Introduction

INTRODUCTION Whether it was called Experimental, Avant-Garde or just Artists’ films/videos it represented a body of work that was marginal to the respective institutions of cinema and art and, partly because of that, it was both lively and exciting, if financially unrewarding, generating debate and column inches in film and art journals and the occasional foray into national cinemas and galleries.1 Felicity Sparrow (2003) This thesis sets out to demonstrate the diversity in 1970s British experimental filmmaking and act as a form of historical reclamation. The intention is to integrate films that have not received adequate recognition into the field alongside those that stand as accepted texts. In accounts of the decade structural and material film experimentation, taking place predominantly at the London Filmmakers’ Co-operative (LFMC), has tended to dominate the histories, at the expense of overshadowing more personal, expressive and representational forms of filmmaking.2 One of the reasons for the lack of adequate recognition for these forms of filmmaking is that several accounts have asserted that a return to more personal, expressionistic forms of filmmaking occurred at the end of the 1970s. This was frequently referred to as the ‘return to image’, since the these films contained more representational content in contrast to the more formal, minimal films dominating the histories. In one example, Michael O’Pray identified that ‘since 1980 video art and experimental film have developed away from the largely conceptual aesthetics towards a pluralist practice in which the return of an imagistic and less formalist mode is central’.3 O’Pray identified that Gray Watson had ‘noted a re-orientation of recent art (including film and video) towards an “eclecticism” and “cultural cross fertilization” which marked it off from the preceding years of high formalism of whatever kind – conceptualism, minimalism and, in the case of film, structuralism’.4 In a further account, Nina Danino recognised that ‘the late 70s structural film as the dominant avant-garde film practice’ had come under significant pressure at the end of the 1970s, resulting in ‘an explosion of different positions and aesthetics which displaced the signifier which structural film privileged as a modernist art for a greater emphasis on the signified’.5 Danino identified diverse filmmaking practices, including women’s films and works related to cultural and race issues, as well as ‘the reaction against structural film’s interdictions and the formalism of video art [leading] to a counter position and an excess of image’.6 Accounts such as these, mistakenly 1 arguing that a ‘return to image’ occurred at the end of the 1970s, have informed the dominant reading of 1970s experimental film history. The ‘return to image’ thesis will therefore be challenged to argue that there was no return at the end of the decade but that personal, more representational, forms of filmmaking existed throughout the decade. While filmmakers such as Ian Breakwell, Jeff Keen, Derek Jarman, David Larcher, Anne Rees-Mogg, Margaret Tait and Peter Whitehead have received some recognition in 1970s histories, their collectively extensive (image-rich and representational) body of work has been overshadowed by film experimentation with structure and material. The films of Jane Arden and B. S Johnson also require situating within this 1970s film history, as their films are sufficiently innovative and relevant to warrant inclusion. These personal, poetic, visionary, diaristic or expressive forms of filmmaking should stand alongside the formal, structural or material film experimentation, as they all form part of 1970s British experimental film history. The openness to experimentation – often across disciplines – from the 1960s onwards is especially important when drawing historical trajectories and contextualising contemporary moving image practices. Many of the issues raised by experimental filmmakers in the 1970s are as pertinent today with the rise of accessible digital moving image technologies as they were during the decade: The common perception that the video installation is an invention of the 1990s – born miraculously free of any evolutionary history – is understandable, if wholly wrong ... the modern form of the installation in all its diversity was the product of a long period of experiment shared by the post-Caro generation conceptualists with their commercial gallery shows, and by members of the Co-op and future LVA groups, exhibiting mostly in artist-run and public-sector spaces.7 This important 1970s experimental film history needs to be understood in all its complexity if it is to provide historical contextualisation for contemporary moving image practices. Vicente Todolí identified that ‘[t]he art of the 1960s and 1970s continues, even some forty years later, to fascinate and provoke ... One thing is certain – the innovations of then are regarded as the foundations of art now’.8 While some of these also have longer histories, dating back to the early days of cinema or 1920s or 1930s film experimentation in the arts, the 1970s was notable for the growth in the number of filmmakers, the teaching of experimental filmmaking in art colleges and the rich diversity where a veritable ‘explosion’ in experimental filmmaking took place.9 This thesis is therefore justified as a revision of 1970s experimental film 2 history, providing a necessary history and a platform for future research seeking historical contextualisation of contemporary moving image practices.10 Many of the 1970s forms of experimentation, such as the use of multiple screens, personal or diaristic films, performative film events and experimentation with film structure and material are evident in the work of contemporary moving image practitioners.11 These films are differentiated from the dominant, narrative cinema and independent film production by their small (sometimes non-existent) budgets and their personal engagement with discourses in the arts, poetry or personal, diaristic investigations with the film medium. They are also mostly single-authored works, with filmmakers working on many aspects of production, including initiating ideas, filming, acting, processing, printing, editing, distributing and screening films.12 The LFMC production facilities were therefore especially important in facilitating diverse forms of experimentation which would not have been as extensive possible through the use of film processing laboratories. Most of the filmmakers discussed in this thesis took an anti-Hollywood stance to filmmaking, identified by the very nature of working with small (or no) budgets, with 16mm or Super-8 formats and contextualisation within visual art practices such as painting, sculpture and early artists’ film experimentation, rather than dominant, commercial cinema. Innovation and experimentation were key to the production of work, with the re-use of footage as in Lis Rhodes’ Light Reading (1979); the use of found footage as in Le Grice’s Berlin Horse (1970) and the use of single shots instead of hours of film footage, as in Chris Welsby/William Raban’s River Yar (1971/2) and Derek Jarman’s Studio Bankside (1971). The re-use of footage or constrained use of film stock often resulted in unique forms of experimentation, often also significantly determined by access to equipment and choice of film format. Jarman, for example, discussed his (economically-informed) approach with Super-8 resulting in his distinctive filmmaking style: Here was a way of recording an awful lot with very little film, it had an economic basis. You can take a three minute cassette and spin it out to twenty minutes. It’s a cheap way of documenting things. It also has a slightly hypnotic effect.13 Economics and the availability of resources were therefore important aspects informing filmmaking. Vanda Carter also identified some important issues determining personal filmmaking practices: 3 The reasons why people adopt particular filmmaking techniques are often overlooked in critical appraisal of work. The relationship between filmmaker and equipment, and with film itself, is one of the foundations on which individual style is developed. It is frequently assumed that purely aesthetic decisions govern filming and editing choices at every stage, whereas all filmmaking practice is pre- formed by the amount of money available, what equipment one has access to and by the practical situation and social context in which one works. “Aesthetic” decisions are made within these boundaries, struggling constantly to push resources to the very limits, but never escaping these basic constraints.14 Films were therefore made by improvising where necessary and, as Carter noted, by pushing the resources to the limit. The choice of film format was, however, also an important determining factor which resulted in the lack of adequate recognition for a number of some 1970s filmmakers. Jarman and Keen, for example, collectively produced over seventy Super-8 films in the 1970s, but Super-8 film was generally viewed as an amateur medium, having ‘a rather ill-defined status’.15 It therefore does not feature much in the dominant accounts of 1970s history. Duncan Reekie recognised the important history of amateur forms of filmmaking in Subversion: the Definitive History of Underground Cinema (2007). He also identified the extensive activity preceding the formation of the LFMC (1966), making important links to approaches taken by filmmakers using the ‘amateur’ Super-8 medium. Although

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