Component 2 - Section D - EXPERIMENTAL FILM

EXPERIMENTAL FILM

Derek Jarman

Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener, and author.

Jarman's first films were experimental Super 8mm shorts, a form he never entirely abandoned, and later developed further in his films.

Blue consists of a single shot of saturated blue colour filling the screen, as background to a soundtrack composed by Simon Fisher Turner, and featuring original music by Coil and other artists, in which Jarman describes his life and vision.

KEY FEATURES OF EXPERIMENTAL FILM

- Fragmented narrative and narrative structures.

- Experimental cinema encompasses a range of film forms within this category, directors and films. 

- Not all films within this category have all the features.

- Resists cohesive narrative style - deliberately. 

- Poses many challenges for the spectator who must work hard to put the overall narrative together.

- Often beginnings and endings are enigmatic - beginnings picking up from previous moments unknown to the spectator.

- Endings not leaving moral clarity or 'resolution'. 

NARRATIVE

- At the extreme level: experimental film can be a series of isolated 'moments', often impressions - like a painting.

- It will be empty of a conventional plot and story.

- It will resist creating characters with whom the spectator may engage at any level.

- Create 'meaning' will be the spectators' role.

A boy accidentally gets in an old crappy car and goes somewhere he does not want to go. He later nearly gets hit by a car, and then wants to kiss his mom. It gets very odd until he realises that it is his mum but its too late. He tries to escape but she chases him as he tries to get back to the place he previously was. He manages to distract her with a man named George Mcfly. Then manages to get electrocuted until he goes back to the future.