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111-397: Julien Donkey-Boy is a 1999 American experimental drama film written and directed by Harmony Korine . The story concentrates on Julien, a man with schizophrenia , played by Scottish actor Ewen Bremner , and his dysfunctional family . The film also stars Chloë Sevigny as Julien's sister, Pearl, and Werner Herzog as his father. Julien Donkey-Boy was the sixth film to be made under

222-545: A teacher's aide at a school for the blind . Julien spends most of his spare time going to confession , muttering to himself on the streets, and imagining conversations with Adolf Hitler . Julien is also riddled with grief over his mother's death, and Pearl sometimes soothes him by pretending to be their mother on the telephone . Pearl spends most of her days searching for baby clothes for her soon-to-be-born child, and making lists of her favorite baby names. Searching for other hobbies, she decides to take up learning to play

333-521: A 2000 edition of the art journal Art in America . It examined structural-formalism as a conservative philosophy of filmmaking. In the 1970s, Conceptual art pushed even further. Robert Smithson , a California-based artist, made several films about his earthworks and attached projects. Yoko Ono made conceptual films. The most notorious of these is Rape, which centers on a woman's life being invaded with cameras, as she attempts to flee. Around this time,

444-542: A 29% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Director Harmony Korine takes a big stylistic swing that will miss with most audiences, producing an unfocused and mean-spirited art film with a bitter aftertaste." The film has a weighted average score of 54 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 23 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Empire said that "Despite some creditable performances, Korine's bizarre, shambling direction renders

555-633: A Hollywood Extra (1928), by Slavko Vorkapich and Robert Florey . However, much pre-war experimental film culture consisted of artists working, often in isolation, on film projects. In the early 1930s, Painter Emlen Etting (1905–1993) directed dance films that are considered experimental. Commercial artist ( Saturday Evening Post ) and illustrator Douglass Crockwell (1904–1968) made animations with blobs of paint pressed between sheets of glass in his studio at Glens Falls, New York . In Rochester, New York , medical doctor and philanthropist James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber directed The Fall of

666-497: A bus. Julien goes to his room, hides under the blankets, cradles the baby and mutters prayers. Julien Donkey-Boy was the first American film made in accordance with the rules of the Danish filmmaking collective Dogme 95 . Shot in New York on MiniDV tape , the film was transferred to 16mm film before being blown up to 35mm film for the master print. Korine used this method to give

777-656: A cinematic equivalent of the first person in literature. Brakhage 's Dog Star Man (1961–64) exemplified a shift from personal confessional to abstraction, and also evidenced a rejection of American mass culture of the time. On the other hand, Kenneth Anger added a rock sound track to his Scorpio Rising (1963) in what is sometimes said to be an anticipation of music videos , and included some camp commentary on Hollywood mythology. Jack Smith and Andy Warhol incorporated camp elements into their work, and Sitney posited Warhol's connection to structural film. Some avant-garde filmmakers moved further away from narrative. Whereas

888-401: A day together going ice skating at an indoor skating rink. Julien tries to sell some homemade skates to a Hasidic boy and Pearl takes to the ice despite being heavily pregnant. She trips, landing on her abdomen and causing a miscarriage . At the hospital, Julien convinces a nurse to let him hold the baby, saying it is his. She allows it, but while alone with the baby, Julien escapes home on

999-482: A few of the Dogme 95 rules in making the film. Dogme 95's tenets stipulate all the camerawork must be handheld , but this film uses hidden cameras that are technically not handheld. There is also the use of non- diegetic music ( Oval 's "Mediation" from Systemisch in the ice-skating scene, same group's "Shop In Store" from 94 Diskont ). Finally, the film breaks the rule that the director must not be credited; however,

1110-749: A few. The Open Theatre was founded in New York City by a group of former students of acting teacher Nola Chilton , and joined shortly thereafter by director Joseph Chaikin , formerly of The Living Theatre , and Peter Feldman. This avant-garde theatre group explored political, artistic, and social issues. The company, developing work through an improvisational process drawn from Chilton and Viola Spolin , created well-known exercises, such as "sound and movement" and "transformations", and originated radical forms and techniques that anticipated or were contemporaneous with Jerzy Grotowski 's " poor theater " in Poland. During

1221-507: A form of improvised community theatre which is often not comedic and replays stories as shared by members of the audience. The Groundlings is a popular and influential improv theatre and training center in Los Angeles , California. The late Gary Austin , founder of The Groundlings, taught improvisation around the country, focusing especially in Los Angeles. He was widely acclaimed as one of

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1332-568: A form of mash-up cinema that has strong socio-political undertones. Chris Marker 's La Jetée (1962) consists almost entirely of still photographs accompanied by narration, while Jonás Cuarón 's Year of the Nail (2007) uses unstaged photographs which the director took of his friends and family combined with voice acting to tell a fictional story. Other examples of films created in the 21st century with this technique are Lars von Trier 's Dogville and David Lynch 's filmography . Animated films in

1443-401: A huge debt to the photography of Edward Weston , Paul Strand , and others, and in fact celebrate illusion. Further, while many filmmakers began making rather academic "structural films" following Film Culture ' s publication of an article by P. Adams Sitney in the late 1960s, many of the filmmakers named in the article objected to the term. A critical review of the structuralists appeared in

1554-498: A large collection of films of that period were restored and re-released on DVD, titled Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941 . With Slavko Vorkapich, John Hoffman made two visual tone poems, Moods of the Sea (aka Fingal's Cave , 1941) and Forest Murmurs (1947). The former film is set to Felix Mendelssohn 's Hebrides Overture and was restored in 2004 by film preservation expert David Shepard . Meshes of

1665-438: A mainstream film genre . Many of its more typical features—such as a non-narrative, impressionistic , or poetic approaches to the film's construction—define what is generally understood to be "experimental". In the 1920s, two conditions made Europe ready for the emergence of experimental film. First, the cinema matured as a medium, and highbrow resistance to the mass entertainment began to wane. Second, avant-garde movements in

1776-592: A new generation was entering the field, many of whom were students of the early avant-gardists. Leslie Thornton , Peggy Ahwesh , and Su Friedrich expanded upon the work of the structuralists, incorporating a broader range of content while maintaining a self-reflexive form. Andy Warhol , the man behind Pop Art and a variety of other oral and art forms, made over 60 films throughout the 1960s, most of them experimental. In more recent years, filmmakers such as Craig Baldwin and James O'Brien ( Hyperfutura ) have made use of stock footage married to live action narratives in

1887-429: A number experimental queer filmmakers such as G.B. Jones (a founder of the movement) in the 1990s and later Scott Treleaven , among others. With very few exceptions, Curtis Harrington among them, the artists involved in these early movements remained outside the mainstream commercial cinema and entertainment industry. A few taught occasionally, and then, starting in 1966, many became professors at universities such as

1998-681: A patriarchal gaze. Their response was to resist narrative in a way to show its fissures and inconsistencies. Chantal Akerman and Sally Potter are just two of the leading feminist filmmakers working in this mode in the 1970s. Video art emerged as a medium in this period, and feminists like Martha Rosler and Cecelia Condit took full advantage of it. In the 1980s feminist, gay and other political experimental work continued, with filmmakers like Barbara Hammer , Su Friedrich , Tracey Moffatt , Sadie Benning and Isaac Julien among others finding experimental format conducive to their questions about identity politics. The queercore movement gave rise to

2109-564: A popular longform improv format known as The Harold . Others include Keith Johnstone , the British teacher and writer–author of Impro , who founded the Theatre Machine and whose teachings form the foundation of the popular shortform Theatresports format, Dick Chudnow , founder of ComedySportz which evolved its family-friendly show format from Johnstone's Theatersports, and Bill Johnson, creator/director of The Magic Meathands, who pioneered

2220-525: A predetermined game , structure, or idea and driven by an audience suggestion. Many shortform exercises were first created by Viola Spolin, who called them theatre games, influenced by her training from recreational games expert Neva Boyd . The shortform improv comedy television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? has familiarized American and British viewers with shortform. Longform improv performers create shows in which short scenes are often interrelated by story, characters, or themes. Longform shows may take

2331-413: A range of styles of improvisational comedy as well as some non-comedic theatrical performances. It is sometimes used in film and television, both to develop characters and scripts and occasionally as part of the final product. Improvisational techniques are often used extensively in drama programs to train actors for stage, film, and television and can be an important part of the rehearsal process. However,

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2442-477: A rich improv tradition. In 1984, Dick Chudnow (Kentucky Fried Theater) founded ComedySportz in Milwaukee , WI. Expansion began with the addition of ComedySportz-Madison (WI), in 1985. The first Comedy League of America National Tournament was held in 1988, with 10 teams participating. The league is now known as CSz Worldwide and boasts a roster of 29 international cities. In San Francisco, The Committee theater

2553-635: A single cinema on October 15, 1999; the film showed for a month's time at the Los Angeles Theatre , and grossed a total of $ 80.226 by that November. It was given a wide theatrical release in European countries the following year, particularly in France and the Netherlands . The film grossed $ 85,400 domestically and $ 7,042 in other countries for a worldwide total of $ 92,442. Julien Donkey-Boy currently holds

2664-560: A spiritual dimension that allows it ultimately to become an act of redemption". Lisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly awarded the film a score of B+, describing the film as "an exciting artistic leap", while writing that "Korine — working with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle , who shot the Dogma [sic] breakthrough The Celebration — discovers visual ways to convey emotional terrain that will serve him well, I hope, even after he outgrows shock as an artistic goal." Additional praise for

2775-420: A springboard into commercial film-making or transition into academic positions. The aim of experimental filmmaking may be to render the personal vision of an artist, or to promote interest in new technology rather than to entertain or to generate revenue, as is the case with commercial films. The term experimental film describes a range of filmmaking styles that frequently differ from, and are often opposed to,

2886-399: A technique by Viola Spolin. As with all improv 'offers', improvisers are encouraged to respect the validity and continuity of the imaginary environment defined by themselves and their fellow performers; this means, for example, taking care not to walk through the table or "miraculously" survive multiple bullet wounds from another improviser's gun. Because improvisers may be required to play

2997-613: A technique or as an effect, but rather in expanding the improv genre so as to incorporate techniques and approaches that have long been a legitimate part of European theatre. The Brave New Workshop Comedy Theater (BNW), is a sketch and improvisational comedy theater based in Minneapolis , Minnesota. Started by Dudley Riggs in 1958, the artists of the BNW have been writing, performing and producing live sketch comedy and improvisation performances for 62 years – longer than any other theater in

3108-611: A tool to gain insight into a person's thoughts, feelings, and relationships. The earliest well-documented use of improvisational theatre in Western history is found in the Atellan Farce of 391 BC. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, commedia dell'arte performers improvised based on a broad outline in the streets of Italy. In the 1890s, theatrical theorists and directors such as the Russian Konstantin Stanislavski and

3219-413: A variety of roles without preparation, they need to be able to construct characters quickly with physicality, gestures , accents , voice changes, or other techniques as demanded by the situation. The improviser may be called upon to play a character of a different age or sex. Character motivations are an important part of successful improv scenes, and improvisers must therefore attempt to act according to

3330-759: Is Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí 's Un chien andalou (1929). Hans Richter's animated shorts, Oskar Fischinger 's abstract films, and Len Lye 's GPO films are examples of more abstract European avant-garde films. Working in France, another group of filmmakers also financed films through patronage and distributed them through cine-clubs, yet they were narrative films not tied to an avant-garde school. Film scholar David Bordwell has dubbed these French Impressionists and included Abel Gance , Jean Epstein , Marcel L'Herbier , and Dimitri Kirsanoff . These films combine narrative experimentation, rhythmic editing and camerawork, and an emphasis on character subjectivity. In 1952,

3441-412: Is also commonly used to enhance ideation in teams and groups. Many directors have made use of improvisation in the creation of both mainstream and experimental films. Many silent filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton used improvisation in the making of their films, developing their gags while filming and altering the plot to fit. The Marx Brothers were notorious for deviating from

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3552-616: Is an improvisational game show, much like Whose Line Is It Anyway? The BBC sitcoms Outnumbered and The Thick of It also had some improvised elements in them. In the field of the psychology of consciousness , Eberhard Scheiffele explored the altered state of consciousness experienced by actors and improvisers in his scholarly paper Acting: an altered state of consciousness . According to G. William Farthing in The Psychology of Consciousness comparative study, actors routinely enter into an altered state of consciousness (ASC). Acting

3663-566: Is especially performed in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas, Boston, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C., and is building a growing following in Baltimore, Denver, Kansas City, Montreal, Columbus, New Orleans, Omaha, Rochester, NY, and Hawaii. Outside the United States, longform improv has a growing presence in

3774-749: Is known to a relatively small number of practitioners, academics and connoisseurs, it has influenced and continues to influence cinematography , visual effects and editing . Experimental film reached mainstream audiences at world exhibitions, especially those in Montreal, Expo 67 , and Osaka, Expo 70 . The genre of music video can be seen as a commercialization of many techniques of experimental film. Title design and television advertising have also been influenced by experimental film. Many experimental filmmakers have also made feature films, and vice versa. Improvisational theatre Improvisational theatre , often called improvisation or improv ,

3885-490: Is largely disconnected from the rest of the family. The family's father spends the majority of his time recounting national historical narratives, drinking, and inflicting psychological and physical abuse on Chris. During one of Chris's exercise sessions, his father forces him outside in the cold and hoses him down with water. He also pines for his deceased wife, going so far as begging Chris to wear his mother's wedding dress and dance with him. Meanwhile, Julien works as

3996-419: Is seen as altering most of the 14 dimensions of changed subjective experience which characterize ASCs according to Farthing, namely: attention, perception, imagery and fantasy, inner speech, memory, higher-level thought processes, meaning or significance of experiences, time experience, emotional feeling and expression, level of arousal, self-control, suggestibility, body image, and sense of personal identity. In

4107-410: Is the form of theatre , often comedy , in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script . Improvisational theatre exists in performance as

4218-550: Is the home of the longest running musical improv show in history at 11 years. In 2012, Lebanese writer and director Lucien Bourjeily used improvisational theater techniques to create a multi-sensory play entitled 66 Minutes in Damascus . This play premiered at the London International Festival of Theater, and is considered one of the most extreme kinds of interactive improvised theater put on stage. The audience play

4329-414: Is well-established on the west coast with companies such as San Francisco's BATS Improv . This format allows for full-length plays and musicals to be created improvisationally. Many people who have studied improv have noted that the guiding principles of improv are useful, not just on stage, but in everyday life. For example, Stephen Colbert in a commencement address said, Well, you are about to start

4440-883: The British Film Institute in London, the National Film Board of Canada and the Collective for Living Cinema. Some of the more popular film festivals, such as Ann Arbor Film Festival , the New York Film Festival 's "Views from the Avant-Garde" Side Bar, the International Film Festival Rotterdam , and Media City Film Festival prominently feature experimental works. The New York Underground Film Festival , Chicago Underground Film Festival ,

4551-653: The Canadian Improv Games . In the United States, the Improv Olympics were later produced by Charna Halpern under the name "ImprovOlympic" and now as "IO"; IO operates training centers and theaters in Chicago and Los Angeles. At IO, Halpern combined Shepherd's "Time Dash" game with Del Close's "Harold" game; the revised format for the Harold became the fundamental structure for the development of modern longform improvisation. In 1975 Jonathan Fox founded Playback Theatre ,

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4662-908: The Centre Pompidou in Paris often include historically significant experimental films and contemporary works. Screening series no longer in New York that featured experimental work include the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema, Ocularis and the Collective for Living Cinema . All these associations and movements have permitted the birth and development of national experimental films and schools like "body cinema" ("Écoles du corps" or "Cinéma corporel") and "post-structural" movements in France, and "structural/materialism" in England for example. Though experimental film

4773-787: The LA Freewaves Experimental Media Arts Festival, MIX NYC the New York Experimental Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and Toronto's Images Festival also support this work and provide venues for films which would not otherwise be seen. There is some dispute about whether "underground" and "avant-garde" truly mean the same thing and if challenging non-traditional cinema and fine arts cinema are actually fundamentally related. Venues such as Anthology Film Archives , San Francisco Cinematheque , Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California , Tate Modern, London and

4884-533: The Lettrists avant-garde movement, in France, caused riots at the Cannes Film Festival , when Isidore Isou 's Traité de bave et d'éternité (also known as Venom and Eternity ) was screened. After their criticism of Charlie Chaplin at the 1952 press conference in Paris for Chaplin's Limelight , there was a split within the movement. The Ultra-Lettrists continued to cause disruptions when they announced

4995-541: The London Film-Makers' Co-op , and Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center. Following the model of Cinema 16, experimental films have been exhibited mainly outside of commercial theaters in small film societies , microcinemas , museums , art galleries , archives and film festivals . Several other organizations, in both Europe and North America, helped develop experimental film. These included Anthology Film Archives in New York City, The Millennium Film Workshop,

5106-896: The State Universities of New York , Bard College , California Institute of the Arts , the Massachusetts College of Art , University of Colorado at Boulder , and the San Francisco Art Institute . Many experimental-film practitioners do not in fact possess college degrees themselves, although their showings are prestigious. Some have questioned the status of the films made in the academy, but longtime film professors such as Stan Brakhage , Ken Jacobs , Ernie Gehr , and many others, continued to refine and expand their practice while teaching. The inclusion of experimental film in film courses and standard film histories, however, has made

5217-454: The harp . Chris compulsively practices wrestling moves on trash cans , and sometimes incites matches with Julien. Their father recounts historical stories, lambasts Julien and Pearl for "artsy-fartsy" poetry and being "a dilettante and a slut" respectively, and pines for his dead wife. Julien and Pearl accompany their father to a local Baptist church, where the sermon has a profound impact on Julien. Some time later, Pearl and Julien spend

5328-678: The mythopoetic film , the structural film, the trance film and the participatory film, in order to describe the historical morphology of experimental cinema in the American avant-garde from 1943 to the 2000s. The film society and self-financing model continued over the next two decades, but by the early 1960s, a different outlook became perceptible in the work of American avant-garde filmmakers. Filmmakers like Michael Snow , Hollis Frampton , Ken Jacobs , Paul Sharits , Tony Conrad , and Ernie Gehr , are considered by P. Adams Sitney to be key models for what he calls " structural film ". Sitney says that

5439-493: The props that might be useful in a scene. Improv companies may have at their disposal some number of readily accessible props that can be called upon at a moment's notice, but many improvisers eschew props in favor of the infinite possibilities available through mime . In improv, this is more commonly known as 'space object work' or 'space work', rather than 'mime', and the props and locations created by this technique, as 'space objects' created out of 'space substance', developed as

5550-608: The "Art in Cinema" series of experimental films at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , where Oskar Fischinger's films were featured in several special programs, influencing artists such as Jordan Belson and Harry Smith to make experimental animation. They set up "alternative film programs" at Black Mountain College (now defunct) and the San Francisco Art Institute . Arthur Penn taught at Black Mountain College, which points out

5661-502: The 21st century such as Don Hertzfeldt 's It's Such a Beautiful Day , a 2012 American comedy-drama film, and Frederick C.G. Borromeo's film debut Distortion , a 2023 non-narrative film made in RPG Maker engine, are landmark examples of experimental animated films. Laura Mulvey 's writing and filmmaking launched a flourishing of feminist filmmaking based on the idea that conventional Hollywood narrative reinforced gender norms and

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5772-458: The Afternoon (1943) by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid is an early American experimental film. It provided a model for self-financed 16 mm production and distribution, one that was soon picked up by Cinema 16 and other film societies . Just as importantly, it established an aesthetic model of what experimental cinema could do. Meshes had a dream-like feel that hearkened to Jean Cocteau and

5883-492: The French Jacques Copeau , founders of two major streams of acting theory, both heavily utilized improvisation in acting training and rehearsal. Modern theatrical improvisation games began as drama exercises for children, which were a staple of drama education in the early 20th century thanks in part to the progressive education movement initiated by John Dewey in 1916. Some people credit American Dudley Riggs as

5994-515: The House of Usher (1928) and Lot in Sodom (1933). Harry Smith , Mary Ellen Bute , artist Joseph Cornell , and Christopher Young made several European-influenced experimental films. Smith and Bute were both influenced by Oskar Fischinger, as were many avant garde animators and filmmakers. In 1930, the magazine Experimental Cinema appeared. The editors were Lewis Jacobs and David Platt. In October 2005,

6105-498: The New American Cinema was marked by an oblique take on narrative, one based on abstraction, camp and minimalism, structural filmmakers like Frampton and Snow created a highly formalist cinema that foregrounded the medium itself: the frame, projection, and most importantly, time. It has been argued that by breaking film down into bare components, they sought to create an anti-illusionist cinema, although Frampton's late works owe

6216-554: The Surrealists, but equally seemed personal, new and American. Early works by Kenneth Anger , Stan Brakhage , Shirley Clarke , Gregory Markopoulos , Jonas Mekas , Willard Maas , Marie Menken , Curtis Harrington , Sidney Peterson , Lionel Rogosin , and Earle M. Pilgrim followed in a similar vein. Significantly, many of these filmmakers were the first students from the pioneering university film programs established in Los Angeles and New York . In 1946, Frank Stauffacher started

6327-587: The UK Channel 4 and ABC television series Whose Line Is It Anyway (and its spinoffs Drew Carey's Green Screen Show and Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza ), Nick Cannon's improv comedy show Wild 'N Out , and Thank God You're Here . A very early American improv television program was the weekly half-hour What Happens Now? which premiered on New York's WOR-TV on October 15, 1949, and ran for 22 episodes. "The Improvisers" were six actors (including Larry Blyden , Ross Martin , and Jean Alexander – Jean Pugsley at

6438-687: The United Kingdom , especially in cities such as London, Bristol, Glasgow, and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe . Other forms of improvisational theatre training and performance techniques are experimental and avant-garde in nature and not necessarily intended to be comedic . These include Playback Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed , the Poor Theatre , the Open Theatre , to name only

6549-410: The audience. Improv groups frequently solicit suggestions from the audience as a source of inspiration, a way of getting the audience involved, and as a means of proving that the performance is not scripted. That charge is sometimes aimed at the masters of the art, whose performances can seem so detailed that viewers may suspect the scenes are planned. In order for an improvised scene to be successful,

6660-586: The basis for his own theatre, The Empty Stage, which in turn bred multiple troupes utilizing this style. In the late 1990s, Matt Besser , Amy Poehler , Ian Roberts , and Matt Walsh founded the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and later they founded one in Los Angeles, each with an accompanying improv/sketch comedy school. In September 2011 the UCB opened a third theatre in New York City's East Village, known as UCBeast. Hoopla Impro are

6771-449: The concept of "Commun-edy Outreach" by tailoring performances to non-traditional audiences, such as the homeless and foster children. David Shepherd , with Paul Sills, founded The Compass Players in Chicago. Shepherd was intent on developing a true "people's Theatre", and hoped to bring political drama to the stockyards. The Compass went on to play in numerous forms and companies, in a number of cities including New York and Hyannis, after

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6882-423: The cornerstone of modern improv training. By the mid-1960s, Viola Spolin's classes were handed over to her protégé, Jo Forsberg , who further developed Spolin's methods into a one-year course, which eventually became The Players Workshop , the first official school of improvisation in the United States. During this time, Forsberg trained many of the performers who went on to star on The Second City stage. Many of

6993-453: The corporate world. In a New York Times article titled "Can Executives Learn to Ignore the Script?" , Stanford professor and author, Patricia Ryan Madson notes, "executives and engineers and people in transition are looking for support in saying yes to their own voice. Often, the systems we put in place to keep us secure are keeping us from our more creative selves." Applying improv principles

7104-435: The cultural field. While "experimental" covers a wide range of practice, an experimental film is often characterized by the absence of linear narrative, the use of various abstracting techniques—out-of-focus, painting or scratching on film, rapid editing—the use of asynchronous ( non-diegetic ) sound or even the absence of any sound track. The goal is often to place the viewer in a more active and more thoughtful relationship to

7215-577: The death of cinema and showed their new hypergraphical techniques; the most notorious example is Guy Debord 's Howlings in favor of de Sade ( Hurlements en Faveur de Sade ) from 1952. The Soviet filmmakers, too, found a counterpart to modernist painting and photography in their theories of montage . The films of Dziga Vertov , Sergei Eisenstein , Lev Kuleshov , Alexander Dovzhenko , and Vsevolod Pudovkin were instrumental in providing an alternative model from that offered by classical Hollywood . While not experimental films per se, they contributed to

7326-503: The demise of the Compass Players, Paul Sills began The Second City. They were the first organized improv troupes in Chicago, and the modern Chicago improvisational comedy movement grew from their success. Many of the current "rules" of comedic improv were first formalized in Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s, initially among The Compass Players troupe, which was directed by Paul Sills. From most accounts, David Shepherd provided

7437-837: The discovery of American avant-garde in 1958 with Brakhage's films and many others European and American filmmakers. From 1947 to 1963, the New York-based Cinema 16 functioned as the primary exhibitor and distributor of experimental film in the United States. Under the leadership of Amos Vogel and Marcia Vogel, Cinema 16 flourished as a nonprofit membership society committed to the exhibition of documentary, avant-garde, scientific, educational, and performance films to ever-increasing audiences. In 1962, Jonas Mekas and about 20 other film makers founded The Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York City. Soon similar artists cooperatives were formed in other places: Canyon Cinema in San Francisco,

7548-472: The film Ballet Mécanique (1924), which has been described as Dadaist , Cubist , or Futurist . Duchamp created the abstract film Anémic Cinéma (1926). Alberto Cavalcanti directed Rien que les heures (1926), Walter Ruttmann directed Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927), and Dziga Vertov filmed Man with a Movie Camera (1929), experimental " city symphonies " of Paris , Berlin , and Kiev , respectively. One famous experimental film

7659-451: The film a low-definition, grainy aesthetic. Much of the actors' dialogue was improvised . The film utilizes several cinematographic styles, including stop-motion photography, parallel cuts, and still photographs in order to tell its story. The film’s budget of $ 1.5 million was mostly spent on travel and work visas for Herzog and Bremner, as well as post-production in Denmark. Korine broke

7770-480: The film came from Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert , who gave the film 3/4 stars, saying that "[The film] adds up to something, unlike a lot of movies where individual shots are sensational, but they add up to nothing"; Ebert did, however, note that the film had a very limited audience: "The odds are good that most people will dislike this film and be offended by it. For others, it will provoke sympathy rather than scorn. You know who you are". A reference to

7881-410: The film language of the avant-garde. Italy had a historically difficult relationship with its avant-garde scene, although, the birth of cinema coincided with the emerging of Italian Futurism . Potentially the new medium of cinema was a perfect match for the concerns of futurism, a renowned for promoting new aesthetics, motion, and modes of perception. Especially, given the futurist fascination with

7992-604: The film only displays Harmony Korine's name and not an official director title. Despite these transgressions, the original Dogme 95 committee endorsed Julien Donkey-Boy . In an interview on the Epidemic DVD, Lars Von Trier , Dogme 95 co-creator, lauded Korine's ability to interpret the rules creatively. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 1999. It received a limited release in Los Angeles at

8103-664: The film. This Is Spinal Tap and other mockumentary films of director Christopher Guest were created with a mix of scripted and unscripted material. Blue in the Face is a 1995 comedy directed by Wayne Wang and Paul Auster created in part by the improvisations during the filming of Smoke . Some of the best known American film directors who used improvisation in their work with actors are John Cassavetes , Robert Altman , Christopher Guest, and Rob Reiner . Improv comedy techniques have also been used in hit television shows such as HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm created by Larry David ,

8214-430: The film. At least through the 1960s, and to some extent after, many experimental films took an oppositional stance toward mainstream culture. Most experimental films are made on very low budgets, self-financed or financed through small grants, with a minimal crew or, often a crew of only one person, the filmmaker. Some critics have argued that much experimental film is no longer in fact "experimental" but has in fact become

8325-433: The first vaudevillian to use audience suggestions to create improvised sketches on stage. Improvisation exercises were developed further by Viola Spolin in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, and codified in her book Improvisation For The Theater , the first book that gave specific techniques for learning to do and teach improvisational theater. In 1977, Clive Barker 's book Theatre Games (several translations and editions) spread

8436-410: The form of an existing type of theatre, for example a full-length play or Broadway -style musical such as Spontaneous Broadway . One of the better-known longform structures is the Harold , developed by ImprovOlympic co-founder Del Close . Many such longform structures now exist. Actors such as Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, and Steve Carrell found their start in longform improv. Longform improvisation

8547-548: The founding of The Second City. A number of Compass members were also founding members of The Second City. In the 1970s, Shepherd began experimenting with group-created videos. He is the author of That Movie In Your Head , about these efforts. In the 1970s, David Shepherd and Howard Jerome created the Improvisational Olympics, a format for competition based improv. The Improv Olympics were first demonstrated at Toronto's Homemade Theatre in 1976 and have been continued on as

8658-427: The futurists were amongst the first avant-garde filmmakers group devoted to the potential of the image, praising motion and aiming towards an anti-narrative aesthetic. As an example, Marinetti's quote: "The cinema is an autonomous art. The cinema must therefore never copy the stage. The cinema, being essentially visual, must above all fulfil the evolution of painting, detach itself from reality, from photography, from

8769-481: The graceful and solemn..." As exemplified in the quote, the image is the real subject, not the story or the acting, an approach and attitude that remain true for the whole history of experimental filmmaking. Anton Giulio Bragaglia is undoubtedly the most known filmmaker from the futurist movement. The United States had some avant-garde films before World War II , such as Manhatta (1921), by Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand , and The Life and Death of 9413:

8880-429: The greatest acting teachers in America. His work was grounded in the lessons he learned as an improviser at The Committee with Del Close, as well as in his experiences as founding director of The Groundlings. The Groundlings is often seen as the Los Angeles training ground for the "second generation" of improv performers and troupes. Stan Wells developed the "Clap-In" style of longform improvisation here, later using this as

8991-413: The greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what's going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say "yes." And if you're lucky, you'll find people who will say "yes" back. Tina Fey , in her book Bossypants , lists several rules of improv that apply in the workplace. There has been much interest in bringing lessons from improv into

9102-555: The growing field of Drama Therapy , psychodramatic improvisation, along with other techniques developed for Drama Therapy , are used extensively. The "Yes, and" rule has been compared to Milton Erickson 's utilization process and to a variety of acceptance-based psychotherapies. Improv training has been recommended for couples therapy and therapist training, and it has been speculated that improv training may be helpful in some cases of social anxiety disorder . Improvisational theatre often allows an interactive relationship with

9213-691: The ideas of improv internationally. British playwright and director Keith Johnstone wrote Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre , a book outlining his ideas on improvisation, and invented Theatresports , which has become a staple of modern improvisational comedy and is the inspiration for the popular television show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Viola Spolin influenced the first generation of modern American improvisers at The Compass Players in Chicago , which led to The Second City . Her son, Paul Sills , along with David Shepherd , started The Compass Players. Following

9324-404: The improvisers involved must work together responsively to define the parameters and action of the scene, in a process of co-creation . With each spoken word or action in the scene, an improviser makes an offer , meaning that he or she defines some element of the reality of the scene. This might include giving another character a name, identifying a relationship, location, or using mime to define

9435-414: The irrational and the subconscious have been part of the stage tradition for centuries. From the 1990s onwards a growing number of European Improv groups have been set up specifically to explore the possibilities offered by the use of the abstract in improvised performance, including dance, movement, sound, music, mask work, lighting, and so on. These groups are not especially interested in comedy, either as

9546-404: The key elements of structural film are a fixed camera position, flicker effect, re-photography off screen, and loop printing. Artist Bruce Conner created early examples such as A Movie (1958) and Cosmic Ray (1962). As Sitney has pointed out, in the work of Stan Brakhage and other American experimentalists of early period, film is used to express the individual consciousness of the maker,

9657-539: The late 1960s, Augusto Boal 's "Forum Theatre" in South America in the early 1970s, and San Francisco's The Diggers ' work in the 1960s. Some of this work led to pure improvisational performance styles, while others simply added to the theatrical vocabulary and were, on the whole, avant-garde experiments. Joan Littlewood , an English actress and director who was active from the 1950s to 1960s, made extensive use of improv in developing plays for performance. However, she

9768-603: The nation. Notable alumni of the BNW include Louie Anderson , Mo Collins , Tom Davis , Al Franken , Penn Jillette , Carl Lumbly , Paul Menzel , Pat Proft , Annie Reirson, Taylor Nikolai, Nancy Steen , Peter Tolan , Linda Wallem , Lizz Winstead , Peter MacNicol , Melissa Peterman , and Cedric Yarbrough . Some key figures in the development of improvisational theatre are Viola Spolin and her son Paul Sills , founder of Chicago's famed Second City troupe and originator of Theater Games , and Del Close , founder of ImprovOlympic (along with Charna Halpern ) and creator of

9879-416: The objectives that they believe their character seeks. In improv formats with multiple scenes, an agreed-upon signal is used to denote scene changes. Most often, this takes the form of a performer running in front of the scene, known as a "wipe". Tapping a character in or out can also be employed. The performers not currently part of the scene often stand at the side or back of the stage, and can enter or exit

9990-673: The original cast of Saturday Night Live came from The Second City, and the franchise has produced such comedy stars as Mike Myers , Tina Fey , Bob Odenkirk , Amy Sedaris , Stephen Colbert , Eugene Levy , Jack McBrayer , Steve Carell , Chris Farley , Dan Aykroyd , and John Belushi . Simultaneously, Keith Johnstone's group The Theatre Machine, which originated in London , was touring Europe. This work gave birth to Theatresports , at first secretly in Johnstone's workshops, and eventually in public when he moved to Canada. Toronto has been home to

10101-572: The part of kidnapped tourists in today's Syria in a hyperreal sensory environment. Rob Wittig and Mark C. Marino have developed a form of improv for online theatrical improvisation called netprov . The form relies on social media to engage audiences in the creation of dynamic fictional scenarios that evolve in real-time. Modern improvisational comedy, as it is practiced in the West, falls generally into two categories: shortform and longform. Shortform improv consists of short scenes usually constructed from

10212-430: The philosophical vision of the Compass Players, while Elaine May was central to the development of the premises for its improvisations. Mike Nichols , Ted Flicker, and Del Close were her most frequent collaborators in this regard. When The Second City opened its doors on December 16, 1959, directed by Paul Sills, his mother Viola Spolin began training new improvisers through a series of classes and exercises which became

10323-436: The physical environment. These activities are also known as endowment . It is the responsibility of the other improvisers to accept the offers that their fellow performers make; to not do so is known as blocking, negation, or denial, which usually prevents the scene from developing. Some performers may deliberately block (or otherwise break out of character) for comedic effect—this is known as gagging —but this generally prevents

10434-399: The popular misconception in both the art world and Hollywood that the avant-garde and the commercial never meet. Another challenge to that misconception is that late in life, after their Hollywood careers had ended, both Nicholas Ray and King Vidor made avant-garde films. Film theorist P. Adams Sitney offers a concept of "visionary film", and he invented a few genre categories, including

10545-434: The practices of mainstream commercial and documentary filmmaking . Avant-garde is also used, for the films of the sort shot in the twenties in France, Germany or Russia, to describe this work, and " underground " was used in the sixties, though it has also had other connotations. Today the term "experimental cinema" prevails, because it's possible to make experimental films without the presence of any avant-garde movement in

10656-594: The result less ground-breakingly experimental than rectum-numbingly dull." Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "A self-indulgent mess." Despite a sense of negative reaction to Julien Donkey-Boy , it was praised by some critics. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a positive review, saying the film attained a "depth of compassion and understanding ... [it] acquires

10767-407: The scene by stepping into or out of the stage center. Many theatre troupes are devoted to staging improvisational performances and growing the improv community through their training centers. In addition to for-profit theatre troupes, there are many college-based improv groups in the United States and around the world. In Europe the special contribution to the theatre of the abstract, the surreal,

10878-400: The scene from advancing and is frowned upon by many improvisers. Accepting an offer is usually accompanied by adding a new offer, often building on the earlier one; this is a process improvisers refer to as Yes, and... and is considered the cornerstone of improvisational technique. Every new piece of information added helps the improvisers to refine their characters and progress the action of

10989-520: The scene. The Yes, and... rule, however, applies to a scene's early stage since it is in this stage that a "base (or shared) reality" is established in order to be later redefined by applying the "if (this is true), then (what else can also be true)" practice progressing the scene into comedy, as explained in the 2013 manual by the Upright Citizens Brigade members. The unscripted nature of improv also implies no predetermined knowledge about

11100-402: The script they were given, their ad libs often becoming part of the standard routine and making their way into their films. Many people, however, make a distinction between ad-libbing and improvising. The British director Mike Leigh makes extensive use of improvisation in the creation of his films, including improvising important moments in the characters' lives that will not even appear in

11211-798: The self-imposed rules of the Dogme 95 manifesto, and the first non- European film to be made under the Dogme 95 "vow of chastity". Julien, a young man with untreated schizophrenia , meets a young boy playing with several turtles in a New York City park. Fascinated by the turtles, Julien asks if he can have one. When he is denied, he strangles the boy, then buries his body in the mud before praying for mercy from God . At home, Julien resides with his dysfunctional family , consisting of his domineering and emotionless German father; his childlike pregnant sister Pearl; his younger brother, Chris, an aspiring wrestler who spends his days exercising and practicing wrestling moves; and their paternal grandmother, who

11322-434: The sensation of speed and the dynamism of modern life. However, what is left of futurist cinema is mostly on paper, many films very lost, and other never got made. Amongst those literatures it is worth noting The Futurist Cinema (Marinetti et al., 1916), Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature (1912), The Variety Theatre (1913), The Futurist Synthetic Theatre (1915), and The New Religion – Morality of Speed (1916). Perhaps,

11433-601: The sixties, Chaikin and the Open Theatre developed full theatrical productions with nothing but the actors, a few chairs, and a bare stage, creating character, time, and place through a series of transformations the actors physicalized and discovered through improvisations. On the west coast, Ruth Zaporah developed Action Theatre , a physically based improvisation form that treats language, movement and voice equally. Action Theatre performances have no scripts, no preplanned ideas and create full-length shows or shorter performances. Longform, dramatic, and narrative-based improvisation

11544-406: The skills and processes of improvisation are also used outside the context of performing arts. This practice, known as applied improvisation , is used in classrooms as an educational tool and in businesses as a way to develop communication skills, creative problem solving, and supportive team-work abilities that are used by improvisational, ensemble players. It is sometimes used in psychotherapy as

11655-482: The street at the Intersection for the Arts would drop by and sit in. In 1979, Elk brought shortform to England, teaching workshops at Jacksons Lane Theatre, and he was the first American to perform at The Comedy Store, London , above a Soho strip club. Modern political improvisation's roots include Jerzy Grotowski 's work in Poland during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Peter Brook 's "happenings" in England during

11766-426: The time) who improvised skits based on situations suggested by viewers. In Canada, the series Train 48 was improvised from scripts which contained a minimal outline of each scene, and the comedy series This Sitcom Is...Not to Be Repeated incorporated dialogue drawn from a hat during the course of an episode. The American show Reno 911! also contained improvised dialogue based on a plot outline. Fast and Loose

11877-452: The visual arts flourished. The Dadaists and Surrealists in particular took to cinema. René Clair 's Entr'acte (1924) featuring Francis Picabia , Marcel Duchamp , and Man Ray , and with music by Erik Satie , took madcap comedy into nonsequitur. Artists Hans Richter , Jean Cocteau , Marcel Duchamp, Germaine Dulac , and Viking Eggeling all contributed Dadaist/Surrealist shorts. Fernand Léger , Dudley Murphy , and Man Ray created

11988-563: The water hosing scene from the movie was made in SpongeBob SquarePants episode " Picture Day ". Experimental film While some experimental films have been distributed through mainstream channels or even made within commercial studios, the vast majority have been produced on very low budgets with a minimal crew or a single person and are either self-financed or supported through small grants. Experimental filmmakers generally begin as amateurs, and some use experimental films as

12099-550: The work more widely known and more accessible. Beginning in 1946, Frank Stauffacher ran the "Art in Cinema" program of experimental and avant-garde films at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art . From 1949 to 1975, the Knokke-Le-Zoute Experimental Film Festival  [ fr ] —located in Knokke-Heist , Belgium —was the most prominent festival of experimental cinema in the world. It permits

12210-619: Was active in North Beach during the 1960s. It was founded by alumni of Chicago's Second City, Alan Myerson and his wife Jessica. When The Committee disbanded in 1972, three major companies were formed: The Pitchell Players, The Wing, and Improvisation Inc. The only company that continued to perform Close's Harold was the latter one. Its two former members, Michael Bossier and John Elk, formed Spaghetti Jam in San Francisco's Old Spaghetti Factory in 1976, where shortform improv and Harolds were performed through 1983. Stand-up comedians performing down

12321-549: Was successfully prosecuted twice for allowing her actors to improvise in performance. Until 1968, British law required scripts to be approved by the Lord Chamberlain's Office . The department also sent inspectors to some performances to check that the approved script was performed exactly as approved. In 1987, Annoyance Theatre began as a club in Chicago that emphasizes longform improvisation. The Annoyance Theatre has grown into multiple locations in Chicago and New York City. It

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