Art On Film/Film On Art

Incorporating 14 experimental films and videos on the visual arts produced by the Program for Art on Film between the years 1986-1990, this series was commissioned "as a means of promoting innovative approaches to presenting art on screen, free from the constraints of commercial formats." Translation: It's a free-for-all with the foundation money spigot turned on. The idea was to have an art historian/expert team up with a filmmaker and make a short about a "Work Of Art" (the three words that are invoked throughout the series, whether warranted or not) or artistic theme or technique. In order to make these programs as widely accessible to people as possible, each volume opens with a group of art historians and a filmmaker talking shop for about 15 minutes. Far from being allowed to simply judge the works as they are, we are forced to listen to supposedly inquiring conversation about the nature of art and the nature of film, etc., etc., etc. What's particularly infuriating about these "conversations" is that the set-up virtually precludes any serious discussion about art and film since the ratio is always either 3 or 4 art experts to 1 filmmaker. So, even when the talk strays into interesting areas (rarely), nothing truly challenging is broached, because the ivory tower art experts aren't going to allow it. Otherwise we might have had a vigorous discussion about what constitutes art, why we need experts to make those decisions, and whether paintings any longer sit at the pinnacle of "The Arts." As for the films themselves, which anyone who sits around longer than 15 minutes on any tape will eventually encounter, they range from the deadly dull (on Program 1--Ma: Space/Time in the Garden of Ryoan-Ji, which features painfully slow tracking shots of sand, occasionally interrupted by a rock, accompanied by truly heavy text: "Breathe/swallow this garden/let it swallow you/become one with it") to the laughable (on Program 3--A Mosque in Time, before which filmmaker Edin Velez explains that the following 8 minute film will require multiple viewings to absorb the shock of the "newness" of the structure, gearing the audience up for a nice-looking but perfectly ordinary piece which boasted far less innovative technique than some fingerplays I've seen). Taken as a whole the series is a wash, but there are a few oases of engaging films in this otherwise arid bunch. Program 2 is a fine tape (including the playful Giorgione's Tempest: The First Romantic Picture and the excellent A Window to Heaven, about the Byzantine monk Saint Neophytos, who lived 55 years in caves, the walls and ceilings of which he had painted; it's a lovely piece in which the filmmaker actually stoops to narrative, a move which is, unfortunately, not repeated in later volumes). On Program 4, noted animators The Brothers Quay do a clever piece on perspective called Anamorphosis. And, finally, on Program 5, artist David Hockney takes viewers on a very informal and interesting tour of a pair of ancient Chinese scroll paintings while commenting on different ways of seeing in A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China or Surface Is Illusion But So Is Depth (which is available separately for $39.95 from Milestone Film & Video, and well worth purchasing). On the whole, there is no real guiding principle here, either as to the selection of the pieces or the arrangement, and the whole experience is sort of like chug-a-lugging a bottle of castor oil in order to get at a piece of chocolate near the bottom. Not a necessary purchase. (Available from: Home Vision/Films Inc., 5547 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60640-1199; (800) 323-4222.)