Scott Stark makes experimental films. This very statement
may lead one to believe that, like scores of other experimental filmmakers, the
content of his films is tedious, and the man himself is both humorless and
pretentious. This is exactly the opposite of the truth! The selection of Scott
Stark’s films that was shown at his First Person Cinema screening was quite
diverse. Several of Scott Stark’s films could be said to belong to the category
of Structural Films. That is, these films use “rules” that predetermine the
format in which the content will be presented.
For example, in his film “Degrees of
Limitation” (16mm film, 1982), Scott simply places a 16 mm camera facing up a
hilled street in San Francisco and progressively winds the Bolex more and more
with each take. So the first take is 2 seconds, the next take is 4, et cetera.
The content of Scott Stark’s film is what separates it from other structuralist
films. Instead of simply shooting something neutral over and over, Scott
humorously chooses to film himself running up the hill in each take. About 10
shots into the film, Scott is running up the hill breathless (he has just run
up the hill 9 times prior to this shot) as he has wound the Bolex up as far as
it can go. Scott’s choice of content is
either humorous (sometimes hilarious) or bizarrely novel enough to warrant our
interest in his experiments.
Another example, in “Hotel
Cartograph” (16mm film, 1983), Stark simply points a camera straight down that
is mounted on a wheeled tripod as he moves through many floors of a hotel. We
see in detail the textures of each carpet, the stains, the trash, the strange
patterns – and humorously we see Stark struggling to get in and out of
elevators as he bangs against walls fumbling with his wheeled tripod apparatus.
Again, the subject matter is interesting and humorous and justifies the
structuralist limitation.
Scott Stark also made some very
interesting 2.5D (his own description) films, in which he would rig up two
MINIDV cameras side by side and record his journey through a shopping mall.
What made these films 2.5D rather than fully “3D” was that Stark created an
editing algorithm that allowed him to switch between footage from each camera
every 24 frames or so. The result is this strange experience in which time is
“expanded” as every image is repeated between the two cameras.
Stark used a similar process for
making his latest project “The Realist” (2013). For this film Stark simply
built a frame to hold two consumer grade digital cameras and alternated between
photographs. That is merely the guiding “rule” of the film. The other aspects
of its form are wildly unique and creative. Stark photographs mannequins in
shop environments but does so in such a way as to completely personify them.
Yet the world they live in is surreal and poetic. Shopping windows reflect
beautiful blue skies and trees as the mannequins stare into each other’s’ eyes.
All the editing is cut to a interesting, playful and somewhat haunting score,
giving the film a kinetic and alive feeling. I have to say that overall this
film defies expectation and it would probably take me a full essay just to try
to describe whatever elements of the film I remember, but I will say that this
was truly a groundbreaking experimental film that left me feeling dreamy,
inspired, bewildered, and quite glad I was able to enter into this
fantastically strange and beautiful world Stark had created.
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