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An Action History of British Underground Cinema

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An Action History of British Underground Cinema University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2003 Not Art: An Action History of British Underground Cinema Reekie, Duncan http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/1273 University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. NOT ART: AN ACTION HISTORY OF BRITISH UNDERGROUND CINEMA by DuRan Reekie A thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Falmouth College of Arts August 2003 THESIS CONTAINS CD This copy of the thesis has been supplied on the condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis and no injormntion derived from it mny be published without the author's prior consent. Abstract NOT ART: AN ACTION IDSTORY OF BRITISH UNDERGROUND CINEMA My thesis is both an oppositional history and a (re)definition of British Underground Cinema culture (1959 - 2(02). The historical significance of Underground Cinema has long been ideologically entangled in a mesh of academic typologies and ultra leftist rhetoric, abducting it from those directly involved. The intention of my work is to return definition to the 'object' of study, to write from within. This process involves viewing the history of modem British culture not as a vague monolithic and hierarchic spectrum but rather as a distinct historical conflict between the repressive legitimate Art culture of the bourgeoisie and the radical illegitimate popular culture of the working class. In this context, Underground Cinema can be {re)defined as a radical hybrid culture which fused elements of popular culture, Counterculture and Anti-Art. However, the first wave of Underground Cinema was effectively suppressed by the irrational ideology of its key activists and the hegemonic power of the Art tradition. They disowned the radical popular and initiated an Avant-Garde/Independent cinema project which developed an official State administrated bourgeois alternative to popular cinema. My conclusion is that Underground Cinema still has the potential to become a radical and commercial popular culture but that this is now frustrated by an institutionalised State Art culture which has colonised the State funding agencies, higher education and the academic study of cinema. If the Underground is to flourish it must refuse and subvert this Art culture and renew its alliance with radical, experimental and commercial pop culture. My methodology is an holistic interactive praxis which combines research, writing, film/video making, digital design, performance and political activism. My final submission will be an open and heterodox mesh of polemic, history and entertainment. Its key components will be a written thesis which will locate this praxis within its intellectual context and a web site which will integrate my research and practice 1997-2003. 3 Phd Thesis: Not Art : An Action History of British Underground Cinema CONTENTS Abstract 3 Introduction 8 Section A· Art /NolAn 24 Chapter 1 : An Historical Outline of the illegitimate Popular Tradition: Continuity and Resistance. 25 Chapter 2 : The History of Art, the Function of the Avant-Garde and the Rise of Modernism. 54 Chapter 3 : Folklore vs. Kitsch: How Art Theorised Against the Popular. 68 Section B: Cinema at the Heart of the Pop /Art Conflict. 81 Chapter 4 : Montage Culture: Cinema as the Popular Function of Film. 82 ChapterS: The First Avant-Garde Film Movement: the Vengeance of Art. 109 Chapter 6 : British Independent Film 1925 -1966: the Rise of the State Alternative to Popular Cinema. 117 Chapter 7: Amateur Cine Culture: the Hidden Continuity From 1930s Experimental Film to 1%Os Underground Cinema. 147 SedioaC-= Ihe.Searcb For the Cool Place: Underground Cinema v5..-Avant_GankEiJ.nL 166 Chapter 8: Anti-Art, Pop and Bohemia: the Bohemian Cabaret as Precursor to the Underground Cinema. 167 Chapter 9: The Origins of the U.S. Underground in the Cultural Hybrid of Popular Culture, Anti-Art and the Counterculture. 187 Chapter 10: The L.F.M.C. and the First British Underground Cinema 1966-70. 204 Chapter 11 : Radical Theory and its Practice: A Demystification . 221 4 Chapter 12 : The Constitution of the Independent Sector: a Trinity of Texts: Curtis, Gidal and Wollen. 234 Chapter 13 : A Brief Historical Overview of the Underground Cinema Resurgence: From the New York Cinema of Transgression to the New London Underground 1991-2003. 262 Resolution A Poetics for the Subversive Elements of Pop: Strategies for the New Underground 279 Bibliography 287 5 Acknowledgements Thanks first to my partner and colleague Colette Rouhier for all her help, support and patience over six years of research, writing and editing. Thanks to Falmouth College of Arts for the Research Studentship which funded the first three years of my work. Thanks to my Director of Studies Professor Penny Florence for her insight, enthusiasm and tolerance. And to my second supervisor Professor Colin Beardon for his encouragement and analysis, and to Dr Amy Sargeant for her initial guidance. Thanks to Dionne Jones, Research Administrator at the Falmouth College of Arts Research Support Unit for her diligence and encouragement. Thanks to Mary Anson, Stefan Szczelkun and Paul Tarrago for advice and criticism on earlier drafts of this text. Thanks to all my colleagues at Falmouth College of Arts for their enthusiastic debate and advice especially Dr Ryya Bread, Dr Angeline Morrison and Mr Barry Cooper. Thanks to all the Independent filmmakers, activists and administrators who discussed their work with me, crucially David Curtis, Simon Field, Paul O'Connor and John Wyver. Thanks to all my comrades in the London Underground Cinema movement for their enthusiasm and integrity, including the Exploding Cinema Collective, James Stevens, Steven Eastwood, Ian White and all the makers involved in the Maldoror project. And finally thanks to all my friends and family for all their love, support and forbearance especially my Mum and Dad, Jon Storey and Melinda Styles. 6 AUIHOR'£DECI,ARATION At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award. This study has financed with the aid of a studentship from the Falmouth College of Arts Research Department. Relevant film screenings, festivals, conferences and seminars were attended and external institutions were visited for consultation purposes. Papers presented at the Independent Art School Conference at Hull Time Based Arts, Hull, Oct. 2000 and at Experimental Film Today at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston July 2003. Other conferences/ events attended include Rethinking the Avant-Garde, Phoenix Arts, Leicester, Oct.1998, The State of Independence at the Lux Centre, London, Nov. 1998, the 8th New York Underground Film Festival at Anthology Film Archives, New York, 2001, the Artists' Moving Image Review Seminar at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, 30th April 2002, Shoot Shoot Shoot: the First Decade of the London Film-Milkers' Co-operative and the British Avant-Garde Film 1966- 76 at the Tate Modern, London May 2002, and the AHRB British Artists' Film and Video Study Collection Study Day at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, 13th December 2002. I have also been a key organiser of a series of Underground Cinema events including monthly Exploding Cinema screenings in London 1997-2003, the VOLCANO Underground Film and Video Festival October 1997, November 1998 and 1999, the Global Attic Film and Video Festival held simultaneously in London, Brussels and Rotterdam, 20th June 1998 and two Purple Circle Cinema Club screenings in Falmouth, Cornwall 2002. My film/ video work has been widely screened including: Shark Lust (Super / 16mm 1999) a component of the international Underground feature film MALDOROR which has been widely screened throughout Europe and America including the 8th New York Underground Film Festival 2001 and the the 8th Chicago Underground Film Festival 2001. Son of Oedipus (Super 8 2001) Screened at the Exploding Cinema London, the Purple Circle Cinema Oub, Falmouth, Cornwall, and the 2002 Cinematexas Festival, Texas. Signed Date 7 Introduction Methodology This thesis is both an oppositional history and a {re)definition of the British Underground Cinema culture which was initiated in the late 1950s and which had an unprecedented resurgence in the early 199Os. The significance of the Underground for experimental film culture has long been entangled in a mesh of irrational academic typologies and pseudo Leftist rhetoric. My purpose is to strip away this mesh and so enable the contemporary participants of the culture to take effective action against anti-democratic, authoritarian and elitist tendencies within the wider culture of experimental film/video. In opposition to Avant-Garde histories of experimental film and video, I shall {re)define Underground Cinema not as a historical phase or a medium specific aesthetic, but as an anarchic hybrid subculture which combines elements of experimental film and video, amateurism, Bohemianism and Anti-Art.
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