Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I GENRE
- PART II HISTORY
- 6 Fast Worker: The Films of Sam Newfield
- 7 The Power of Resistance: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
- 8 Beyond Characterization: Performance in 1960s Experimental Cinema
- 9 Vanishing Point: The Last Days of Film
- PART III INTERVIEWS
- Works Cited and Consulted
- About the Author
- Index
8 - Beyond Characterization: Performance in 1960s Experimental Cinema
from PART II - HISTORY
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I GENRE
- PART II HISTORY
- 6 Fast Worker: The Films of Sam Newfield
- 7 The Power of Resistance: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
- 8 Beyond Characterization: Performance in 1960s Experimental Cinema
- 9 Vanishing Point: The Last Days of Film
- PART III INTERVIEWS
- Works Cited and Consulted
- About the Author
- Index
Summary
The New American Cinema of the 1960s differed from conventional models of filmmaking in many ways: embracing chance, roughness of physical execution, an impoverishment of technical and financial facilities, but also freeing the filmmakers to create personal films that reflected their lives, their sexuality and their social beliefs. The “actors” in these films were really performing themselves, even if they were following a script; “performance” in experimental films of the 1960s was really an extension of each actor's personality and, often, actors were left to their own devices without traditional direction during the production of a film. This essay discusses some of the key films of the era, along with the directors and performers who created them.
Acting and performance styles in experimental films are many and varied, but all rely to some degree on the force of individual personality to relate to the film's intended audience. The nomad bikers in Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (USA, 1963), for example, are essentially performing themselves for the camera as part of the normal daily catalogue of ritualized behavior. Gerard Malanga as Victor, however — the Victor in Andy Warhol's Vinyl (USA, 1965) — working from Ron Tavel's script, delivers an exaggerated, over-the-top “declamatory” performance that was partly the result of Warhol's refusal to let the actors rehearse; Malanga was forced to read much of the script from enormous cue cards during the filming, essentially reading the scenario for the first time.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Cinema at the Margins , pp. 91 - 104Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013