Of all the three I enjoyed Early Abstractions the most. I thought that Smith's formal outlay of shapes and colors strung together beautifully, although at times I felt that he was still trying to figure out the material. I was more entranced with the painted films, than with the shapes and colors; aesthetically is appealed to me more. It was unfortunate that a soundtrack was just slapped on there for no apparent reason, other than to keep an onlooker from falling asleep.
I could not grasp In the Wake at all. Everything was fairly fleeting, especially the words that would appear for either side of the frame or from no where. James Joyce's words seemed to hit the film with less integrity that if it were on paper. His language may be fleeting, but the film is too dependent on just copying the style.
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re: In the Wake, I think first of all that the film was shot orignally at the same time period of Joyce's writing. So that's a rhyme. And it's found image and found text, meaning that neither were made by the filmmaker, yet how strange that the images seem to be describing the very thing we are reading about ( a certain almost primordial landscape enjoyed by particular people in a particualr time and place). Fleeting indeed, as are we all, and our mediums...
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