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Ono's. In
Line Describing a Cone
(1973) and his other "Cone films," as well as in
Long Film for Four Projectors
(1974) and
Four Projected Movements
(1975), McCall focuses the moviegoer's attention on the projector beam (the movie projector is located in the room during these films) for relatively long periods
Line Describing a Cone
lasts thirty minutes;
Long Film for Four Projectors,
six hoursas a means of calling attention to the cinema environment and its sociopolitical implications: what does it mean that nearly all of our public film viewing involves our sitting in rigid rows of chairs looking up at the shadow products of an apparatus kept out of the view, and control, of the audience? Both Ono and McCall later collaborated with others on films that had quite overt political agendas: Ono and John Lennon made
Bed-In
(1969), a documentation of their Bed-In for peace in Montreal; McCall worked with Andrew Tyndall on
Argument
(1978), a feature-length exploration of the political implications of men's fashion advertising and of mass market media practice in general, and with several women and men on
Sigmund Freud's Dora
(1979), an examination of the gender-politics of a famous Freudian case.
Ono and McCall differ in the specifics of their politicsOno's films are internationalist, McCall's implicitly or explicitly Marxistand in terms of the viewership they address in their films. At the beginning of her career, Ono was part of Fluxus, an international group of artists functioning outside the mass media and in defiance of accepted art practice and institutions, but as her resources grew, so did her interest in addressing a much larger audience:
No. 4
(
Bottoms
) (1966) was a widely reported happening in England, and the later Lennon-Ono collaborations aimed at the huge pop music audience and beyond.
Line Describing a Cone
and McCall's other early films were designed for small groups in art gallery contexts (indeed, the Cone films and
Long Film for Four Projectors
can be understood as "light sculptures"), and his collaborative films were designed as catalysts for small discussion groups in big-city art-ghetto screening spaces, or in academic settings.
The volume's final pairing reveals similarities and differences in two filmmakers who have worked toward a "global" approach to filmmaking: Watkins most obviously in the 14 1\2-hour
The Journey
(1987) and Reggio in a trilogy of films, the first two of which
Koyaanisqatsi
(1983) and
Powaqqatsi
(1988)have been completed. Both filmmakers have explored the relationships of industrialized and "developing" nations and have emphasized the degree to which modern industrialized society has tended to undervalue regional and ethnic heritages, the natural environment, and the meaningful participation of the individual. Both filmmakers have circled the globe to create a far broader spectrum of people and places than the commercial cinema provides and to focus