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hello my name is Craig and this is crash
course film history most movies that we
watch our examples of narrative
filmmaking they're works of fiction and
they tell made up stories about invented
characters even films that are based on
actual events are carefully crafted
stories that are made to seem real or
plausible but there are types of cinema
that play by entirely different rules
weird rules experimental films reject
techniques and goals of narrative
filmmaking altogether aiming to evoke a
specific mood thought or emotion and
documentary films may borrow from the
narrative techniques of fiction films
but instead of inventing their stories
and characters they seek them out in the
real world these filmmaking styles both
have their own histories methods and
major figures and they interact with the
fictional narrative movies we're used to
watching an interesting way it's time to
jump into experimental and documentary
films
we can easily spend an entire crash
course series on the history of either
experimental or documentary film there's
a long tradition of filmmakers using
cinema to achieve different goals than
mainstream narrative films which are
usually trying to educate or entertain
by telling a story experimental film
covers all kinds of movies from shorts
and features two films with vague
storylines and those that reject
narrative altogether no story no setting
and no characters so sometimes the
experimental film referred to as
avant-garde or Vanguard cinema or that
weird stuff whatever you call it it
wasn't until the strict conventions of
narrative fiction filmmaking took hold
in the early 20th century that
experimental cinema came into its own
because it deliberately opposes those
conventions audience is used to
mainstream action movies and rom-coms
might feel confused or even frustrated
by non narrative experimental cinema
some experimental films are trying to
make you feel uncomfortable test your
patience or push you to think more
deeply others might be for finally
beautiful abstractions intended to
soothe you I like to think that I'm a
profoundly beautiful abstraction
intended to soothe view the thing that
binds all these films together is that
they refuse to be bound by the typical
rules of telling a story
the first major avant-garde movements in
the arts began to flourish in Europe in
the 1920s just as narrative feature
films were asserting themselves as the
dominant commercial form of cinema at
this time a group of French filmmakers
inaugurated the cinema pure movement
their goal was to return film to its
most basic elements which they saw as
light in motion filmmakers like Rene
Claire Fernand Lachey Man Ray and Marcel
Duchamp emerged from the gada art
movement they viewed the rules of
narrative storytelling as tyrannical and
booze wasps so instead of building their
films around characters involved in a
plot they focused on images trick shot
slow or fast motion and eventually music
and sound
Rene Claire it's 1924 film untracked is
22 minutes long and comprised of
disconnected shots like people running
in slow motion a cannon being fired a
ballet dancer shot from below and people
disappearing the rhythm is beautiful but
there's no story in sight I think I had
a dream like that once
that same year Fernan Lachey made the
frenetic short film ballet mechanic with
co-director Dudley Murphy constructed of
abstract images either painted or drawn
upside down shots mechanical devices
double exposures and more the film
explores the relationship between art
design and engineering surrealism
another abstract art movement took a
more whimsical and sometimes
confrontational approach the surrealist
drew on dreamlike imagery that invites
interpretation but isn't directly
symbolic the work aims to not have any
literal meaning but still be moving
scary
beautiful or absurd I like to think of
myself as moving scary beautiful and
absurd Salvador Dali is probably the
most famous surrealist and collaborated
on a funny disturbing film with director
luis buñuel released in 1929 on Chien
Andalou is made up of a series of scenes
that seem to be about a volatile
relationship between a man and a woman
the film doesn't make logical sense and
yet it provokes a strong sense of wonder
and dread once you see it you'll never
forget it I saw it I remember now the
1940s saw the arrival of American
filmmaker Maya Deren who believed that
film was meant to create an experience
not tell a story her films meshes of the
afternoon and meditation on violence
lull viewers into expecting a story with
some narrative film techniques only to
move into abstract shots and cuts that
make it impossible to understand what
the heck's going on that's because the
point isn't to understand the film but
rather to feel it and it just goes to
show without a steady diet of mainstream
narrative films much of the avant-garde
wouldn't work we wouldn't have the
expectations that Darren's films subvert
hey Nick can we do an experimental film
where I repeatedly punched the eagle
over and over again working from the
1950s to the 1980s Stan brackish is an
acknowledged master of experimental film
and known for a kind of cinematic
collage he found unusual techniques to
create abstract imagery from physically
painting or scratching the film - using
multiple exposures and rapid movement to
mimic the movement of the human eye and
Canadian filmmaker guy Madden is perhaps
the most widely known living
experimental filmmaker working in short
films features an installation art madan
refuses to be identified with any
particular style or theme in his hands
true experimental film continues to
thrive many narrative filmmakers have
drawn inspiration from experimental film
before he made Luke Han invader George
Lucas made his own politically charged
avant-garde shorts as a film student at
USC David Lynch the mind behind blue
velvet and Twin Peaks borrows heavily
from the experimental film tradition
although its films are clearly telling
stories they don't seem interested in
answering their own questions they're
often about ambiguity dream logic and
the fine line between absurdity and
violence other narrative films skirt the
edge of experimental cinema from Elias
marriages horror movie begotten and
David Gordon Green's coming-of-age drama
George Washington to Steven Soderbergh's
the girlfriend experience just to name a
few
now you may not have seen many
experimental films but chances are
you've seen a few documentary
documentary film is almost as broad a
category as experimental film some
documentaries rely on interviews while
others use footage of actual events some
take a more abstract approach and other
use narrative fiction techniques to
recreate past event whatever its method
the documentary is a work of nonfiction
that aims to explore or document some
aspect of reality as accurately as
possible but it's important to remember
it's still a film told through the lens
of a filmmaker and still an illusion of
reality the very first films ever made
were documentaries from Thomas Edison's
vaudeville acts - the Lumiere brothers
slice-of-life shorts and actualities and
the first feature-length film known to
incorporate documentary techniques is
Robert Flaherty's 1922 film
Nanook of the north an exploration of
the Arctic life of an in Akande it's
family the film mixed fictional drama
with documentary footage long before
that was a popular or even accepted
thing to do in fact we didn't even have
the word documentary until 1929 when
Scottish filmmaker John Grierson coined
it to describe a work of nonfiction
filmmaking in 1932 Grierson wrote an
essay called first principles of
documentary which argued that the true
power of cinema was in recording and
presenting real life rather than
creating fictional stories and in the
1930s and 40s documentary film became a
major force in news and propaganda prior
to television newsreels often screened
before feature films presenting
documentary footage of events from
around the world government's harnessed
the power of documentary film to sway
public opinion one of the most famous
examples is Leni Riefenstahl 1935 film
triumph of the will commissioned by
Adolf Hitler the film documented the
Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg Germany
in 1934 using actual footage staged
scenes and stirring music to convey a
sense of power and myth to the Third
Reich the United States set about
producing their own documentaries in
response like Frank Capra's why we fight
series which drummed up support for the
American war effort in World War two in
the post-war period from the 1950s to
the 1970s cinema verite came into
fashion rather than staging action like
a narrative film or employing a narrator
to explain what the audience was seeing
cinema verite put you directly in the
center of the action as it unfolded
direct cinema also emerged in these
years very similar to cinema verite
these deeply personal films attempt to
present reality with as little
commentary as possible and to consider
the complex relationship between cinema
and truth Ross McElwee 1985 film
Sherman's march is a great example what
begins as a journey along the route of
General Sherman's army at the end of the
Civil War becomes an examination of
McKelvey's inability to find a new
romantic partner after a bad breakup the
availability of lighter cheaper easy to
use film equipment made these kinds of
films possible just as they had for
Italian Neorealism French new-wave
and the subsequent generations of
independent fiction film makers in the
1980s and 90s documentaries flourished
on television for major documentaries on
the Discovery Channel to long-form
documentaries like Ken Burns brilliant
and comprehensive nine part film the
Civil War these days platforms like
YouTube and Vimeo along with high
quality digital cameras and editing
software make it possible to produce and
distribute documentaries extremely
quickly now like experimental film the
documentary tradition has influenced
fictional films and been influenced in
return mockumentaries use the visual and
narrative techniques of a documentary to
tell a fictional story usually to
hilarious results or horrify Rob Reiner
is 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap pokes
fun at the self-serious rock
documentaries of its time one of its
stars Christopher guest's has made a
career out of mockumentary from waiting
for Guffman to best-in-show in 1999
directors Daniel mirek and Eduardo
Sanchez used the mockumentary form to
scare the pants off a generation of film
goers with the Blair Witch Project wait
that wasn't real Nick no it was real and
lake mungo a 2008 psychological thriller
from Australia uses documentary
techniques like interviews to excavate
the story of a family coming to terms
with their daughters drowning
documentaries have long borrowed fiction
film techniques as well to recreate
scenes and weave them in with interviews
and strict documentary footage master
documentarian Errol Morris made the Thin
Blue Line in 1988 about a man on death
row for a crime he didn't commit his
cinematic recreations of the crime
launched a wave of true crime
docu-series on television these days
there's no shortage of cinematic
documentaries like the incredible
visuals of Verna her dogs into the
inferno the immersive 2015 film the
birth of sake and the heartbreaking
narrative of fire at sea which examines
the 2016 European refugee crisis and in
2017 the sequel of the BBC's astounding
planet Earth series captivated audiences
all over again whether we see them on
the big screen or a small one even
today's documentaries maintain the power
to inform entertain and move us in
profound ways today we talked about the
emergence of experimental film as an
alternative to mainstream narrative
fiction filmmaking we examine strategies
that experimental films use to convey
meaning and evoke thoughts and emotions
and we briefly discussed the history of
documentary films and how they have
influenced and been influenced by
fiction films next time we'll shift
gears and look at fiction film
production beginning with the script and
a screenwriter and you'll be getting a
new host actress and overall awesome
human being Lily Gladstone
I guess this is goodbye beardlovers
crash-course film history is produced in
association with PBS Digital Studios you
can head over to their channel to check
out a playlist of their latest amazing
shows like blank on blank TBS space-time
and global weirding with Katharine
Hayhoe this episode of crash course was
filmed in the doctor Cheryl C Kinney
crash course studio with the help of
these profoundly beautiful abstractions
intended to soothe you and our amazing
graphics team is thought cafe
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