For the first outside screening assignment, I went to the Anthology Film Archive.  They had a paired showing of the experimental short, Film, written by Samuel Beckett and the kino-essay, Notfilm, by Ross Lipman.  Notfilm is an experimental documentary about Samuel Beckett’s experimental silent short, aptly named, Film.  Beckett’s Film, was directed by Alan Schneider and starred an aging Buster Keaton, it explored Bishop Berkeley’s idea of ‘esse est percepi,’ which means, to be is to be perceived. The short deals with perception and is told from two sides: one of E, the eyes of the camera, and of O, Keaton, our main character.  O’s perspective is marked by a blurred lens, giving the film viewer a sense of O’s blindness.  E’s perspective is not altered, but in contrast to the blurriness of O, appears extra clear and sharp.  Film matches Beckett’s style of unconventionality.  Silent era icon Buster Keaton, known for his face and deadpan expression is predominately filmed with his back to the camera.  While this might frustrate some Keaton fans, others might see it a nice departure from his earlier work.  Keaton himself was confused by Film and Beckett even described it as an ‘interesting failure’.  The short is worth the watch, especially for Avant-garde fans.  But do not expect a thought provoking bewitching experience as one would find with Waiting for Godot.

Lipman’s Notfilm takes Beckett’s meta film experiment and ratchets it up about fifty notches.  The kino-essay, almost plays as a Beckett love story. However, Lipman integrates the stories of different cast, crew, and Beckett enthusiasts. Lipman provides the majority of the voice narration; there are also rarely before heard tapes of a Film production meeting. The never before heard tapes and commentary from the people who knew Beckett and Keaton best are the charm of the film. Longtime collaborators, Beckett and Schneider came from the stage, and their laborious journey to the screen was quite touching and relatable to emerging artists. The 125-minute documentary is quite lengthy. But, the experimental quality of the editing certainly keeps the audience awake. The editing style resembles a pre-teen having free range on their computer and using every different type of transition possible. The mixture of conventional documentary techniques such as commentary, visual cutaways, and voice over narrations intermingled with blacked out screens, white flashes, and jump cuts was quite jarring. But, I feel that the non-conventionalism of the documentary matched the mania of the short film. However, three quarters of a way through, the film starts to meander. Lipman must have known how the daunting the film would be to some viewers because Notfilm comes complete with its own intermission. Although the intermission and varying act structure inter-titles seem to be a homage to the great playwright, they serve to parcel the seeming unyielding amount of information in the film. Information that after a while became highly repetitive.

 

One of the high notes about the film is that it does not glorify Beckett or Keaton. And openly admits to the failure of Film. The kickstarter-funded film appears to be a dream come true for film enthusiast Ross Lipman. Film and Notfilm are definitely recommended for theater and film enthusiast. The films commentary on film, the tireless art of creating, and of the inevitable aging process make them timeless must sees.