Re: GG: shadows on the wall, accompanied by music...

[mwilliamson@alston.com]

     Hi everyone:
     
     Someone "in the know" report to us on the films and TV 
     programs that GG did make.  I have never seen any of these 
     broadcast in the U.S. but I have read about them and many of 
     the recent Sony GG releases claim that Sony has or will 
     release a GG "video library" on videotape.  Still, I have 
     not yet found a film store her that can order them . . .


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: GG: shadows on the wall, accompanied by music...
Author:  "Joseph Podlesnik" <veronese@jerseycape.com> at internet
Date:    12/19/96 9:51 PM


     
Kristen (and group):
     
More scattered thoughts--
     
It's known that GG wanted (in a second life) to write, produce, and direct 
his own films. It would have been a gas to see these works. 
     
Re: the "common language" between film and music: It seems only natural 
that other artistic mediums would be cross-bred with the powerful emotional 
properties of music. Think of those enlightened few who first recognized 
this and paired the early film with the piano or organ. Taking a step 
further back, we can see that music accompanied theater productions even 
before the advent of film (they call it opera, don't they?) Perhaps it is 
any event (funny or dramatic) acted out in time -- with its rhythmic stops 
and starts, its fits and resolutions, its varying emotional tonus -- which 
shares this common language with music, and not necessarily film. 
     
Taking a step back even further: We can see how images (icons or 
sculptures) were paired with organ or choir music in the great Gothic 
cathedrals. Further back still -- Greek murals must have been accompanied 
by early Hellenic music. Think of what it must have been like to witness 
Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Theresa" replete with church music. Music has and 
will always add dimension to, enhance and propel the emotional feel of 
different art forms. It's amazing how these cross-bred conventions have 
affected how we experience reality today. For instance, I'm always catching 
myself (to an almost compulsive degree) experiencing daily events through 
an imagined musical accompaniment, wondering how different music would 
affect the emotional tenor of various situations throughout the day. Also, 
I'm always seeing reality through the slow-motion conventions of film. 
Funny, how would I have seen reality had I lived 200 hundred years ago?  
     
Re: the idea that film is not a medium of the intellect. Does this have to 
do with the fact that for film's illusory motion (or "alpha" effect) to 
take place, it must work on the sluggish way in which our nervous system 
processes rapid series of images? Think about it, film is one of the few 
mediums (only medium?) which involves this kind of effect in order to 
perceive it. Apparently Marcel Duchamp, too, didn't think film was worthy 
of the intellect. He didn't believe in cinema as a means of expression, 
saying once that, "... like photography, it doesn't go much further than a 
mechanical way of making something. It can't compete with art. If art 
continues to exist..."
     
Nevertheless, I enjoy film and have been working for sometime (a real labor 
of love!) on a video homage, a documentary on my father's life (he passed 
away in '94). The project includes photo-stills, Super 8 footage and old 
video tapes, current video interviews with friends and family, background 
music, narration, and sound effects -- everything we've been talking about 
-- all these different art forms rubbing elbows. Film (video) is an awfully 
promiscuous medium.