Experimental/Avant Garde
Cinema Week Day 6
There
are several experimental or avant garde films on the 1001 movie list.
In trying to figure out how to deal with them, I have tried to handle these
often tough nuts to crack by just watching them and trying to answer ten basic
questions about them on my personally devised standardized test. So let us
continue with..
Vinyl
1. What happens?
Blonde male in leather lifts some weights to the
indifference of those behind him. This blonde guy appears to hold contempt for
newspapers and ties up a guy to a pole and tortures him. He says he does bad
things because he "digs it." He dances to Martha and the
Vandellas. He gets into an altercation with someone he refers to as "scum
baby." At this point, he is suddenly on the wrong end of an interrogation.
He is strapped to a chair as a doctor examines him and someones reads the cast
credits even though the movie isn't over. He is subjected to images that change
his way of thinking. He is forced to wear a mask. He is released from his
bondage and listens to some Kinks and some Stones and dances.
2. Was it heavy? Did it achieve total heaviosity?
I dug it enough to say it was a little heavy, but I've
certainly had heavier.
3. What was your favorite part?
When I recognized the parts that were recognizable as being
from Clockwork Orange, I
kind of dug that.
4. What was your least favorite part?
I think this story could have been told in half the time. I
didn't dig the moments of nothing happening.
5. Did you get it?
It's a bare bones adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange before Kubrick made an actual movie
out of it. I can dig it.
6. Might the viewing experience have been enhanced from
either prescription or non-prescription medication of some kind?
Too much of a high may cause the plot of Vinyl to slow down to an intolerable pace. I
couldn't dig that.
7. What about the sex?
I can't say I dug the bumping and grinding sex, though it
was more figurative than anything.
8. What about the violence?
I don't dig violence, and tying someone up and putting a
mask on them? I really can't dig that.
9. Describe this film in one sentence starting with
"This is the film..."
This is the film that Andy Warhol made loosely following
the plot of Clockwork Orange, and you're probably not going to dig it.
10. Would you watch it again?
Probably wouldn't dig watching Vinyl again. Could possibly dig watching Andy Warhol's Bad or Andy
Warhol's Dracula again. Or
maybe I should just try to dig staring at some pictures of soup cans.
Vinyl is one of the examples I offer up when people ask about the worst entries on the list. It has all the plot, acting skill, and production values of teenagers goofing off in their bedroom and posting it to Youtube. I honestly feel that if it didn't have the name Warhol attached to it it would have been quickly forgotten...if it was ever seen at all.
ReplyDeleteI can see putting a Warhol movie on the list. Maybe Warhol's Dracula or Warhol's Bad. Not that I'm completely wild about either, but at least they are actual movies and probably good examples of the genre. But Vinyl? I don't think so.
ReplyDelete