The British Film Institute has entered into a partnership with the advertising-supported, video-streaming site Daily Motion to provide access to some of the incredible wealth of films that the BFI has funded and distributed over many years.
Currently, as of today, the new channel is hosting 47 films of varying lengths, from amazing silents to rare poetic documentaries (like Chris Petit's Radio On), as well as some incredibly important live action and animated fiction films, including a number of otherwise hard to see works by Terrence Davies and Lotte Reininger.
Still image from the final shot of L'Avventura (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960)
Luxuriating in the view over the Sicilian coast, the Mt. Etna volcano, and the Mediterranean sea here at the Taormina Film Festival. Oh yeah, and seeing some good films too! Peter Brunette, June 15, 2010
Rather than viewing the narrative content of Antonioni's films as symbolic, as representations of an absent meaning, [Peter] Brunette calls for an appreciation of the visual in and for itself, as meaning 'is made affective, through line, shape, and form' (60). Meaning emerges from the image, it is 'made affective'. Searching for authorial intent behind seemingly obvious symbols -- Brunette shows through the discrepancy between Antonioni's own suggestions and the contrasting critical reception of his films -- will inevitably say more about the critical frame employed, than the film itself. What Brunette is claiming is the loss of referent for the sign, the loss of signification. This links nicely to his deconstructive concern, which is itself indicative of the flaws in the existentialist debate. The absences that characteristically mark Antonioni's films (witness the vanishing Anna (Massari) in L'avventura) points not to a transcendental absence, but rather indicates the way out of the Platonic illusion of the coexisting Ideal and (vs) real. 'David Martin-Jones, '[Review of Brunette's book on Antonioni', Film-Philosophy, Volume 3 Number 50, December 1999
In Peter Brunette and David Wills's much under-valued Screen/Play: Derrida and Film Theory [Princeton University Press, 1989] they discuss the form that a deconstructive mode of analysis might take. They write: 'From a deconstructive stand-point, analysis would no longer seek the supposed center of meaning but instead turn its attentions to the margins, where the supports of meaning are disclosed, to reading in and out of the text, examining the other texts onto which it opens itself out or from which it closes itself off'. [...] [I]t strikes me that a serious discussion of Brunette and Wills's book would be essential to any work purporting to discuss cinema and deconstructive politics.[...] David Sorfa, Film-Philosophy, Vol. 2, No. 23, 1998
A number of the tributes to film critic and scholar Peter Brunette, who died last week at the Taormina Film Festival in Italy, conveyed very movingly their opinion that he left this world while doing what he loved.
Those of us who followed Peter's activities and travels, at least from the vantage point of his social media network, certainly loved his updates on them, like his final Facebook posting above. His death was a huge shock, and a great loss, notably to the two spheres -- film scholarship and theory, and film criticism -- that he managed to join up, much more successfully than most, through his own prolific practice (he gave an account of some of the issues at stake in this choice in an interview here, and Gerald Peary's obituary beautifully refers to his unusual trajectory, for an academic, here).
FSFF's author's acquaintance with Peter Brunette began with his 'director books' (listed with his other work in his CV here), and in particular with his marvellous study of the films of Roberto Rossellini, now one of the best freely accessible e-books online, thanks to Peter and his publishers. Peter was a fan and an important supporter of freely accessible culture and ideas on the Web, as this article he wrote in 2000 testifies.
Fortunately, a very good selection of other articles and chapters (and a substantial podcast) by him may be experienced at the click of a mouse, quite aside from the virtual reams of online movie criticism under his byline. That means that the following list of links to the former work - to Peter Brunette's formal film studies - is, then, the most fitting tribute that FSFF can give to a scholar who gave so much and influenced so many in his too short (or just long enough) life.
Film Studies For Free wanted to flag up for its readers the existence of FourDocs, the great (British) Channel 4 documentary website. That is to say, it wanted to flag up its continued but not everlastingexistence, that is...
was set up in 2005 to provide a platform for new filmmakers to showcase their own short documentaries, receive feedback from leading industry experts and discuss them with each other. The site functioned as an online film school, with video guides covering everything from structure and lighting to editing choices. The archive timeline contextualised 30 or so definitive documentaries, such as Listen to Britain, The Lift and The Boy Who’s Skin Fell Off, and perhaps most inspirational were the interviews with award winning directors like Molly Dineen and Paul Watson.
The FourDocs site is currently 'on hold', and probably being 'reconceived' even as FSFF writes; we eagerly await information about the new form it will take.
In the meantime, Film Studies For Free urges you to take advantage of all the great resources on offer at the site while you still can, in particular its fantastic archive which includes a library of full length documentaries representing some of the best filmmaking of the past century.
See below for FSFF's A-Z list of direct links to viewable films, including classics of 1920s and 1930s British documentary, several spectacular examples of Free Cinema, and wonderful, recent documentary filmmaking. National accessibility to the films might vary, however; to be sure, once you've pressed 'play' at the site's pages, remember also to click on the arrow pointing to the bottom right hand corner of the mini video player.
FSFF thinks, though, that there are plenty of other worthwhile resources on the films accessible via these links even if there turn out to be some international restrictions on viewing. Enjoy!
A Visit to..., George Cricks 1906 -- A Visit to Peek Frean & Co's Biscuit Works. A promotional film that turned mechanical tedium into industrial lyricism
Babitsky's War, Paul Yule 2000 -- An investigation into the disappearance of a journalist in Chechnya
The Battle of Orgreave, Mike Figgis/Jeremy Deller 2001 -- Reconstructing miners clashing with the police in Yorkshire and looking back at the decline of coal mining in the 80s
Before Hindsight, Jonathan Lewis/Elizabeth Taylor-Mead 1977 -- Examining editorial attitudes in the non-fiction British cinema and newsreels of the thirties towards the rise of Fascism
The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, Patrick Collerton 2003 -- Hugely-influential story of a man with a rare disease that led to his skin peeling off, and his last days of life
The Dinner Party, Paul Watson 1997 -- Conservative voters in the home counties come together to discuss their politics.
Divorce Iranian Style, Kim Longinotto 2001 -- Documentary about women and divorce in Iran set in a family law court in Tehran.
The Drifters, John Grierson 1929 -- The lives of herring fisherman of the North Sea, as portrayed by John Grierson.
The Dying Room, Kate Blewett 1995 -- In 1995, Brian Woods and Kate Blewett uncovered the systematic neglect of abandoned babies in China.
The Firing Line, Nicholas Cohen 1996 -- Army cadets from a private school take their end of year training tests.
The Girl Chewing Gum, John Smith 1976 -- Pretending to direct an everyday 1970s East End street scene
The Grave, Belinda Giles 1997 -- A team of forensic archeologists try to piece together what happened in a massacre during the Yugoslav conflict.
Heart of Britain, Humphrey Jennings 1941 -- Made by Humphrey Jennings and the Ministry for Information, this film is a tribute to the workers of Britain during World War Two.
Housing Problems, A. Elton/E. Anstey 1935 -- Provocative depiction of living conditions in the slums in South London.
Industrial Britain, J.Grierson/R.Flaherty 1933 -- This film about British Industry in the 1930s portrays the industrial worker as a heroic figure, championing the craftsmanship of the individual behind the dehumanizing façade of the industrial landscape.
Julia's Baby, Marilyn Gaunt 1994 -- A deaf blind mother fights with social services to be able to bring up her baby.
The Leader..., Nick Broomfield 1991 -- The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife. Documentary about the South African neo-Nazi leader Eugene Terreblanche, and Nick Broomfield's attempts to get an interview with him.
The Lift, Marc Isaacs 2001 -- Marc Isaacs' award winning film set in a lift in some council flats.
Listen to Britain, H.Jennings/S.McAllister 1942 -- Documentary showing a Britain united in the war effort through a montage of various scenes of daily life.
London, Patrick Keiller 1992 -- A surreal and imaginative portrait of a depressed London in 1992, as the city lurched from one crisis to another
Making Wheels For Automobiles, US National Archives 1930 -- Teaching farm boys how to make Ford wheels in an instructional doc
Manhunter, Witold Starecki 1996 -- Rabbi Gordon's job is to track down wayward husbands and force them to divorce their wives.
The Man Who..., Joseph Bullman 2000 -- The Man Who Bought Mustique. The story of Lord Glenconner from Scotland, who bought an island in the Caribbean and then lost it.
Momma Don't Allow, T. Richardson/K. Reisz 1956 -- A celebration of the free spirit of youth and Teddy Boys, particularly in London's 1950s working class.
O Dreamland, Lindsay Anderson 1956 -- The start of the Free Cinema movement, the iconic Margate funfair as a metaphor for the shabbiness of modern life
Operation Hurricane, Ronald Stark 1953 -- Documentary recording the construction and testing of Britain's first atomic bomb.
P Company, Ian Taylor 1992 -- The never seen before and brutal four week selection test for the elite parachute regiment.
Seven Days in Hell, Sue Bourne 1993 -- Businessmen go on an outward bound course that makes P Company look like a picnic.
Soldat, Paul Jenkins 2001 -- Documentary about the once great but now decaying Russian Army and the soldiers forced to endure it.
Sunday Sport, Norman Hull 1997 -- Inside the newsroom of the newspaper that everyone pretends they don't buy.
Terminus, John Schlesinger 1961 -- Observational film looking at the comings and goings of London's Waterloo railway station.
This is a True Story, Paul Berczeller 2003 --Investigating the mysterious death of a Japanese girl in Fargo, USA
The Unforgiving, Clive Gordon 1993 -- Documentary about the conflict in former Yugoslavia.
The Valley, Dan Reed 1999 -- The plight of the Albanian population in Kosovo.
The Wet House, Penny Woolcock 2002 -- Observing Providence Row refuge for the alcoholic homeless, a place where the residents can drink as much as they like
Film Studies For Free is about to depart on its holidays (sun, sea, sand, and definitely no cyberspace), but -- philanthropic to the last -- it wanted to leave its readers with some cultural and educational sustenance during what will inevitably be its much lamented absence.
So, here, folks, are some (emboldened) links to a few of FSFF's favourite free full-length films currently online, including mini-Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock and Jean Vigo fests:
A great documentary 'Cinéastes de notre temps' (directed byJacques Rozier, April 4, 1964). Focuses on Luis Buñuel, surrealist filmmaker, his exile and his early career, subtitles in English, at Google Video
And, if that weren't enough excitement for one FSFF day, beneath the video-trailers, at the foot of this post, are some other choice links to freely available Herzog material online.
Ray Pride gathered a load of great Herzog paraphernalia/paratextuality a couple of years back at Movie City Pride (videos/articles/interviews) and you can access it HERE (link courtesy of GreenCine Daily, April 4 2007). Link added April 21
The new channel makes it much easier than before to search for and access high-quality scholarly material related to film and media studies, FSFF has found. As Wired Campus also reports, 'The new section makes it possible to find out which college-produced video is most popular'.
Alain J. J. Cohen is a Professor of Comparative Literature at UCSD who specializes in film history. In this program presented at the UCSD Faculty Club, Cohen examines the challenges of war films as a genre. Clips from various films about World Wars I & II, Vietnam, space wars, etc., illustrate how the filmmakers battle with issues of world history, order and chaos, studio budgets, editing techniques and conflicts of interpretation to realize their vision of combat.
Coronet Instructional Films were shown in American schools starting in about 1941. The company was an offshoot of Coronet Magazine, a digest-sized magazine that itself was owned by Esquire, Inc. Owner David Smart was deeply interested in visual education and the power of the film to teach and convince, and built a full studio on his estate in Glenview, Illinois, where at its height hundreds of films were cranked out each year. The films were sold to schools and libraries by a network of distributors and were quite successful -- in 1976 Coronet celebrated its sale of 1 million prints.
The archive collection that has publicly offered up these online video versions of the Coronet Films truly merits, and has won, Film Studies For Free's undying love. Indeed, the Prelinger Archives are ones that have been painstakingly built up as a labour of love for and devotion to otherwise rarely preserved films. The Internet Archive stores digitized versions of over 2,000 key titles from the collection for free downloading and reuse - an amazing resource for academics and all those fascinated by the crazy hinterland of the mainstream film world.
For a fascinating account of how writer, archivist and filmmaker Rick Prelinger set up his collection of 60,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films, see A Short History of Prelinger Archives, Part I . You should also experience Rick Prelinger's Panorama Ephemera at Vectors Journal. And if you'd like to be as inspired by Prelinger's digital and other activism as FSFF is, then watch the two videos below. As for this (very platonically-) enamoured blog, it sends a dozen, red e-roses though the blogosphere to the rather fabulous (and very well partnered) Mr Prelinger, in admiration of all his valuable work.
'Interview in San Francisco, April 2007. Here, Rick Prelinger explains why he used the films from his collection to form the biggest moving image archive on the internet. He talks of his offline library, and how all the above relates to the matter of serendipity in a query-driven information environment.' 'San Francisco, April 2007. Here, Prelinger underlines how innovative technology opens up new visions of the possible, but stresses that its ultimate effect is contingent on other factors. Many media platforms simply die and are not heard from again. Regarding copyright, Rick describes its emergence from an esoteric subject to a consumer issue, but emphasizes that from the point of view of cultural production, access to original materials will go on being more important than copyright issues in most cases. In closing, he calls for a dialogue between users and producers of culture, to establish a new compact.'
This is obviously a very 'technology-positive', not to say 'technologically-triumphalist', take on Hollywood/California history; for much more nuanced views readers should take a look at Henry Jenkins's work, including his blog. But Film Studies For Free thinks that this free video is well worth a watch and certainly serves as a particularly good and lively introduction to film technology history for those who are fairly new to the topic.
A documentary is being filmed. A cell phone rings, playing the Rocky theme song. The filmmaker is told she must pay $10,000 to clear the rights to the song. Can this be true? Eyes on the Prize, the great civil rights documentary, was pulled from circulation because the filmmakers’ rights to music and footage had expired. What’s going on here? It’s the collision of documentary filmmaking and intellectual property law, and it’s the inspiration for this comic book. Follow its heroine Akiko as she films her documentary and navigates the twists and turns of intellectual property. Why do we have copyrights? What’s “fair use”? Bound by Law? reaches beyond documentary film to provide a commentary on the most pressing issues facing law, art, property, and an increasingly digital world of remixed culture.
Great Composers Steal Composer Anthony Kelley visits classical and jazz traditions and explains why you can find a doppelganger for almost any tune.
If you are a budding documentary filmmaker, or if you are teaching the next generation of budding documentarians, Film Studies For Free thinks that you should definitely check out all of the above resources.
