My Candidates for the Top Ten North American Experimental/Avant-Garde Films

William C. Wees

 

I don't call these the ten "best" because there are so many "best" films, depending on the criteria or category you are thinking about. Is the best abstract animation film better than the best surreal psychodrama? The best diary film better than the best found footage film? And so forth. My list is made up of films that I might call the "most important," with some combination of the following criteria in mind: originality; influence on subsequent developments in the criticism, theory and practice of experimental/avant-garde filmmaking; expression of aesthetic trends and intellectual concerns that were in the air at the time, but had not yet fully realized in cinematic form.

 

In chronological order, they are:

• Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943 - photo at right)

• A Movie (Bruce Conner, 1958)

• Dog Star Man (Stan Brakhage, 1961-64)

• Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger, 1963)

• Lapis (James Whitney, 1966)

• Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1967)

• Tom, Tom, The Piper's Son (Ken Jacobs, 1969)

• Peggy and Fred in Hell (complete cycle) (Leslie Thornton, 1985-1992)

• The Secret Garden (Phil Solomon, 1986)

• Sink or Swim (Su Friedrich, 1990)

• Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (Craig Baldwin, 1991, photo at rightt)

 

What? That's eleven? So...?

Bill Wees