The Alternative Way of Expression in Experimental Cinema

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The industry of independent film, which is quite different from the major film industry of Hollywood, also has a long history which can be dated back to the 1920s (DeFillippi & Arthur). Independent films usually do not hire long-term actors and do not own expensive facilites because of low budgets. The content and style of independent films are also unlike major films, which consists more personal consciousness and artistic expression of the directors. The term of experimental films refers to the films which are apart from, and even opposed to, the mainstream commercial films. It is always related to avant-garde, which means innovative and experimental attempt in art, culture or politics. The way of experimental films is a way of avant-garde. It requires huge number of practicing and experiencing. In fact, the whole history of filmmaking is a history of exploring and attempting. Like the pursuing of realism in Hollywood’s films from 1910s to 1960s, Neo-realismo started in Italy, which insisted on non-professional actors and actual location shootings, etc. There is also limitation of experimental films, such as the lack of budget which restricts the of scale films,

totally contradiction with major film industry which could not be accepted by the mass, limited ideas of the directors and too sometimes strong implicit purpose

of the narratives. However, it is certain that independent film is a better place for the filmmakers to express his own emotions and consciousnesses, while commercial films limit the representation of subjective explanation of films by different and individual filmmakers.

Eric Baudelaire uses the film as another way of expression along with the art form of photography in order to convey the attempting of opposing violence. He stresses on the character of mass media in presenting violent and terrorist events which indirectly leads to the indifference of people. Unfolding the sequence with a skilled billboard poster who keeps doing the action of wetting, folding, unfolding and pasting posters and uses about 20 actors to act like passengers as the background. It is not such a film which is successful in attracting people’s attention. In contrast, the flat and pale content of the video lasts about 70 minutes can hardly gathers audience’s notice. It is more like a meaningful artwork than a film, extremely different normal commercial films, but a successful experiment of an alternative way of expression.

Work Cited and Reference:

Alaina Claire Feldman, Eric Baudelaire-Sugar Water, ART August 16, 2010, Planet Mag,

Richard B. Woodward, The Banality of Fake Profundity,

Robert J. DeFillipi and Michael B. Arthur, Ch 15 Paradox in Project-Based Enterprise: The Case of Film Making, Managing Innovation and Change, Jane Henry David, Mayle Open University, Business School, P189-190

TanLin, Eric Baudelaire’s Sugar Water, the Deleuzean Event, and the Dispersion of Spectatorial Labour, reading room: transcendental pop / issue 02.08 http://www.elizabethdeegallery.com/files/press/AG360%20RR%20pp008_027_Lin.pdf>