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experimental do you have absolute freedom, because you never have to worry if anyone understands anything you're saying. There are drawbacks to both positions, and advantages to both. Actually, I think when they're good, experimental films are as accessible as good narrative films.
MacDonald:
Name some experimental films that you think compete on an enjoyment level with commercial films.
Friedrich:
I'd say a number of films by Brakhage or Frampton or Maya Deren. Margie Keller's films. Leslie Thornton's. God, there are so many.
I think that in the past my animosity toward narrative film had to do with not having the usual experience of identification. This was partly because I'm a woman (I saw a lot of films about interesting male characters and stupid female characters) and at times because I couldn't identify with the romantic line of the films. One of the things that changed me was finally seeing Fassbinder's films. I certainly have my differences with his style and with what some of his films are about, but I have a strong identification with many of his films. When I first saw them, I had the feeling that here finally was a narrative filmmaker who was talking about stuff that I wanted talked about in films. Experimental films were mind-expanding for me in other ways that related to my studying art history, especially painting and sculpture.
It's tempting to want to work on every possible level in a film. Narrative is tempting in its way, but I can't imagine eliminating the footage that deals with elements of the materiality of film. There
is
a danger. You can make something that's terribly compromised, that doesn't do either thing well. To me
Damned If You Don't
was risky because I didn't know what I was going to end up with. One of my oldest friends, who had once been an experimental filmmaker, was very critical of
Damned If You Don't
. He saw it as a weak compromise.
MacDonald:
I'd say that since conventional narrative cinema and experimental cinema have been ghettoized away from each other, the radical thing to do is to bring them together.
The critique of
Black Narcissus,
which is funny and precise and which, I'm sure, nearly everyone enjoys, builds patience that allows the more materially experimental elements to be accepted by the audience. Because you begin by giving them elements of conventional pleasure, you enable them to go with less conventional experiences.
Friedrich:
What I felt I was doing by beginning with the
Black Narcissus
material was saying, "OK, you want a narrative; here, take it: you can have it. And you can have it just for its high points; you don't have to slog through all the bullshit, all the transitions." In a way it was a joke on the conventional narrative "hook." I do think there's a real awkward-