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Section D: Film Movements - Experimental Film 1960-2000 (single-film study)
- Vivre sa vie (Godard, France, 1962), 1960s European avant-garde
- Daisies (Chytilova, Czechoslovakia, 1965), 1960s European avant-garde
- Saute ma ville (Akerman, Belgium, 1968), 1960s European avant-garde
- Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, US, 1994), Postmodern film in the 1990s live!
- Fallen Angels (Wong, Hong Kong, 1995), East Asian new wave
- Timecode (Figgis, US, 2000), Digital experimentation
Context
In his essay The Art Cinema As A Mode of Film Practice film scholar David Bordwell explains that “we can usefully consider the ‘art cinema’ as a distinct mode of film practice, possessing a definite historical existence, a set of formal conventions, and implicit viewing procedures….In the long run, the art cinema descends from the early film d’art and such silent national cinema schools as German Expressionism and Neue Sachlichkeit and French Impressionism…the art cinema as a distinct mode appears after World War II when the dominance of the Hollywood cinema was beginning to wane.” [1] Bordwell’s definition suggests something of what’s of interest and creative significance in the Mike Figgis film, Timecode.
Films that challenge or subvert our expectations in terms of visual and sound style, or, in terms of subject or theme, make for valuable viewing experiences. In the case of Timecode, the film foregrounds its stylistic subversions and, as such, we can approach the film as an experimental piece in terms of its narrative construction and by extension its thematic and ideological interests.
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