Authorship is dead (duh!).
Images have a life of their own.
Re-editing is a vibe.
These could be the axioms of extracted cinema. In essence, not a new phenomenon, but nonetheless a relevant one, given the increasingly media-centric approach to filmmaking in present-day society. What you say and how you say it, while remaining relevant, get augmented with a certain sense of medium-awareness.
From a phenomenological perspective, the mode of viewing – the stance towards a certain source material (whether original or archival) – becomes essential to the creative process. In a certain sense, semiotics anticipated this ever since Julia Kristeva’s famous proclamation: texts are always derived from other texts. The same can be said of images, and perhaps of culture in general.
But, unlike authors such as Reynolds or Fisher, we believe that this dependence of contemporary culture on the previous one is not necessarily a bad thing. The dreaded end of history proclaimed in the 90s came and went like the Y2K panic. Not the end of (cultural) history, but a bend thereof, in the words of Robin van den Akker et al. However, we still cannot be sure if we live in a state of apparent acquittal or indefinite postponement (as per the terminology introduced by the painter Titorelli).
An even clearer effect of this neoliberal limbo state is the fact that the prophecy came true. ‘Boy, if life were only like this,’ stated Woody Allen’s character Alvy, whilst tugging Marshal McLuhan himself onscreen to prove his point. Well, now, it is. Now, the medium is the life. If we were to possess a working model of Padre Pellegrino Ernetti’s chronovisor, what would we ostensibly see? Don Hertzfeldt answers this question in his 2015 short World of Tomorrow: “Our more recent history is often comprised of images of other people watching viewscreens”. We see this not so much as a critique but as an informed observation. After all, this is also what we have been doing. And in our couch-potato-entertainment-intoxicated-infinite-jesty state, the viewscreens revealed to us gem after gem. (The joys of a lazy, albeit fruitful, archaeology.)
Weirdly enough, the act of (re)watching old movies over and over again feels more contemporary than ever.
It’s not necessarily nostalgia for a different time (more to the point, one that you did not get to know), nor is it rejecting the present in favour of blatant cultural escapism. It is more akin to collapsing any and all timelines into one as yet unnamed track. To cite the band Can, a veritable ‘tape kebab’.
If Retromania involves complacently remixing old media, then extraction prefers mix-mastering the rogue temporalities roaming through it. Not favouring the past over the present or the future (be it lost or found), but revelling in the paradoxical spiral they so create. And what a mix indeed. We’ve got Warburg’s survivals, Didi Huberman’s anachronisms, Derrida’s hauntologies, and the CCRU’s hyperstitions. All there, in every frame.
Sure: when constantly rewatching old films, one notices all sorts of things previously occulted. But only when extracting a movie from another does the weirdness of the situation seep out. Ideas collide with one another as new narratives take shape. Virtualities get actualised. Cultural debris turns Promethean.
Extraction is re-editing. And re-editing is, above all else, a process of resignification. Extraction entails bracketing prior misconceptions and letting oneself glide freely through the unravelling semantic wormholes.
3 extracted short films (arte video, petarde, prăjeli, cioace, caterinci, mizerii, depending on who you ask):
A David Lynch-like Twin Peaks nightmare scape extracted from a 1985 psychological thriller of sorts directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu, based on a novella by Liviu Rebreanu, packed with eerie set pieces, Black Lodge-ish curtains, Leland Palmer-esque blue-eyed glances, and overall general campiness.
A short nature documentary which showcases the Danube Delta, extracted from an 80s soft melodrama directed by Geo Saizescu. In its B-roll, this film captured shots befitting a small time capsule. Sometimes it’s as easy as gently removing the excess skin of a tangerine.
A heartfelt character-driven historical drama about the trials and tribulations of a law enforcer dubbed Mamulos (cca. 1765 – 1821) living in Phanariot-ruled Romania. Spliced together from the character’s various appearances throughout several (extremely historically inaccurate) period movies directed by Dinu Cocea and written by Eugen Barbu.
New works are continually derived from old ones. Works that simultaneously reference and transform their sources, homaging and critiquing them – Kristeva’s model of intertextuality actualised before our very eyes.
So yes: all films contain multiple other films within them. The job of any viewer is to sift through each subsequent layer of meaning. Assembling shots and playing about with the footage are ways of unlocking the multitude of narratives hidden in plain sight. And the best thing is that one need not use editing software. Sometimes, just observing and mentally peeling away the strata is enough.
Extracting is akin to seeing both the forest and the trees.
Extracting means engaging with the film at hand, not in a clinical manner (as the name might suggest), but gently, with love and appreciation.
Extracting is also fun.
(Art should be too.)
Research carried out in the framework of the Ecoinformatic Centre for Cultural Recalibration (CERC).