Ono and McCall differ in the specifics of their politicsOno's films are internationalist, McCall's implicitly or explicitly Marxistand in terms of the viewership they address in their films. At the beginning of her career, Ono was part of Fluxus, an international group of artists functioning outside the mass media and in defiance of accepted art practice and institutions, but as her resources grew, so did her interest in addressing a much larger audience:
No. 4
(
Bottoms
) (1966) was a widely reported happening in England, and the later Lennon-Ono collaborations aimed at the huge pop music audience and beyond.
Line Describing a Cone
and McCall's other early films were designed for small groups in art gallery contexts (indeed, the Cone films and
Long Film for Four Projectors
can be understood as "light sculptures"), and his collaborative films were designed as catalysts for small discussion groups in big-city art-ghetto screening spaces, or in academic settings.
The volume's final pairing reveals similarities and differences in two filmmakers who have worked toward a "global" approach to filmmaking: Watkins most obviously in the 14 1\2-hour
The Journey
(1987) and Reggio in a trilogy of films, the first two of which
Koyaanisqatsi
(1983) and
Powaqqatsi
(1988)have been completed. Both filmmakers have explored the relationships of industrialized and "developing" nations and have emphasized the degree to which modern industrialized society has tended to undervalue regional and ethnic heritages, the natural environment, and the meaningful participation of the individual. Both filmmakers have circled the globe to create a far broader spectrum of people and places than the commercial cinema provides and to focus
Page 10
Ross McElwee and his father (Dr. Ross McElwee)
during the shooting of
Backyard
(1984).
their viewers on these people not as backdrops for the fictional adventures of Western swashbucklers, but as individuals with concerns, ideas, and accomplishments worthy of our sustained attention.
Reggio and Watkins differ radically in their understanding of the "correct" production process for such work, and in their assumptions about how their finished films should engage viewers. Reggio functions in the main like a conventional, commercial director: he raises adequate capital to finance his films, then travels to locations with his crew to record the societies that interest him. The individual films are cut so as to fit comfortably into the commercial exhibition system (indeed, he has received distribution assistance from industry luminaries Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas). Reggio does not assume that viewing his films will initiate change in any direct fashion, but assumes that the images he presents and the implicit ideology of this imagery will affect at least some viewers' assumptions about the societies depicted. Watkins's central concern in making
The Journey
was to demonstrate an alternative to current media practice. The film was shot by local crews assembled in locations around the world, with financing raised locally by production groups. And Watkins's hopea hope that, thus far, has not come to fruitionmwas that the unusual nature of his film might instigate an international, activist network of those who had produced
The Jour
-
Page 11
Su Friedrich and her mother (Lore Friedrich), during the shooting of
The Ties That Bind
(1984).
ney
and those who came to see it which would directly address the problems articulated in the film.
There is no point in trying to enumerate the similarities and differences between the filmmakers in all eight pairings. Indeed, none of the summaries I have included does justice either to the many ways in which the pairs of filmmakers critique conventional cinema or to the conceptual fertility of the individual pairings. Additional relationships will be evident in the introductions to the particular interviews, as well as in the interviews themselves. And in any case, my pairings provide only one way of thinking through the work of the filmmakers interviewed. Many other arrangements of the filmmakers could instigate similar discussions.
While the interviews in this volume of
A Critical Cinema,
and indeed in the two volumes together, document a considerable variety of filmmaking approaches and offer a composite perspective on a substantial period of independent film history, the limitations of the project are, no doubt, obvious. For one thing, my interviewing has been confined to North America and, with the single exception of Michael Snow, to the United States. This is not to say that no other nationalities are represented: Snow, Mekas, Ono, McCall, Mulvey, Trinh, and Watkins are not of American extraction. Nevertheless, nearly all these filmmakers made most of the work we discuss while living in the United States, and many have become citizens or long-time residents. Further, even if one were
Page 12
to accept the idea of an interview project that confined itself to the United States, my failure thus far to interview African-Americans remains problematic.
This general limitation of
A Critical Cinema
is a function of the history of my personal development as a chronicler of independent film history. My choice of interviewees has always been motivated by the difficulty I have had, and that I assume others must also have, understanding particular films and kinds of films, or to be more precise, by a combination of fascination and confusion strong enough to energize me to examine all the work of a given filmmaker in detail. That for a time nearly all the filmmakers whose work challenged me in this way were Americans is, to some extent, a function of the limited opportunities for seeing non-American independent cinema in this Country and of my limited access to (and energy for) foreign travel, but it is also a result of the remarkable productivity of American independent filmmakers: as consistent as my interest has been, I am continually embarrassed by the many apparently noteworthy films produced in this country that I've still not had the opportunity to see.
That so many of the filmmakers I have finished interviews with are European-Americans does, of course, reflect issues of race and classmost generally, perhaps, the implicit access or lack of access of various groups to the time, money, and equipment necessary for producing even low-budget films (though, of course, some of the filmmakers I have interviewed were and remain economically marginal). Fortunately, the ethnic diversity of independent filmmaking has expanded in recent decades, as has our awareness of earlier contributions ignored or marginalized. Like many people, I am struggling to develop an increasingly complete sense of what has been, and is, going on. This struggle has had a major impact on the final definition of this general project. My assumption now is that ultimately
A Critical Cinema
will be a three-volume investigation, and that the third volume will complete a passage from the local to the internationaclass="underline" "international" meaning multinational