Mark Rappaport
Encyclopedia
Mark Rappaport is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 independent
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

/underground
Underground film
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre, or financing.-Definition and history:The first use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic Manny Farber, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of...

 film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 who has been working sporadically since the early 1970s. A lifelong New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, New York, he graduated from Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

 in 1964. His films are often marked by high camp
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...

, melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

, deadpan humor, ennui, and a rather cavalier attitude towards copyright law and intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...

, often using music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, archival footage, and excerpts from Hollywood films without seeking permission.

Central to Rappaport's work is the relationship between the audience
Audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...

 and media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

, particularly pop culture, which is his most recurring theme.
An example of this is his first feature, Casual Relations, released in 1973. It is a bricolage
Bricolage
Bricolage is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work created by such a process...

 of unrelated scenes, often announced by intertitle
Intertitle
In motion pictures, an intertitle is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action, at various points, generally to convey character dialogue, or descriptive narrative material related to, but not necessarily covered by, the material photographed.Intertitles...

s. One such title informs us that a character decided she would spend all day watching television. The scene that unfolds, approximately seven minutes in length, features just that: the character, in one continuous shot, watching television as the audio
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...

 from three Hollywood films is heard. There is very little movement in the frame. Then the scene ends and the film moves on to the next scene.

Rappaport has been noted by Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

, Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...

, Ray Carney
Ray Carney
Ray Carney, also known as Raymond Carney, Ph.D, is an American scholar and critic, primarily known for his work as a film theorist, although he writes extensively on American art and literature as well. He is known for his study of the works of actor and director John Cassavetes...

, J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...

, Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr is an American film critic. A critic at the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune for many years, he writes a weekly column for The New York Times on DVD releases, in addition to contributing occasional pieces on individual films or filmmakers.-Early life and education:Dave Kehr did...

, and Stuart Klawans
Stuart Klawans
Stuart Klawans has been the film critic for The Nation since 1988. He won the 2007 National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism and he received a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a critical study of Preston Sturges...

. Ray Carney considers him the greatest contemporary American film director. Rappaport has had (comparatively) greater success with his last three features, all made in the 1990s: Rock Hudson's Home Movies
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...

, From the Journals of Jean Seberg
From the Journals of Jean Seberg
From the Journals of Jean Seberg is a 1995 docudrama type found footage film on the life of actress Jean Seberg. It is directed by Mark Rappaport....

, and The Silver Screen/Color Me Lavender.
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