not at all video related, but it is math/geometry related and i thought folks here would enjoy it.
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beau travail by claire denise
syndromes and a century/tropical malady by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
hunters and bombers from NFB
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Tetsuo - the iron man
Eraserhead
Amarcord
Underground
Not a movie but a videozine:
Cyberpunk Videozine - just a sample
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Difficult question for me as this is my primary area of work, but in no particular order (and not including video art/arthouse films etc., I’ll make a separate post later):
Eraserhead
Simply a classic, the definition of oneiric cinema (a concept that interests me greatly). Left a huge impression on me at a young age. His earlier experimental films are also great, Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times), The Grandmother and The Alphabet are all wonderful in my view.
Mulholland Drive / Blue Velvet / Lost Highway
Yes there’s too much Lynch on this list sorry, but I’m just a really big fan. Even met him a few years ago lol. These films really helped me view relatively traditional storytelling as something that could still be conceptually interesting, which I’d lost faith in for a period of time. Mulholland Drive in particular really shaped my adolescence.
Tetsuo : The Iron Man (鉄男, Tetsuo)
Like many of my choices this has already been mentioned, but a phenomenal experience that captivates senses and emotions. Has already been described much better by people above me in this thread.
Videodrome / Scanners
Self explanatory, the film has many parallels with the type of art that interests me now. Although so do films like Hackers, which I suppose have influenced me to an extent too!
In The Mood For Love
I have always had a general “education” in lighting for screen, but this film really made me rethink the roles of dynamic range, contrast and warmth in eliciting an emotive response.
La Haine
I strive to document realism in a way informed by the elegance of this rugged production. Possibly my favourite film in general.
Stalker
Once again, someone posted a much better response to this film earlier in the thread, but profoundly important.
Inland Empire and various documentaries produced in 1990s/2000s
I fucking love MiniDV as a format. I don’t have an entirely logical explanation as to why, but I grew up around its use, all of my favourite gritty documentaries are filmed on it, and so was Inland Empire which I adore. Jisoe is a particularly interesting documentary of this era from Australia imo if you don’t mind crime/swearing/bongs
I’ll complete a list, or make a proper list with experimental films etc. included another time, this is already getting far too long and I’m missing so many favourites already!!
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My favorite film (animated or otherwise) is Millenium Actress by Satoshi Kon.
Ostensibly, it’s about a filmmaker seeking out a reclusive former actress to interview toward the end of her life. The portrayal of reality is constantly shifting between her life, her films, and the involvement of the interviewer. The visual style shifts at various points to represent different genres of Japanese film. I don’t want to link any of the heavier scenes for fear of spoilers, but here’s a good scene:
The next feature film (and sadly, the last) by that director was Paprika. It explored psychologists that dive into their patients dreams, and likewise blurs the lines between reality and dreaming.
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By The Kiss – my favourite short film, by Yann Gonzalez
Leviathan – Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel
And of course, Stalker.
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Manhunter (1986)
Beyond Michael Mann’s superb cinematography and my love for neo-noir, there’s an interesting relationship between the characters and visual stimuli, or senses as a whole, that I find fascinating.
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
The history of horror, and I guess cinema in general, can be easily divided into two categories: practical and digital. Lynch approaches digital sleekness with distrust, everything appears to be just offset or uncanny, maybe a product version that’s out of date by 2 or 3 updates. Like, Jasc Paint Shop Pro shit. But when he wants actual horror he turns to his own art style, beings that look like his own disturbing surrealistic paintings. Coupled with the huge scope of this project, a reflective look at the ageing process and seeing his friends pass away knowing his days are numbered, it’s just an incredible 18-hour film. I lost a few nights of sleep because of The Return, like legit scared in bed, which hasn’t happened to me in a decade.
Magnolia (1999)
Speaking of scope, this film set me on a path. I rented it when I was 12 and I was blown away by how big a movie could be. It could span a whole a city. Not an influence in terms of style or theme, but it’s just something I think about whenever I’m at a crossroads as to whether I want to focus or expand on an idea.
Of course, you get older and watch some Altman and you’re like, “Oh, Magnolia was an Altman film this whole time.”
Nashville (1975)
SPEAKING OF ALTMAN, I absolutely love everything Nashville accomplishes, particularly the layered audio tracks, but especially the mid-70s malaise. The song that repeats in the film, “It don’t worry me / It don’t worry me / You may say that I ain’t free / but it don’t worry me”, perfectly captures the end of radical politics of the Gerald Ford era and the rise of Reagan self-involved neoliberalism to follow to this day. It makes me consider things to come, the fallout of a politically active era, the future of the left, and the passivity of my own politics. I’ve included the ethos if not the song itself a lot in my work during the past couple of years.
WNUF Halloween Special (2013)
A “lost” 1986 broadcast of an ill-fated haunted house tour on live local television. The 60-minute film is peppered with commercial breaks, some commercials repeating almost every block to add to the realism. There’s a calming nature to these breaks, a moment in time between recessions where things were looking up, and services like luxury airlines will be around forever. Then said airline commercial has a quick shot where the World Trade Center is visible in the background, and you’re reminded of this huge gash in history, and the Reaganomics of the era that will ruin your future, and this fun haunted house segment is going terribly wrong and things are getting too real. People dismiss this film for just being nostalgia porn, and it kind of is, but I truly respect its dedication to form.
Global Groove (1973)
Probably don’t need to get too descriptive about this one on a video art message board but: video feedback, McLuhan-esque ramblings about the television signal, general funkiness, what’s not to love?
Video 50 (Robert Wilson, 1978)
This is like the WarioWare of video art. 100 films, 30 seconds each. Kind of One Way Boogie Woogie but less formal, more just for kicks. Very fun use of early chromakeying and video technology. The 1978 release date is interesting because it really reminds me of early Devo. It’s inspiring in the sense that I one day will flat out rip off or remake this film.
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Anthology of American Folk Song, by Steve Reinke
A queer video essay that my professor showed us a week or so ago in my performance art class. It’s a tough watch, and deals with a lot of NSFW imagery and pornographic images, but in a very analytical manner. Took the wind out of me after we only watched about half of it.
Unfortunately super hard to get your hands on, as a rental DVD of it costs $100 to my knowledge. Might try to get my professor’s bootleg soon, or at least borrow it and copy it to my hard drive. Absurdly overpriced and inaccessible as hell, but oh well.
Here’s the trailer on VDB.
https://www.vdb.org/titles/anthology-american-folk-song
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