Introduction to Avant-Garde Film By Scott MacDonald

I don't know which movie was my first avant-garde film. Before I chose film studies major, I had no clue what avant-garde film looks like until now. I had to research what movies are really avant-garde. I found out that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was one of the avant-garde films and I never thought of it as something like this. I guess Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was my first avant-garde when I was young. When I took film study course or world cinema course, I saw weird films like un chien andalou or ballet mechanique. I realized that they must be avant-garde films or experimental films.

I remember watching some avant-garde films and I had no idea what they were talking about. Scott MacDonald was talking about the first response from viewers, like "this isn't a movie or you call this a movie!" I believe that I was one of the viewers who would think like that to the avant-garde films. I didn't really understand what MacDonald really meant by describing about certain feelings or thoughts about viewers toward the avant-garde films. But I understood the later parts about the history and Muybridge and the Lumiere brothers.

I have enjoyed reading the histories of European countries creating early avant-gardes and then Muybridge's invention of the Zoopraxiscope and early motion studies. I have seen his Zoopraxiscope on a racing horse. I also saw "The Horse in Motion" that were taken multiple photographs from the multiple cameras on the grid (like a set of lines) and showed the hooves off the ground and on and back and forth. I'm glad he did this so that it would lead people to creating motion picture movies.

And I remember watching Lumiere brothers' films such as a train arriving or the parents feeding a baby or an interesting part about an older guy watering the garden while a young boy makes fun of him. It was amazing how the brothers created a single shot of people or anything back then with an old camera. Anybody can do that of course. :)