Wavelength (1966 film)
Encyclopedia
Wavelength is a forty-five minute film that made the reputation of Canadian experimental film
maker and artist Michael Snow
. Considered a landmark of avant-garde
cinema, it was filmed over one week in December 1966 and edited in 1967 and is an example of what film theorist P. Adams Sitney
describes as "structural film
," calling Snow "the dean of structural filmmakers." Wavelength is often listed as one of the greatest
underground, art house and Canadian films ever made. It was named #85 in the 2001 Village Voice critics' list of the 100 Best Films of the 20th Century. The film has been designated and preserved as a masterwork by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada
. In a 1969 review of the film published in Artforum
, Manny Farber
describes Wavelength as "a pure, tough 45 minutes that may become The Birth of a Nation
in Underground films, is a straightforward document of a room in which a dozen businesses have lived and gone bankrupt. For all of the film's sophistication (and it is overpowering for its time-space-sound inventions) it is a singularly unpadded, uncomplicated, deadly realistic
way to film three walls, a ceiling and a floor... it is probably the most rigorously composed
movie in existence."
" scenes
. Snow's intent for the film was "a summation of my nervous system, religious inklings and aesthetic ideas," he said of the 45-minute-long zoom
–which nonetheless contains edits–that incorporates in its time frame four human events, including a man's death. In the first scene, a woman in a fur coat enters the room accompanied by two men carrying a bookshelf or cabinet. The woman instructs the men where to place this piece of furniture and they all leave. Later, the same woman returns with a female friend, they drink the beverages they brought, and listen to "Strawberry Fields Forever
" on the radio. Long after they leave, what sounds like breaking glass is heard. At this point, a man (played by filmmaker Hollis Frampton
) enters and inexplicably collapses on the floor. Later, the woman in the fur coat reappears and makes a phone call, speaking, with strange calm, about the dead man in her apartment whom she has never seen before.
In the end, one can hear what sound like police sirens, but could just as well be a part of the musical score
, a distinct piece of minimalist music
that pairs tones at random. These tones shift in frequency
(and in "wavelength
") as the camera analyzes the space
of the anonymous apartment. What begins as a view of the full apartment zooms (the zoom is not precisely continuous as the camera does change angle slightly, noticeably near the very end) and changes focus
slowly across the forty-five minutes, only to stop and come into perfect focus on a photograph of the sea on the wall.
and Stan Brakhage
) was towards "increased complexity". Since the mid-1960s, filmmakers such as Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton
, Paul Sharits
, Tony Conrad
and Joyce Wieland
produced works where simplicity was foregrounded. Sitney labeled this tendency "structural film." The four characteristics of structural film are "fixed camera position…the flicker effect, loop printing, and rephotography off the screen." Sitney describes Snow as the "dean of structural film-makers" who "utilizes the tension" of Wavelengths use of a "fixed-frame
and…the flexibility of the fixed tripod
". Where Sitney describes structural film as a "working process," Stephen Heath in Questions of Cinema finds Wavelength "seriously wanting" in that the "implied…narrative [makes Wavelength] in some ways a retrograde
step in cinematic form". To Heath, the principal theme of Wavelength is the "question of the cinematic institution of the subject of film" rather than the apparatus of filmmaking itself.
In 2003, Snow released WVLNT (or Wavelength For Those Who Don't Have the Time), a shorter (1/3 of the original time) and significantly altered version by overlaying the original film upon itself.
, "a landmark event in cinema." Considered a canonical avant-garde film along with Léger
and Murphy's
Ballet mecanique
(1924), Buñuel
and Dalí's
Un chien andalou
(1929), Maya Deren's
Meshes of the Afternoon
(1943), Stan Brakhage's
Mothlight (1963) and Kenneth Anger's
Scorpio Rising
(1964), Wavelengths 45 minute running time nevertheless contributes to a reputation for being a difficult work:
The film won the Grand Prix at the 1967 Knokke Experimental Film Festival, Knokke
, Belgium. and in a 1968 Film Quarterly
review, Jud Yalkut describes Wavelength as "at once one of the simplest and one of the most complex films ever conceived." In a 1968 L.A. Free Press review of the film, Gene Youngblood describes Wavelength as "without precedent in the purity of its confrontation with the essence of cinema: the relationships between illusion and fact, space and time, subject and object. It is the first post-Warhol
, post-Minimal
movie; one of the few films to engage those higher conceptual orders which occupy modern painting and sculpture. It has rightly been described as a ‘'triumph of contemplative cinema.'"
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
maker and artist Michael Snow
Michael Snow
Michael Snow, CC is a Canadian artist working in painting, sculpture, video, films, photography, holography, drawing, books and music.-Life:...
. Considered a landmark of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
cinema, it was filmed over one week in December 1966 and edited in 1967 and is an example of what film theorist P. Adams Sitney
P. Adams Sitney
P. Adams Sitney , is a historian of American avant-garde cinema.-Life:He was educated in his hometown, at Yale University...
describes as "structural film
Structural film
Structural film was an experimental film movement prominent in the US in the 1960s and which developed into the Structural/materialist films in the UK in the 1970s.-Overview:The term was coined by P...
," calling Snow "the dean of structural filmmakers." Wavelength is often listed as one of the greatest
Films that have been considered the greatest ever
While there is no general agreement upon the greatest film, many publications and organizations have tried to determine the films considered the best. The films mentioned in this article have all been mentioned in a notable survey – be it a popular poll or critics' poll...
underground, art house and Canadian films ever made. It was named #85 in the 2001 Village Voice critics' list of the 100 Best Films of the 20th Century. The film has been designated and preserved as a masterwork by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada
Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada
The Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada was a charitable non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the preservation of Canada’s audio-visual heritage, and to facilitating access to regional and national collections through partnerships with members of Canada's audio-visual community...
. In a 1969 review of the film published in Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
, Manny Farber
Manny Farber
Emanuel "Manny" Farber was an American painter, film critic and writer. Often described as "iconoclastic" , Farber developed a distinctive prose style and set of theoretical stances which have had a large influence on later generations of film critics; Susan Sontag considered him to be "the...
describes Wavelength as "a pure, tough 45 minutes that may become The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
in Underground films, is a straightforward document of a room in which a dozen businesses have lived and gone bankrupt. For all of the film's sophistication (and it is overpowering for its time-space-sound inventions) it is a singularly unpadded, uncomplicated, deadly realistic
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
way to film three walls, a ceiling and a floor... it is probably the most rigorously composed
Composition (visual arts)
In the visual arts – in particular painting, graphic design, photography and sculpture – composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art or a photograph, as distinct from the subject of a work...
movie in existence."
Outline
Wavelength consists of almost no action, and what action does occur is largely elided. If the film could be said to have a conventional plot, this would presumably refer to the four "characterCharacter (arts)
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
" scenes
Scene (film)
In TV and movies, a scene is generally thought of as the action in a single location and continuous time. Due to the ability to edit recorded visual works, it is typically much shorter than a stage play scene....
. Snow's intent for the film was "a summation of my nervous system, religious inklings and aesthetic ideas," he said of the 45-minute-long zoom
Zoom lens
A zoom lens is a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length can be varied, as opposed to a fixed focal length lens...
–which nonetheless contains edits–that incorporates in its time frame four human events, including a man's death. In the first scene, a woman in a fur coat enters the room accompanied by two men carrying a bookshelf or cabinet. The woman instructs the men where to place this piece of furniture and they all leave. Later, the same woman returns with a female friend, they drink the beverages they brought, and listen to "Strawberry Fields Forever
Strawberry Fields Forever
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and attributed to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. It was inspired by Lennon's memories of playing in the garden of a Salvation Army house named "Strawberry Field" near his childhood home."Strawberry Fields...
" on the radio. Long after they leave, what sounds like breaking glass is heard. At this point, a man (played by filmmaker Hollis Frampton
Hollis Frampton
Hollis Frampton was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer/theoretician, and pioneer of digital art.-Early years:Frampton was born March 11, 1936 in Wooster, Ohio...
) enters and inexplicably collapses on the floor. Later, the woman in the fur coat reappears and makes a phone call, speaking, with strange calm, about the dead man in her apartment whom she has never seen before.
In the end, one can hear what sound like police sirens, but could just as well be a part of the musical score
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
, a distinct piece of minimalist music
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
that pairs tones at random. These tones shift in frequency
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
(and in "wavelength
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength of a sinusoidal wave is the spatial period of the wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.It is usually determined by considering the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase, such as crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a...
") as the camera analyzes the space
Space
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
of the anonymous apartment. What begins as a view of the full apartment zooms (the zoom is not precisely continuous as the camera does change angle slightly, noticeably near the very end) and changes focus
Focus (optics)
In geometrical optics, a focus, also called an image point, is the point where light rays originating from a point on the object converge. Although the focus is conceptually a point, physically the focus has a spatial extent, called the blur circle. This non-ideal focusing may be caused by...
slowly across the forty-five minutes, only to stop and come into perfect focus on a photograph of the sea on the wall.
Cast
- Hollis FramptonHollis FramptonHollis Frampton was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer/theoretician, and pioneer of digital art.-Early years:Frampton was born March 11, 1936 in Wooster, Ohio...
- Lyne Grossman
- Naoto Nakazawa
- Roswell RuddRoswell RuddRoswell Rudd is a Grammy Award-nominated American jazz trombonist and composer....
- Amy TaubinAmy TaubinAmy Taubin is an American film critic. She is a contributing editor for two prominent film magazines, the British Sight & Sound and the American Film Comment...
- Joyce WielandJoyce WielandJoyce Wieland, OC was a Canadian experimental filmmaker and mixed media artist.-Life:Joyce Wieland was an experimental filmmaker and artist, whose work challenged and bridged boundaries among avant garde film factions of her time...
- Amy Yadrin
Structural Film
According to P. Adams Sitney, the trend in American avant-garde cinema during the late 1940s and 1950s (such as the work of Maya DerenMaya Deren
Maya Deren , born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s...
and Stan Brakhage
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....
) was towards "increased complexity". Since the mid-1960s, filmmakers such as Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton
Hollis Frampton
Hollis Frampton was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer/theoretician, and pioneer of digital art.-Early years:Frampton was born March 11, 1936 in Wooster, Ohio...
, Paul Sharits
Paul Sharits
Paul Jeffrey Sharits Paul Sharits was a visual artist, best known for his work in "experimental" or avant-garde filmmaking, particularly what became known as the Structural film movement, along with artists such as Tony Conrad, Hollis Frampton, and Michael Snow.His film work primarily focused on...
, Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
and Joyce Wieland
Joyce Wieland
Joyce Wieland, OC was a Canadian experimental filmmaker and mixed media artist.-Life:Joyce Wieland was an experimental filmmaker and artist, whose work challenged and bridged boundaries among avant garde film factions of her time...
produced works where simplicity was foregrounded. Sitney labeled this tendency "structural film." The four characteristics of structural film are "fixed camera position…the flicker effect, loop printing, and rephotography off the screen." Sitney describes Snow as the "dean of structural film-makers" who "utilizes the tension" of Wavelengths use of a "fixed-frame
Film frame
In filmmaking, video production, animation, and related fields, a film frame or video frame is one of the many still images which compose the complete moving picture...
and…the flexibility of the fixed tripod
Tripod (photography)
In photography, a tripod is used to stabilize and elevate a camera, or to support flashes or other photographic equipment. All photographic tripods have three legs and a mounting head to couple with a camera...
". Where Sitney describes structural film as a "working process," Stephen Heath in Questions of Cinema finds Wavelength "seriously wanting" in that the "implied…narrative [makes Wavelength] in some ways a retrograde
Retrograde
-Retrograde:* Retrograde motion, in astronomy, describes retrograde motions of celestial bodies relative to a gravitationally central object* Apparent retrograde motion, in astronomy, is the apparent motion of planets as observed from a particular vantage point...
step in cinematic form". To Heath, the principal theme of Wavelength is the "question of the cinematic institution of the subject of film" rather than the apparatus of filmmaking itself.
In 2003, Snow released WVLNT (or Wavelength For Those Who Don't Have the Time), a shorter (1/3 of the original time) and significantly altered version by overlaying the original film upon itself.
Critical reception
The screening of Wavelength in 1967 was according to filmmaker Jonas MekasJonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema." His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.-Biography:...
, "a landmark event in cinema." Considered a canonical avant-garde film along with Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
and Murphy's
Dudley Murphy
Dudley Murphy was an American film director. Murphy was born on July 10, 1897 in Winchester, Massachusetts...
Ballet mecanique
Ballet mécanique
Ballet Mécanique was a project by the American composer George Antheil and the filmmaker/artists Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy. Although the film was intended to use Antheil's score as a soundtrack, the two parts were not brought together until the 1990s. As a composition, Ballet Mécanique is...
(1924), Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
and Dalí's
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
Un chien andalou
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
(1929), Maya Deren's
Maya Deren
Maya Deren , born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s...
Meshes of the Afternoon
Meshes of the Afternoon
Meshes of the Afternoon is a short experimental film directed by wife and husband team, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. The film's narrative is circular, and repeats a number of psychologically symbolic images, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a...
(1943), Stan Brakhage's
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....
Mothlight (1963) and Kenneth Anger's
Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...
Scorpio Rising
Scorpio Rising (film)
Scorpio Rising is a 1964 experimental film by Kenneth Anger, starring Bruce Byron as Scorpio. Themes central to the film include the occult, biker subculture, Catholicism and Nazism; the film also explores the worship of rebel icons of the era, namely James Dean and Marlon Brando...
(1964), Wavelengths 45 minute running time nevertheless contributes to a reputation for being a difficult work:
[G]iven the film's durational strategyTimeTime is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
, we feel every minute of the time it takes to traverse the space of the loft to get to the infinite space of the photograph of waves—and the fade to white—at the film's end. The film inspires as much boredom and frustration as intrigue and epiphanyEpiphany (feeling)An epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something...
...".
The film won the Grand Prix at the 1967 Knokke Experimental Film Festival, Knokke
Knokke
Knokke is one of a group of communities that are all grouped in the administrative community Knokke-Heist, in the province of West Flanders in Flanders, Belgium. Knokke itself has 15,653 inhabitants .Knokke-Heist has 33,818 inhabitants ....
, Belgium. and in a 1968 Film Quarterly
Film Quarterly
Film Quarterly is a film journal published by University of California Press, in Berkeley, California, United States. It was first published in 1945 as Hollywood Quarterly, was renamed The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television in 1951, and received its current title in 1958...
review, Jud Yalkut describes Wavelength as "at once one of the simplest and one of the most complex films ever conceived." In a 1968 L.A. Free Press review of the film, Gene Youngblood describes Wavelength as "without precedent in the purity of its confrontation with the essence of cinema: the relationships between illusion and fact, space and time, subject and object. It is the first post-Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, post-Minimal
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
movie; one of the few films to engage those higher conceptual orders which occupy modern painting and sculpture. It has rightly been described as a ‘'triumph of contemplative cinema.'"