tomorrow: the real cultural litmus test

[Michael J. Salo]

> Brakhage's films (such as the legendary flicker films)
> were almost all entirely silent and made to stay that way, without a
> soundtrack. Experimental film purists/experts feel that accompanying a
> Brakhage film with a live soundtrack - which he didn't intend, and even
> expressly disdained - is doing a disservice to this man's important body
> of work. Especially when the group *names* itself after the film it's
> accompanying (Text of Light). Apparently whatever 'respect' Lee Ranaldo
> and company are lending to Brakhage is misplaced in that regard. And
> Filmmakers, jumping at the chance to present a packed, money-making
> venture, is complicit in this, even though some of its people should know
> better.

I would argue that the whole point of anything "avant garde" is breaking
rules, standards and taboos.

So what if the filmmaker preferred no sound?  Creating music to go with a
film that doesn't have any sounds like a perfectly reasonable concept to me.

As an experimental music expert I tell the experimental film experts to go
stuff it. :)


"Who makes the rules?  Somebody else." -Oingo Boingo

Michael J. Salo
www.strangefortune.com