'Experimental Film requires a different kind of spectatorship.' Has this been your experience?

'Experimental Film requires a different kind of spectatorship.' Has this been your experience? 

Experimental films are full of strange mixtures of images, situations, words and expressions that may not tell a cohesive story but, in the end, don't have to in order to achieve an emotional goal. This type of film therefore requires the spectator to shift their conventional cinematic expectations to accommodate more radical narrative techniques, themes and meaning construction. 

Un Chien Andalou, the infamous 1929 surrealist short film from Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, attests to this. The film revolves around various themes, many relying its avant grade outlook on how the audience responds. This can be seen in the opening scene, where we are introduced to a man, the director Luis Bunuel, sharpening a razor in rhythmic diagonal strokes. He then steps on onto the balcony, where we see a cloud 'disecting' the moon. This is then repeated with Bunuel taking the razor and slicing it through a womans eye. The scene is shocking, and with it placed at the start of the short film, creates a statement surrounding the ideology of what film is supposed to be. The cutting of the eye also represents how the eye deceives you, with it reinforcing the theme of an overall rejection towards all conventions and traditions. The scene also represents the requirement of spectatorship, specifically within experimental films, as films such as 'Un Chien Andalou' rely on the audiences response for the films to create the desired statement. If the audience was not shocked by the scene, then the film would not have any effect on the audience, therefore showing how experimental film requires spectatorship. 


Chris Marker became known internationally for the short film La Jetée (1962). It tells of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel by using a series of filmed photographs developed as a photomontage of varying pace, with limited narration and sound effects. The film is based around the theme of memories, which is visually and technically represented through the connotations of using photo roman. By making the audience view the film through this technique, we are 



Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a work that maintains all of the mystery, tranquility, unpredictability, and personal attachment that is ever present within the world of dreams. The film uses the the theme of dreams, which is technically represented through