From the mysterious Pleasure Dome Site, I give you: "I. SPIRIT: THE INNER ESSENCE OF MAN (FROM CINEMA TO LIFE)" I came upon a site through an old avant-garde film primer I used called cosmic baseball association which is a metaphysical baseball team composed of avant-garde filmmakers . This new site, called the "TRUTH IN CINEMA QUEST" is a remarkable research site devoted to films which depict a spiritual essence--without being facile garbage. This site contains some of the most beautiful prose about cinema in a poetico-historical way. It is much like a combination of Geoffrey O'Brian's wondrous poem about film "Phantom Empire" and Sitney's "Visionary Film." The site allows you to enter several doors, each marked with different questions and modes of navigating the site. Click "To have a good time" and take a meta-tour of the spiritual significance of the greatest filmmakers of our time. While searching, I came across this film "I. SPIRIT: THE INNER ESSENCE OF MAN ('FROM CINEMA TO LIFE" which is embedded above. It is a compilation film of transcendent moments in film with the creator's spiritual ethos entagled within it. It is a remarkable found footage film, so cohesive in its presentation that it makes one believe in a unified artistic vision in the films of directors as disparate as Tarkovsky and Passolini. This and other films can be found also at the cinemaseekers site.
A recent comment brought this site "caped masked and armed" to my attention. It is a wonderful political mashup site. The video titled "Kodak Moments" may be one of the most scathing political mashups to date.
Also, it is worthwhile to check out this interview between documentary film legend Errol Morris and his heir apparent Adam Curtis.
One of the most interesting things about this interview is Errol Morris' insistence on calling Curtis' films media appropriations. If you haven't seen them, go too google video and see "Power of Nightmares" and "Century of the Self." They are truly remarkable.
I am working on an essay soon to appear here called "What is Footage" about the nature of footage and the physicality of footage as portrayed in narrative films. In addition, bewildered, depressed and incredulous about the gaping void of websites devoted to my beloved recycled cinema, I am going to begin working on a data base for everything in existence on the subject.
I also realized Godard's film "Week-end" may have been a pun on the French phrase "Fin de Semaine" (end of the week) as "Fin de Cinema."
