{"id":228,"date":"2014-09-11T14:29:53","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T14:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/?page_id=228"},"modified":"2014-09-15T09:44:51","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T09:44:51","slug":"catherine-grant","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/reflections\/intransition-1-3\/catherine-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"CATHERINE GRANT"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 29\">\n<div class=\"section\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>THE AUDIOVISUAL ESSAY: My Favorite Things<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">[toc]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>By Catherine Grant<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/25027483?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=6b1307\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>[Extract]<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h2><strong>Curatorial Note\u00a0by CATHERINE GRANT, &#8216;THE AUDIOVISUAL ESSAY: My Favorite Things&#8217;,<em> [in]Transition<\/em>, 1.3, 2014.<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Online at:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mediacommons.futureofthebook.org\/intransition\/2014\/09\/14\/audiovisual-essay-my-favorite-things\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/mediacommons.futureofthebook.org\/intransition\/2014\/09\/14\/audiovisual-essay-my-favorite-things<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0(On\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/reflections\/intransition-1-3\/christian-keathley\/\" target=\"_blank\">Christian Keathley&#8217;s\u00a0<em>50 Years On<\/em><\/a>\u00a0[above])<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">The poetics of the \u201cwork in movement\u201d [\u2026]\u00a0sets in motion [\u2026]\u00a0a new mechanics of\u00a0<span data-scayt_word=\"aesthetic\" data-scaytid=\"86\">aesthetic<\/span>\u00a0perception\u00a0[\u2026]. It poses new practical problems by organizing new communicative situations. In short, it installs a new relationship between the contemplation and the utilization of a work of art. (<span data-scayt_word=\"Umberto\" data-scaytid=\"85\">Umberto<\/span>\u00a0Eco,\u00a022-23)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>For me, one of the most compelling demonstrations of the full potential of [&#8230;]\u00a0videographic <em>open work<\/em>\u00a0(Eco, 1989) is my favorite video essay: Christian Keathley\u2019s <em>50 Years On<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time I have curated it: I did so at <a href=\"http:\/\/filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com\/2011\/06\/literate-and-non-literate-viewing-modes.html\">my blog<\/a> just over three years ago shortly after the video went public online. If I look back at the note I wrote then, I see that, much as I appreciated it straightaway, the unusual form of this essay made me anxious to situate its meaning within its verbal film studies thread. My first impressions weren\u2019t inapt. In holding onto them quite so tightly, though, I believe I closed the work down. <a href=\"http:\/\/filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com\/2011\/06\/literate-and-non-literate-viewing-modes.html\">I wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">[<em>50 Years On<\/em>] beautifully posits and explores the idea of two different viewing strategies in the cinema: what Keathley calls a &#8220;literate&#8221; mode in which &#8220;a single-minded gaze is directed toward the obvious [cinematic] figure on offer&#8221; on the screen; and a &#8220;non-literate&#8221; mode, less narrowly focused, roaming instead &#8220;over the frame, sensitive to its textures and surfaces&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>But it isn\u2019t Keathley who directly <em>names<\/em> anything in this video \u2013 even though he performs the voice over. He\u2013the video\u2013works instead through <em>citing<\/em> and <em>siting<\/em>: interspersing, in surprising ways, black screens with fragments from favorite film sequences and beloved accounts of cinema from a range of writers and filmmakers, withholding their sources and identities until the end. A regular editing rhythm is established, then, as soon as we begin to rely on its rules, it is modulated. The visual track similarly shifts between: plungings into darkness; flashings of light; dense textures; the interval of a blink; space for searching looks over staging in depth; foregrounding; surfaces; figures moving quickly, singly, in crowds; meanderings and stillness. We experience modernity, anachronism, synchronicity, asynchrony.<\/p>\n<p>Above all, <em>50 Years On<\/em> is an essay film about cinephilia. It is successful as an experimental adaptation of, or supplement to Keathley\u2019s influential 2005 book,\u00a0<em>Cinephilia and History, Or the Wind in the Trees<\/em> \u2013 performing the function, in my view, of a (concise) audiovisual <em>Passagenwerk<\/em> of personal and collective film history. It also stands alone. I watch it quite often and it has become as cherished an object as any of my favorite (cultural or intellectual) things. I find I am still curious about it, and gripped by its thrilling and insightful cinematic expedition through the terror of the unfamiliar to the comfort and, at times, pleasure of the familiar \u2013 and the other way around, too. But, almost unbelievably, one of the last things I really <em>noticed<\/em> about how the video works turns on one of my favorite things in it: a favorite song, from a favorite film scene. The soundtrack throughout is provided by John Coltrane\u2019s jazz recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s \u201cMy Favorite Things,\u201d from <em>The Sound of Music<\/em> (Robert Wise, 1965). In that film, this is the song Maria (Julie Andrews) comes up with to settle the children\u2019s terror about the storm \u2013 it\u2019s a hymn to, and performance of, the powerful effect of distraction, and the reassurance of\u00a0immersion\u00a0in (memories of)\u00a0comforting objects when faced with anxiety. In using Coltrane\u2019s improvised version, with its \u201cquality of something so recognizable being edged toward unrecognizability (without falling into it)\u201d, as Keathley puts it in his <a href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/reflections\/intransition-1-3\/christian-keathley\/\">fascinating account<\/a> of the video\u2019s making, <em>50 Years On<\/em> becomes an exploration of how cinema does <em>and doesn\u2019t<\/em> comfort us. How the contract we buy into when we begin to watch a film involves us sort of knowing where it will take us, and of not knowing at all, but going (or not) with the flow, relying on our curiosity and our senses to make our way. In the first (fruitily) spoken words of the video (\u201cI am told [&#8230;] that\u00a0you have some <em>views<\/em> for sale\u201d) I am now reminded of Steve Neale\u2019s brilliant insight in his 1980 BFI booklet on <em>Genre<\/em>: \u201cWhat the consumer buys at the box office isn\u2019t a film as such, but the right to view a film [\u2026] a process not a product.\u201d (54) The video and its music (like the cinema) create a <em>reflexive <\/em>container, or frame, for this experiential process, for its anxieties as well as its pleasures \u2013 a <em>more or less<\/em> safe, but usually exciting ride.<\/p>\n<p>There are many more things I could write about <em>50 Years On<\/em>, about its intertextuality with film studies, or about the new things it makes me think and feel. It is a video in which formal and semantic complexity are held in communicative balance throughout. It also helps me to understand deeply what <a href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/frankfurt-papers\/cristina-alvarez-lopez-adrian-martin\/\">Cristina \u00c1lvarez and Adrian Martin<\/a> mean when they write of their own audiovisual essay editing process:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Every element we pluck out has many simultaneous levels, and multiple\u00a0<em>channels<\/em>\u00a0or tracks. When we confront any two elements, we are confronting two heterogeneous, internally multiple blocks. Montage means \u2013 and every editor knows this intuitively \u2013 finding <em>which<\/em>\u00a0channels or tracks across these two pieces can be connected in some way, creating a \u2018through line\u2019, a passage or movement.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">It is as if editing is all about, at heart, finding a means to \u2018turn down the volume\u2019 on some of the channels of a fragment, while simultaneously upping the volume on those that are important for you \u2013 and then\u00a0<em>forging<\/em>\u00a0that connection in the cut, making the channel flow on and forward a little more. (<a href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/frankfurt-papers\/cristina-alvarez-lopez-adrian-martin\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u00c1lvarez and Martin<\/a>, 2014)<\/p>\n<p>Improvisational\u00a0making and open-ended reading may make us\u00a0more anxious than research in a more conventional, explanatory, demonstrative mode does, especially when we have to evaluate it as\u00a0part of a publication process. However, as I noted in a recent interview about <em>[in]Transition<\/em> and videographic film studies (alongside\u00a0my co-editors Drew Morton and Christian Keathley for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aca-media.org\/news\/2014\/9\/11\/episode-17-a-confidence-in-our-form\"><em>Aca-Media<\/em> podcast<\/a>\u00a0(2014C)), we should really have more confidence in our form (the audiovisual), and in our knowledge of it and of how it works, even as we undoubtedly have a great deal more to learn about it. Videographic film studies may not be for\u00a0everyone. But rigor is\u00a0not only demonstrated by footnotes, or length, or by the other conventional signifiers of \u201cquality\u201d in written scholarly work; it is equally visible (and audible)\u00a0in capable and effective handling of audiovisual material and procedures, in\u00a0thoroughgoing and thoughtful approaches to videographic research. Illuminating audiovisual accounts and arguments can be vertical as well as horizontal, associative and poetic as well as linear, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.virtual-circuit.org\/word\/pages\/Poetry\/Symposium_Poetry.html\" target=\"_blank\">Maya Deren<\/a> might have put it (1953; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/5331270\/Vertical_Thinking_Building_Meaning_in_Film_Through_Maya_Deren_and_Martin_Heidegger\" target=\"_blank\">Zera<\/a>, 2013). Or, as Martin Heidegger might have said, new knowledge, new thinking, can be meditative and material as well as explanatory and calculative (1966: 47; <a href=\"http:\/\/aim.org.pt\/ojs\/index.php\/revista\/article\/view\/59\/html\" target=\"_blank\">Grant<\/a>, 2014A).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Works\u00a0Cited<\/strong><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-scayt_word=\"\u00c1lvarez\" data-scaytid=\"73\">\u00c1lvarez<\/span>\u00a0<span data-scayt_word=\"L\u00f3pez\" data-scaytid=\"74\">L\u00f3pez, Cristina, and <\/span>Martin, Adrian, \u2018The One and the Many: Making Sense of Montage in the Audiovisual Essay\u2019,\u00a0<em>The Audiovisual Essay: Practice and Theory of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies<\/em>, September, 2014. Online at:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/frankfurt-papers\/cristina-alvarez-lopez-adrian-martin\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/frankfurt-papers\/cristina-alvarez-lopez-adrian-martin\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"ff2\"><span class=\"a\">Deren, Maya. &#8220;Poetry and Film: A Symposium.&#8221; Speech. <em>Cinema 16<\/em>\u00a0Poetry and Film: A\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"a\">Symposium. 28 Oct. 1953.\u00a0<\/span>Cinema 16: Documents\u00a0T<span class=\"l8\">oward History Of Film Society (<\/span><span class=\"a\">Philadelphia: Temple UP<span class=\"l9\">, 2002), 202-12. Also online at:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.virtual-circuit.org\/word\/pages\/Poetry\/Symposium_Poetry.html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.virtual-circuit.org\/word\/pages\/Poetry\/Symposium_Poetry.html<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>Eco, Umberto, <em>The Open Work<\/em>. Translated by Anna Cancogni (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989)<\/li>\n<li>Grant, Catherine, \u2018The Shudder of a\u00a0<span data-scayt_word=\"Cinephiliac\" data-scaytid=\"86\">Cinephiliac<\/span>\u00a0Idea?\u00a0<span data-scayt_word=\"Videographic\" data-scaytid=\"64\">Videographic<\/span>\u00a0Film Studies Practice as Material Thinking\u2019,\u00a0<em>ANIKI:\u00a0Portuguese Journal of the Moving Image (<\/em>Thematic Dossier on\u00a0<span data-scayt_word=\"Cinephilia\" data-scaytid=\"65\">Cinephilia)<\/span>\u00a01.1, 2014A, Online at:\u00a0<a class=\"ext\" href=\"http:\/\/aim.org.pt\/ojs\/index.php\/revista\/article\/view\/59\/html\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/aim.org.pt\/<span data-scayt_word=\"ojs\" data-scaytid=\"78\">ojs<\/span>\/index.php\/<span data-scayt_word=\"revista\" data-scaytid=\"79\">revista<\/span>\/article\/view\/59\/html<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Grant,\u00a0Catherine, \u2018How long is a piece of string?\u00a0On the Practice, Scope and Value of\u00a0<span data-scayt_word=\"Videographic\" data-scaytid=\"124\">Videographic<\/span>\u00a0Film Studies and Criticism\u2019,\u00a0<em>The Audiovisual Essay: Practice and Theory of\u00a0<span data-scayt_word=\"Videographic\" data-scaytid=\"125\">Videographic<\/span>\u00a0Film and Moving Image Studies<\/em>, September, 2014B. Online at:\u00a0<a class=\"ext\" href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/frankfurt-papers\/catherine-grant\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/<span data-scayt_word=\"audiovisualessay\" data-scaytid=\"126\">audiovisualessay<\/span>\/<span data-scayt_word=\"frankfurt-papers\" data-scaytid=\"127\">frankfurt-papers<\/span>\/<span data-scayt_word=\"catherine-grant\" data-scaytid=\"128\">catherine-grant<\/span>\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Grant, Catherine, Keathley, Christian, Mittell, Jason and Morton, Drew, &#8216;Confidence in Our Form&#8217;: Interview in\u00a0<em>Aca-Media Podcast<\/em>\u00a017, 2014C. By\u00a0Chris Becker. Online at:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aca-media.org\/news\/2014\/9\/11\/episode-17-a-confidence-in-our-form\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.aca-media.org\/news\/2014\/9\/11\/episode-17-a-confidence-in-our-form<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Heidegger, Marton,\u00a0<em>Discourse on Thinking<\/em>. Translated by<span class=\"a\">\u00a0John\u00a0<span class=\"l7\">Anderson and E. Hans Freund (New<\/span><\/span><span class=\"a\">York: Harper and Row, 1966<\/span>)<\/li>\n<li><span data-scayt_word=\"Keathley\" data-scaytid=\"34\">Keathley<\/span>, Christian, &#8216;Notes on 50 Years On&#8217;,\u00a0<em>The Audiovisual Essay: Practice and Theory of\u00a0<span data-scayt_word=\"Videographic\" data-scaytid=\"48\">Videographic<\/span>\u00a0Film and Moving Image Studies<\/em>, September 2014. Online at:\u00a0<a class=\"ext\" href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/reflections\/intransition-1-3\/christian-keathley\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/<span data-scayt_word=\"audiovisualessay\" data-scaytid=\"56\">audiovisualessay<\/span>\/reflections\/<span data-scayt_word=\"intransition-1-3\" data-scaytid=\"57\">intransition-1-3<\/span>\/<span data-scayt_word=\"christian-keathley\" data-scaytid=\"58\">christian-keathley<\/span>\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Neale, Stephen, <em>Genre<\/em> (London: BFI, 1980)<\/li>\n<li>Zera, Caitlin, &#8216;<span class=\"a\">Vertical Thinking:\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"a\">Building Meaning in Film Through Maya Deren and Martin Heidegger&#8217;, Webster University, 2013. Online at:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/5331270\/Vertical_Thinking_Building_Meaning_in_Film_Through_Maya_Deren_and_Martin_Heidegger\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/5331270\/Vertical_Thinking_Building_Meaning_in_Film_Through_Maya_Deren_and_Martin_Heidegger<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h2><strong>Biographical Note<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Catherine Grant<\/strong>\u00a0is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Sussex. Author and editor of numerous film studies videos, as well as of written studies of intertextuality, film authorship and adaptation theories, she runs the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Film Studies For Free<\/em><\/a>,<a href=\"http:\/\/filmanalytical.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Filmanalytical<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/groups\/audiovisualcy\" target=\"_blank\">Audiovisualcy<\/a>\u00a0websites and, in 2012, guest edited the inaugural issue of online cinema journal\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/framescinemajournal.com\/?issue=issue1\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Frames<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on digital forms of film studies. She is the founding editor of the REFRAME digital publishing platform, and is also founding co-editor (with Christian Keathley and Drew Morton) of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mediacommons.futureofthebook.org\/intransition\/\" target=\"_blank\">[in]TRANSITION<\/a>, a new videographic film and moving studies journal. Her latest project is the website you are currently visiting\u00a0on T<a href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/\" target=\"_blank\">he Audiovisual Essay: Practice and Theory in Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies<\/a>\u00a0which she hopes will further encourage discussion and practice of this form.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>\u00a0Suggested citation<\/h2>\n<p>Catherine Grant, &#8216;THE AUDIOVISUAL ESSAY: My Favorite Things&#8217;, <em>[in]Transition<\/em>, 1.3, 2014.\u00a0Online at:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mediacommons.futureofthebook.org\/intransition\/2014\/09\/14\/audiovisual-essay-my-favorite-things\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/mediacommons.futureofthebook.org\/intransition\/2014\/09\/14\/audiovisual-essay-my-favorite-things<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; THE AUDIOVISUAL ESSAY: My Favorite Things &nbsp; [toc] &nbsp; By Catherine Grant &nbsp; [Extract] Curatorial Note\u00a0by CATHERINE GRANT, &#8216;THE <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/reflections\/intransition-1-3\/catherine-grant\/\">Continue Reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">CATHERINE GRANT<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":120,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-fullwidth.php","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-228","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4VcpT-3G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":81,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228\/revisions\/748"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/audiovisualessay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}