Remodernist film developed in the United States and the United Kingdom in the early 21st century with ideas related to those of the international art movement Stuckism and its manifesto, Remodernism. Key figures are Jesse Richards and Peter Rinaldi.
On August 27, 2008, Jesse Richards published a 15-point Remodernist Film Manifesto, calling for a "new spirituality in cinema", use of intuition in filmmaking, as well as describing the remodernist film as being a "stripped down, minimal, lyrical, punk kind of filmmaking". Point 4 is:
The Japanese ideas of wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection) and mono no aware (the awareness of the transience of things and the bittersweet feelings that accompany their passing), have the ability to show the truth of existence, and should always be considered when making the remodernist film.
There are also several polemic statements made in the manifesto that criticize Stanley Kubrick, filmmakers that shoot on digital video, as well as Dogme 95.[3] In December, 2008, Turkish film magazine Bakiniz translated the manifesto into Turkish and soon after Polish magazine Red translated it into Polish.[4]
The idea of Stuckism in relation to filmmaking and photography started 2001 when Jesse Richards and Nicholas Watson began releasing work as The New Haven Stuckists Film Group. On March 8, 2008 their film Shooting at the Moon made its London premiere at Horse Hospital during its FLIXATION Underground Cinema Club event. Remodernist Film and Photography was founded by Richards and Smith in 2004.
Amos Poe is part of the movement,[8][9] which he said was "just a bunch of kids."[8] He said in 2008:
I guess remodernist is the next variation of post-modernist, which is to take something that was in the culture before and then turn it into something else, like taking it out of context. So it's kind of what pop art was in a way. I was using Warhol as kind of a soup can. It's like redoing that but it's done in a completely remodernist way because it's using the technology and the sensibility of contemporary rather than nostalgia.[8]
In late August, 2009, an International Alliance of Remodernist Filmmakers was started by Jesse Richards in order to promote discussion and collaboration amongst those following the manifesto. The filmmakers include Jesse Richards, Harris Smith, Christopher Michael Beer, Dmitri Trakovsky, Kate Shults, Peter Rinaldi and Khurrem Gold of America, Roy Rezaali of Holland, Rouzbeh Rashidi of Iran and Dean Kavanagh of Ireland.[10]
In October, 2009, with the intention "to further develop and explain Remodernist film concepts", a series of articles by Jesse Richards, Peter Rinaldi and Roy Rezaali were published in the magazine MungBeing.[11]
Richards said, "Remodernism rejected Postmodernism for its 'failure to answer or address any important issues of being a human being'", and that Remodernism is "about seeking truth, establishing meaningful connections" and "addressing the shadow".[12]
In his essay Concepts and Craft in Remodernist Film, Richards said that Remodernist film craft "embraces the amateur", involves the idea of filmmakers "teaching themselves to paint pictures, to try acting in their own movies and those of others (especially if they are shy), to be nude models for other artists, to meditate, worship if they are religious, to do things that affect their levels of consciousness, try things that make them nervous or uncomfortable, to go out and be involved in life, to find adventure, to jump in the ocean. I think that is the exploration of craft".[13]
The article explains the differences between modernist, post-modernist and remodernist cinema, describing Robert Bresson and Andrei Tarkovsky as "early Remodernist filmmakers", and notes films that make emphasis of "small moments", including Béla Tarr's film Satantango, "...every moment of the film Satantango is a good example of this kind of exploration of "moments"- the film starts with a ten-minute shot following cows coming out of a barn and wandering around a run-down agriculture collective. These kinds of moments are all but ignored in most examples of modern cinema, and that's a terrible, terrible thing".
Richards says of Remodernist filmmaking:
I believe that the most effective way to really make subjective and authentic work involves an "addressing of the shadow" (as Billy Childish and Charles Thomson have described it). Now what does this mean exactly? It might mean that you are really obsessed with pubic hair, or maybe you are really embarrassed by a physical or mental disability that you try to hide, or like Billy Childish, you were abused as a child. These things, these "shadows" that we are hiding within ourselves, need to be brought forth into the light of day - in our films, in our work, in our poetry.[6]
In another article, entitled A Quick Primer and History, Richards relaxes the criticism in the manifesto against digital video, noting that it can "have a place in Remodernist cinema" but that it should be given a new language, and that it currently "mimic(s) film". The article also broadens the aim of the movement, explaining the common bond among Remodernist filmmakers being a search for truth, knowledge, authenticity and spirituality in their work, but having different approaches on achieving that goal.[14]
Peter Rinaldi, analyzes the manifesto and shares his "personal thoughts" on it in his essay, The Shore as seen from The Deep Sea. Particularly, he defends the criticism of digital and later of Stanley Kubrick, saying first, "for the most part, the ‘easiness’ of video has led to degradation in the images created",[15] and:
I think, for the most part, the generation that I grew up in had Kubrick as their Giant. His work has a mystical "perfectionism" that is awe-inspiring at times. This perfectionism is anathema to the Remodernist mentality and for many healthy reasons, this giant (or whatever giant towers over your work) must fall in our minds. We must become the giant.[6]
The rest of the article draws direct connections between ideas in the manifesto and some Christian and Buddhist teachings.[6]
In June 2010, after publishing a letter from Richards about the Remodernist Film Manifesto on his site,[16] film critic Roger Ebert tweeted, "Much discussed on serious film blogs: The Remodernist Film Manifesto. Lars von Trier, get out of town".[17]
In Passing, Feature-length collaboration
In February 2010, the Australian film magazine Filmink announced the forthcoming production of a compilation feature film being made by members of the Remodernist film movement, which the magazine says "recalls art movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which saw artists attempting to strive toward artistic freedom and authenticity". The film, which will consist of ten-minute pieces by various members of the film movement "from around the globe", is scheduled to premiere in December, 2010 in New York. Participating filmmakers include: Peter Rinaldi, Kate Shults, Rouzbeh Rashidi, Dean Kavanagh, Roy Rezaali, Heidi Beaver and Christopher Michael Beer. Richards' Remodernist Film Manifesto "forms the basis" of the joint project.[18]
The film's premiere was announced for November 13, 2011 at the Quad Cinemas in New York City.[19]
In the November 2011 print edition of Filmink, film scholar, critic and programmer Jack Sargeant wrote about the movement and In Passing, referring to the movement as "the new personal cinema" and describing the evolution of "lyrical cinema" from the work of Andrei Tarkovsky, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Béla Tarr and through to the Remodernist filmmakers.
Sargeant goes onto describe In Passing:
The film is neither a fully experimental work, nor a movie fixated on classic narrative; rather, In Passing explores the passing of time and the relation of time to cinematic space. Often focusing on intimate yet small details – the table top exploration of a crustacean, the patter of rain on a window, cats at play, the ocean shot from a moving car, a couple looking into a camera knowing that the film they are making will fail – and finding something lyrically poignant and even personal within these transient moments. There are scenes in which people seem to vanish, no longer seen onscreen, yet the space they once occupied still resonates with their echoes, moving through the poetic sublime.In common with Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Gus Van Sant, and films like Meek's Cutoff, there is a sense of homesickness to the films that make up In Passing. This sense of homesickness is not necessarily rooted in a sense of being away from home, but in the sense that even at home, the protagonists are still searching for their place within the day-to-day world.[20]
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Russian film director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential directors in cinema history, Tarkovsky's films explore spiritual and metaphysical themes, and are noted for their slow pacing and long takes, dreamlike visual imagery, and preoccupation with nature and memory.
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art. By May 2017 the initial group of 13 British artists had expanded to 236 groups in 52 countries.
Remodernism is an artistic and philosophical movement aimed at reviving aspects of modernism, particularly in its early form, in a manner that both follows after and contrasts against postmodernism. The movement was initiated in 2000 by stuckists Billy Childish and Charles Thomson, with a manifesto, Remodernism in an attempt to introduce a period of new "spirituality" into art, culture and society to replace postmodernism, which they said was cynical and spiritually bankrupt. In 2002, a remodernism art show in Albuquerque was accompanied by an essay from University of California, Berkeley art professor, Kevin Radley, who said there was a renewal of artists working without the limitation of irony and cynicism, and that there was a renewal of the sense of beauty. Adherents of remodernism advocate it as a forward and radical, not reactionary, impetus.
The New Wave, also called the French New Wave, is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconoclasm. New Wave filmmakers explored new approaches to editing, visual style, and narrative, as well as engagement with the social and political upheavals of the era, often making use of irony or exploring existential themes. The New Wave is often considered one of the most influential movements in the history of cinema.
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing.
Béla Tarr is a Hungarian filmmaker. Debuting with the film Family Nest (1979), Tarr began his directorial career with a brief period of what he refers to as "social cinema", aimed at telling everyday stories about ordinary people, often in the style of cinema vérité. Over the next decade, he changed the cinematic style and thematic elements of his films. Tarr has been interpreted as having a pessimistic view of humanity; the characters in his works are often cynical, and have tumultuous relationships with one another in ways critics have found to be darkly comic. Almanac of Fall (1984) follows the inhabitants of a run-down apartment as they struggle to live together while sharing their hostilities. The drama Damnation (1988) was lauded for its languid and controlled camera movement, which Tarr would become known for internationally. Sátántangó (1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) continued his bleak and desolate representations of reality, while incorporating apocalyptic overtones. The former sometimes appears in scholarly polls of the greatest films ever made, and the latter received wide acclaim from critics. Tarr would later compete at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival with his film The Man from London, which opened to moderately positive reviews.
Jesse Beau Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the international movement Stuckism. He has been described as "one of the most provocative names in American underground culture," and "the father of remodernist cinema."
Amos Poe is an American New York City-based director and screenwriter, described by The New York Times as a "pioneering indie filmmaker".
Sátántangó is a 1994 drama film directed by Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr. Shot in black-and-white and running for more than seven hours, it is based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, whose works Tarr has frequently adapted since his 1988 film Damnation. Tarr had hoped to make the film since 1985 but was unable to proceed with production due to the strict political environment in Hungary.
The Stuckism art movement was started in London in 1999 to promote figurative painting and oppose conceptual art. This was mentioned in the United States media, but the first Stuckist presence in US was not until the following year, when former installation artist, Susan Constanse, founded a Pittsburgh chapter.
Nicholas Watson is a social entrepreneur based in Pennsylvania, United States.
Harris Smith is an American filmmaker, media critic and essayist from New York City. He is one of the founding members of the Remodernist film movement and was a participating member of the first comprehensive Remodernist exhibition in the United States, Addressing the Shadow and Making Friends with Wild Dogs: Remodernism.
Dogma 95 is a 1995 avant-garde filmmaking movement founded by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" and the "Vows of Chastity". These were rules to create films based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology. It was supposedly created as an attempt to "take back power for the directors as artists", as opposed to the studio. They were later joined by fellow Danish directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, forming the Dogme 95 Collective or the Dogme Brethren. Dogme is the Danish word for dogma.
Mihály Víg is a Hungarian composer, poet, songwriter, guitarist, singer and actor.
Rouzbeh Rashidi is an Iranian-Irish avant-garde filmmaker and founder of Experimental Film Society. Since 2000, Rashidi produced experimental feature films and numerous volumes of instalments for the Homo Sapiens Project. His films have been associated with the Remodernist Film Movement.
Peter Rinaldi is a filmmaker and writer from New York, NY and is affiliated with the Remodernist film movement.
Only Human is a 2010 Irish experimental film directed by Rouzbeh Rashidi that tells the visual story of five couples. A tale of people unfolds under the night sky. These doomed couples and lost individuals begin journeys and attempt to find resolution in their lives. As the stories progress, they become neatly woven into a minimalistic portrayal of modern life.
Cine Foundation International is London-based non-profit film company and human rights NGO "aiming to 'empower open consciousness through cinema'". The foundation was formed in December 2010 by American filmmaker Jesse Richards, founder of the Remodernist film movement, South Korean film critic Blue Un Sok Kim and Tobias Morgan, formerly the developer of "The Garage" on Mubi.
Closure of Catharsis is a British-Irish Experimental film directed by Rouzbeh Rashidi that tells the visual story of a man who sits on a park bench talking to the camera, trying to weave together a thought that won't cohere while commenting on passers-by, his 'guests'... Mysterious images intervene, overturning the serenity of the park-bench monologue.
Slow cinema is a genre of art cinema characterised by a style that is minimalist, observational, and with little or no narrative, and which typically emphasizes long takes. It is sometimes called "contemplative cinema".
↑ "Rassegna cinematografica un New Yorker: il cinema di Amos Poe.", Alcinema, 14 April 2009. Retrieved 6 February 2010. From the Italian: "Retrospettiva completa dedicata al regista newyorkese Amos Poe. Da Blank Generation a Empire II, dal CBGB's all'Empire State Building, un viaggio nella New York underground, i suoi volti e i suoi luoghi, in 30 anni di produzione cinematografica. Punk, No wave, documentario e Tv sperimentale fino al recente movimento del Remodernist film, il percorso di un autore che ha segnato il nuovo cinema americano."
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