo Antonioni was born into a well-to-do family of landowners in Ferrara, Emilia Romagna, in northern Italy. The director explained to Italian film critic Aldo Tassone:While still a child,...
,
Jean VigoJean Vigo was a French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and was a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Biography:...
,
Amos PoeAmos Poe is a New York City filmmaker.He has been considered one of the first punk filmmakers and his film The Blank Generation co-directed with Ivan Kral, one of the earliest punk films.The film featured performances by Richard Hell, Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith and Wayne County...
,
Jean EpsteinJean Epstein was a film director and early film theoretician.- Career :He started directing his own films in 1922 with Pasteur, followed by L'Auberge rouge and Coeur fidèle...
and
Nicholas RayNicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause.-Early career:...
among others, as well as
Bela TarrBéla Tarr is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and former actor.-Life:Tarr was born in Pécs, but grew up in Budapest in a working class family...
's film
SatantangoSátántangó is a film directed by Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr. Shot in black-and-white, completed in 1994, it runs an epic 7 hours and 12 minutes. It is based on the novel Sátántangó by Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, who has been providing Tarr with stories since his 1988 film Kárhozat...
and
Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard is a French and Swiss filmmaker and one of the founding members of the Nouvelle Vague, or "French New Wave"....
's
Hail MaryHail Mary is a 1985 French film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The film is a modern retelling of the story of a virgin birth.-Plot:...
.
The first Remodernist films and filmmakers included
Youngblood (1995) by
Harris SmithHarris Smith is a filmmaker, media critic and essayist from New York City. He is one of the founding members of the Remodernist film movement and was a participating member of the first comprehensive Remodernist exhibition in the United States, Addressing the Shadow and Making Friends with Wild...
,
Shooting at the MoonShooting at the Moon is a short Super-8 punk/Remodernist film directed by Jesse Richards and Nicholas Watson, starring Matthew Quinn Martin as Buddy and Leila Laaraj as Lana, and features music by Billy Childish. It was shot in the summer of 1998 and its final cut was completed in 2003...
(1998-2003) by
Jesse RichardsJesse Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the British art movement Stuckism.-Early life:...
and
Nicholas WatsonNicholas Watson is a writer and filmmaker. He co-founded the New Haven Stuckist art group.- Life and Art :Nicholas Watson has worked on films with Jesse Richards since 1996. In 2001, Watson co-founded the New Haven, Connecticut chapter of the Stuckism art movement with Richards. Stuckism was...
, and
Medway Bus Ride (1999) by
Wolf HowardWolf Howard is an English artist, poet and filmmaker living in Chatham, Kent and was a founder member of the Stuckists art group...
.
Remodernist film began as a film movement when a collective of filmmakers and photographers called Remodernist Film and Photography was founded by Richards and Smith in 2004, although the idea of
StuckismStuckism is an international art movement that was founded in 1999 in Britain by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. The Stuckists stated their opposition to the Charles Saatchi-patronised Young British Artists...
in relation to filmmaking and photography had been active since 2001 when Richards and
Nicholas WatsonNicholas Watson is a writer and filmmaker. He co-founded the New Haven Stuckist art group.- Life and Art :Nicholas Watson has worked on films with Jesse Richards since 1996. In 2001, Watson co-founded the New Haven, Connecticut chapter of the Stuckism art movement with Richards. Stuckism was...
began releasing work as The New Haven Stuckists Film Group. On March 8, 2008 their film
Shooting at the Moon made its London premiere at
Horse HospitalThe Horse Hospital is an arts venue in central London, England, which caters for literary and spoken word events, underground film and avantgarde media screenings, and visual art exhibitions...
during its FLIXATION Underground Cinema Club event.
After a break from production for a few years, Remodernist film recently began seeking equipment and funds for new films in January, 2009.
In late August, 2009, an International Alliance of Remodernist Filmmakers was started by
Jesse RichardsJesse Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the British art movement Stuckism.-Early life:...
in order to promote discussion and collaboration amongst those following the manifesto. The filmmakers include
Jesse RichardsJesse Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the British art movement Stuckism.-Early life:...
,
Harris SmithHarris Smith may refer to:*Plaxico Burress, an NFL player who used this name as an alias.*Harris Smith, a filmmaker and essayist, co-founder of Remodernist film....
,
Christopher Michael BeerChristopher Michael Beer is an American independent filmmaker, critic, philosopher, and artist. He has worked primarily in Minnesota and Prague, CZ. His first film, FADE , an Orwellian drama lifting from the cultural theories of Louis Althusser, is now used in graduate philosophy courses...
, Dmitri Trakovsky, Kate Shults, Peter Rinaldi and Khurrem Gold of America, and Roy Rezaali of Holland.
Manifesto
On August 27, 2008,
Jesse RichardsJesse Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the British art movement Stuckism.-Early life:...
published a 15 point
Remodernist Film Manifesto, calling for a "new spirituality in cinema", use of intuition in filmmaking, as well as describing the remodernist film as being a "stripped down, minimal, lyrical, punk kind of filmmaking". Point 4 notes,
"The Japanese ideas of
wabi-sabirepresents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The phrase comes from the two words wabi and sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete"...
(the beauty of imperfection) and
mono no aware, also translated as "an empathy toward things," or "a sensitivity of ephemera," is a Japanese term used to describe the awareness of mujo or the transience of things and a bittersweet sadness at their passing...
(the awareness of the transience of things and the bittersweet feelings that accompany their passing), have the ability to show the truth of existence, and should always be considered when making the remodernist film."
There are also several polemic statements made in the manifesto that criticize
Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American director, writer, producer, and photographer of films, who lived in England during most of the last 40 years of his career...
, filmmakers that shoot on digital video, as well as
Dogme 95Dogme 95 is an avant-garde filmmaking movement started in 1995 by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg with the signing of the Dogme 95 Manifesto and the "Vow of Chastity". They were later joined by fellow Danish directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, to form a...
. In December, 2008, the Turkish film magazine Bakiniz translated the manifesto into Turkish .
Further developments
In October, 2009, with the intention "to further develop and explain Remodernist film concepts", a series of articles by
Jesse RichardsJesse Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the British art movement Stuckism.-Early life:...
, Peter Rinaldi and Roy Rezaali were published in the magazine
MungBeingMungBeing is an online, bimonthly magazine containing artwork, short stories, interviews, articles, essays, music, recipes, poetry, comics, and interactive features.-History:The first issue of MungBeing was released on 4 April 2005...
. In Richards' essay
Concepts and Craft in Remodernist Film, he notes that Remodernist film craft "embraces the amateur", involves the idea of filmmakers "teaching themselves to paint pictures, to try acting in their own movies and those of others (especially if they are shy), to be nude models for other artists, to meditate, worship if they are religious, to do things that affect their levels of consciousness, try things that make them nervous or uncomfortable, to go out and be involved in life, to find adventure, to jump in the ocean. I think that is the exploration of craft" .
The article goes on to explain the differences between modernist, post-modernist and remodernist cinema, describing
Robert BressonRobert Bresson was a French film director known for his spiritual, ascetic style.-Life:...
and
Andrei TarkovskyAndrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist and opera director....
as "early Remodernist filmmakers", and notes films that make emphasis of "small moments", including
Bela TarrBéla Tarr is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and former actor.-Life:Tarr was born in Pécs, but grew up in Budapest in a working class family...
's film
SatantangoSátántangó is a film directed by Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr. Shot in black-and-white, completed in 1994, it runs an epic 7 hours and 12 minutes. It is based on the novel Sátántangó by Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, who has been providing Tarr with stories since his 1988 film Kárhozat...
, "...every moment of the film
Satantango is a good example of this kind of exploration of "moments"- the film starts with a ten minute shot following cows coming out of a barn and wandering around a run-down agriculture collective. These kinds of moments are all but ignored in most examples of modern cinema, and that's a terrible, terrible thing".
Richards goes on to explain his own brand of Remodernist filmmaking:
my own interests are a little more specific. I'm interested in Japanese aesthetics, Tarkovsky's ideas on "sculpting in time", an emphasis on moments. But there's something else I've really been thinking about lately. I believe that the most effective way to really make subjective and authentic work involves an "addressing of the shadow" (as Billy Childish and Charles Thomson have described it). Now what does this mean exactly? It might mean that you are really obsessed with pubic hair, or maybe you are really embarrassed by a physical or mental disability that you try to hide, or like Billy Childish, you were abused as a child.
These things, these "shadows" that we are hiding within ourselves, need to be brought forth into the light of day - in our films, in our work, in our poetry. It's necessary for us to share these parts of ourselves so we and the people we share with can grow into complete, honest human beings. Now, this kind of brutal honesty about ourselves shown through imagery that isn't shy, has been explored to a degree in the work from the Cinema of Transgression, and is advocated by Antonin Artaud in his writings about the Theatre of Cruelty, and his later writings on cinema. But I don't think it's quite as simple as just that. As human beings, we are also full of beauty and love and poetry - we can see this in ourselves and in others and in the world around us. So this beauty must be explored as well, and in combination with the exploration of the shadow. The funny thing is that if we would just be honest as filmmakers, or painters, or as whatever we happen to work with, if we could be this honest, this approach would happen automatically. But we are told again and again- these things don't go together, don't tell people about that thing that you can't get out of your head- that image is inappropriate. We've become very afraid of just expressing ourselves honestly, of removing the desperate attempts to appear clever, we've been afraid of showing our true selves out of fear that others will think us fools. So this is where Artaud, the Cinema of Transgression, and even Andrei Tarkovsky have not gone quite the distance. The cinematic exploration of spirituality and transgression together - pubic hair, blood and shit and love and the green grass and the dying cherry blossoms, falling snow, passing trains - every single fucking beautiful piece of life - that is what my conception of Remodernist film is .
In another article, entitled
A Quick Primer and History, Richards relaxes the criticism in the manifesto against digital video, noting that it can "have a place in Remodernist cinema" but that it should be given a new language, and that it currently "mimic(s) film". The article also broadens the aim of the movement, explaining the common bond among Remodernist filmmakers being a search for truth, knowledge, authenticity and spirituality in their work, but having different approaches on achieving that goal .
Peter Rinaldi, analyzes the manifesto and shares his "personal thoughts" on it in his essay,
The Shore as seen from The Deep Sea. Particularly, he defends the criticism of digital and later of
Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American director, writer, producer, and photographer of films, who lived in England during most of the last 40 years of his career...
, saying first, "for the most part, the "easiness" of video has led to degradation in the images created" and then,
I certainly don't share in my friend's opinion of this man's work, but I actually think this is a hugely important part of the manifesto. A lot of us came to be filmmakers because a particular director's (or a number of directors) work inspired us. A friend of mine calls these inspirational figures his "Giants," which I think is a great word for them because sometimes they are built up so much in our minds that we don't think we, or our work, can ever really reach them and their's. I think, for the most part, the generation that I grew up in had Kubrick as their Giant. His work has a mystical "perfectionism" that is awe-inspiring at times. This perfectionism is anathema to the Remodernist mentality and for many healthy reasons, this giant (or whatever giant towers over your work) must fall in our minds. We must become the giant .
The rest of the article draws direct connections between ideas in the manifesto and some Christian and Buddhist teachings.
See also
- Addressing the Shadow and Making Friends with Wild Dogs: Remodernism
Addressing the Shadow and Making Friends with Wild Dogs: Remodernism, held in 2005 in New York, United States, was the first American exhibition that included work from all of the Remodernist groups, and was one of the last art shows at CB's 313, the gallery connected to CBGB...
- No Wave Cinema
No Wave Cinema was a Colab sponsored boom in underground filmmaking on the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. Its name, much like its cousin No Wave music, was a stripped down style of guerilla/punk filmmaking that emphasized mood and texture above everything else.This brief movement,...
- Underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre, or financing. The first use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic Manny Farber, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of directors who "played an...
- Stuckism Photography
The Stuckist Photographers are a group of photographers founded by Larry Dunstan and Andy Bullock in December 2003 in order to apply the values of the Stuckist painters to photography.-History:...
- Postmodernist film
Postmodernist film describes the articulation of ideas of postmodernism through the cinematic medium. Postmodernist film upsets the mainstream conventions of narrative structure and characterization and destroys the audience's suspension of disbelief to create a work in which a less-recognizable...
External links