On Course - Fall 2013

ON C O U R SE

English 511CC: The World in Pieces: Poetry and Cinema of the Avant-Garde

Instructed by John Bird Whir-tick-whir-tick-whirrrr-tickety. The sound of 16mm film running through an old Bell & Howell “Specialist” projector—the kind families gathered around in living rooms in the 1960s—is the only sound in Elson 111 on a Wednesday evening in May. Students are watching The Chromosomes of Man, a black-and-white public service film made in 1967 by Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corp. and recently purchased on eBay by English instructor John Bird.

The film has sound, but Bird turns it off, offering students a more dreamlike experience as they watch doctors, nurses, and lab technicians prepare cells in laboratories and confer with patients. As the students watch, Bird tosses out questions and comments: “What’s dreamlike about this? What is odd and interesting to look at? Oh, look, stock footage of New York City.” At certain points, the students laugh, say “That’s cool” or “I want to use that image in my film,” or groan at the absurdity of the outdated hairstyles and clothing.

together the strips into a new film of their own vision.

They will reorder frames, run scenes backward, color with markers, and discard a good bit of footage.

Not surprisingly, the intention of this final project in Bird’s

p S , ing

c i l S

Once the film is over, the students gather around Bird for a lesson in slicing and splicing. Within 15 minutes, they’ve taken charge of their final group project and are busy cutting The Chromosomes of Man at places they find strategic and compelling. An hour later, dozens of film strips of varying lengths are taped around the edges of the room. Later in the week, the students will return to Elson 111 to splice

20

Andover | Fall 2013

, g n lici

The World in Pieces: Poetry and Cinema of the Avant-Garde is not to create a cohesive, linear film with a traditional plot and well-established characters. This is not about creating a Hollywood blockbuster. Instead, after spending the term “exploring the dynamism of modernist and avant-garde poetry and cinema, the aesthetics of collage and montage, quotation, and pastiche,” students are encouraged and expected to experiment—with image, color, movement, interpretation, and impression.

When asked to describe The World in Pieces, Bird says he sometimes calls it “my weird film course,” and although his specialty is Renaissance poetry, he’s always been drawn to the avant-garde. Throughout the term, students read poetry

by Blaise Cendrars and Mina Loy, and watch avant-garde films by Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Maya Deren, and others. They write a series of “synthetic responses” and create manifestos about what they believe constitutes the avant-garde today.

Re

con

In a world that often demands neat, precise answers, class invites art and allows “I have

fig

ur

Bird’s to be art— questions to linger. this idea that all art forms are conversation anyway,” he says. “I want to sort of eavesdrop on that conversation.” (And allow students to do the same.) Although he’s quick to say he’s not a modernist, part of Bird’s compulsion for creating and teaching this course is that he himself is still trying to figure out how to make sense of the modern world. “One basic thing is that the modern world itself is so overwhelming that it only can be taken in fragments,” he says, “and you have to sort of reassemble it.”

ing

Grateful for the opportunity to learn about surrealism and cinema as an independent art form, Emily Fang ’13 was especially intrigued by a literary piece on French graffiti during a social revolution. Short, powerful sentences struck her—“The walls have ears. Your ears have walls.” and “Be realistic, demand the impossible.” Throughout the course, her appreciation for abstract types of films blossomed: “Before this class, I was used to videos that had clear plots, sounds, and color. I considered videos that weren’t made this way boring. However, in Mr. Bird’s class, I began to notice the way the director filmed, the specific shots used, the colors and shadows, etcetera.

Film became more of an art form and less of a source of quick entertainment.”

th

His viewpoint inspires students to look at the world through new lenses. Caitlin Clancy ’13 says that after her group cut its film into pieces they liked and disliked, they looked for a motif they could use to drive their new film forward. They settled on age, and then started with an image of a very old man, continuing in reverse chronological order until they reached images of children, and ultimately, DNA.

ld

At the end of May, the class gathered in the Tirana Room in the newly renovated Bulfinch Hall to screen the three final films. As the students cheered, laughed, and noted each group’s creative choices, it was obvious they had gained a great deal of vision and sensitivity that likely will affect how they see and interpret the world and, perhaps more importantly, themselves.

—Kristin Bair O’Keeffe

Photos by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe

Clancy, who thrived on the process, was delighted that she and other students “were able to physically use our hands to create a film from a preexisting film. Mr. Bird’s class is open to imagination, and there are very few set guidelines.”

eW or

Andover | Fall 2013

21