WHAT IS THE AVANT GARDE?

Avant Garde to me is something that is not mainstream enough to be liked by the

average viewer or reader, but only a certain group of people will find pleasure from

it. I’m not sure if I would relate it to the Andy Warhol film about the Empire St

Building, because I doubt nobody has even finished it or even took any pleasure

from seeing it. I actually could compare that to a documentary film that I did last

year called 24 Hours. Kind of like the Warhol film, I found a willing student here at

SLU, then I fallowed them around and filmed them for a complete 24 hours, but

unlike the Warhol film I sped most of the scenes up and left few moments in real

time, so that my final product was only an hour. While the filming style was weird,

my purpose was to try to capture the little moments in an average students day,

while also making the film only an hour rather than 24. That I think is more Avant

Garde in my opinion then the Warhol film, because while mine was weird and some

people did not stay to see all of it, there were people who rather enjoyed it. A movie

I saw just yesterday, Enter The Void felt like if somebody wanted to make an avant

garde piece, and had millions to spend. A movie that uses a lot of long takes, improv

and POV shots, Enter the Void is a film about life after death. But while it was shot so

beautifully, everything else about it felt nothing like a Hollywood film or even an

Indi film. With its unnecessary long length, random sex scenes that don’t further the

plot, and odd color design and shot movement, I left unable to think after seeing

Enter the Void. While it was so far out there, and there were many things I thought

didn’t work, overall the creativity and design for the film made it feel so artsy and

avant garde. So I feel like Avant garde should be used to make something completely

bizarre, but it should be able to entertain people as well. And it should just be used

as an excuse to make “art”.