On my vacation, I plucked slowly away at the first 90 pages of "Hollywood Flatlands; animation, critical theory and the avant-garde" by Esther Leslie, Verso, New York, 2002.
Notes:
Chapter 1, Preclusion: experi-mental
Page 3, pre-cinema devices discussed.
page 5: earliest exposures of 1/1000 second.
Page 16, eccentrism art movement
page 29, 1929 screening in Londone of Battleship Potemkin along with Mickey Mouse.
Chapter 2; Zeros, dots and dashes.
Page 33, endless deletion ... leads not to nothingness but to movement.
Page 36, Hans Richter, "The copy was the original"
Page 37, "While some saw the move of art into film as anit-art, others saw it as art's fulfillment".
Page 47, Ruttmann gels, and Raty.
Page 48-49, Fischinger wax cutter film.
Page 50, Prince Achmed, "What's this got to do with 1923?"
Page 52, Rodchenko on supreme LINE.
Page 53, Radical artists' Group manifesto.
Page 56, Eggeling alphabet or lexicon of visual forms...
Page 61, Frued and magic writing pads
Page 63 (Benjamin) "history ... decays into images, not stories".
Page 66-69, "WEEKEND" by Ruttman, optical soundtrack with scratched film.
Page 75, "Man with a movie camera" vs "Berlin symphony of a city".
"The animated exchanges between Vertov, Ruttman and all the rest, and the claims and counter-claims took place between members of an artistic community who knew that the modern city could only be represented by harnessing and interrogating its latest technologies, photography, film, montage and the reanimation of reality.".
Chapter 3: Mickey Mouse, utopia and Walter Benjamin
Page 82, the destructive character.
Page 83, Benjamin on Mickey Mouse and alienation.
Page 86, "(Mickey Mouse) films turn technical invention back into a fact of nature. In doing so they oblige audiences to confront how technology rules over them as a second nature."
Page 89-90, Man/machine discussion.
Page 91: "(Brecht) thought the with to awaken life in petrified things was the impulse of children. ... a sign of children's proximity to utopia." Also notes on children, detritus, and fairy tales.
Notes:
Chapter 1, Preclusion: experi-mental
Page 3, pre-cinema devices discussed.
page 5: earliest exposures of 1/1000 second.
Page 16, eccentrism art movement
page 29, 1929 screening in Londone of Battleship Potemkin along with Mickey Mouse.
Chapter 2; Zeros, dots and dashes.
Page 33, endless deletion ... leads not to nothingness but to movement.
Page 36, Hans Richter, "The copy was the original"
Page 37, "While some saw the move of art into film as anit-art, others saw it as art's fulfillment".
Page 47, Ruttmann gels, and Raty.
Page 48-49, Fischinger wax cutter film.
Page 50, Prince Achmed, "What's this got to do with 1923?"
Page 52, Rodchenko on supreme LINE.
Page 53, Radical artists' Group manifesto.
Page 56, Eggeling alphabet or lexicon of visual forms...
Page 61, Frued and magic writing pads
Page 63 (Benjamin) "history ... decays into images, not stories".
Page 66-69, "WEEKEND" by Ruttman, optical soundtrack with scratched film.
Page 75, "Man with a movie camera" vs "Berlin symphony of a city".
"The animated exchanges between Vertov, Ruttman and all the rest, and the claims and counter-claims took place between members of an artistic community who knew that the modern city could only be represented by harnessing and interrogating its latest technologies, photography, film, montage and the reanimation of reality.".
Chapter 3: Mickey Mouse, utopia and Walter Benjamin
Page 82, the destructive character.
Page 83, Benjamin on Mickey Mouse and alienation.
Page 86, "(Mickey Mouse) films turn technical invention back into a fact of nature. In doing so they oblige audiences to confront how technology rules over them as a second nature."
Page 89-90, Man/machine discussion.
Page 91: "(Brecht) thought the with to awaken life in petrified things was the impulse of children. ... a sign of children's proximity to utopia." Also notes on children, detritus, and fairy tales.
