Contextual Studies - Back to Basics Part 1&2

I wasn't well for the contextual studies lesson last week, so this week was a bit of a catch up for me. I learnt that last week was 'Back to Basics Part 1', and we looked at avant garde, which is part of early modernism. It describes new and interesting change, things that haven't been done before. In film, this could mean experimenting with the camera or editing, or even changing the narrative around to have the end first, then the beginning, and then the middle! At first there is a shock factor to avant garde work, and then it gets accepted into mainstream society.

In yesterday's lesson, which was 'Back to Basics Part 2', we looked at surrealism as a feature of avant garde. Surrealism has some example like 'Beauty and The Beast', or 'Spongebob': it describes objects coming alive when they usually inanimate. Psychoanalysis also links in with surrealism, so we moved on to learning about this. Psychoanalysis is research into dreams and mental state, looking at our conscious and unconscious thoughts. We learnt about Sigmund Freud, who analysed what was going on in people's heads. All of this relates to film in many ways: it covers violence and sexual topics, repressed taboos, and other subjects that are not generally talked about/heard of. It talks about fantasy vs reality, and there are examples of this in the film 'Inside Out', where it's very surreal: you're inside someone else's head, trying to figure out what is real and what isn't.

Freud interprets dreams and fantasy, and the impact on culture and intellectual life. We then looked at the short film 'Destino' which was a collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali, a surrealist artist. I found it extremely interesting, and I'm seriously considering writing my contextual essay on 'Destino'. The features include the characters morphing, the environment becoming dreamlike and changing, and things being generally 'weird'. One of the reasons I really enjoyed 'Destino' is because you can distinctly see the two styles of Disney and Dali combined.

After this, we watched 'Un Chien Andalou', which is a banned short film made by surrealist artists. There were a lot of violent and sexual connotations to it, and the most disconcerting thing about it was that there wasn't an actual story to it! That really annoyed me, because every single film usually has a story it in. However, it really made me understand surrealism and psychoanalysis a bit more: how it's meant to make you feel uneasy and like something's wrong.

I found this lesson very interesting and I was glad I was able to catch up on the lesson I missed easily. I'm going to do some more research into 'Destino' as it was an incredibly captivating film, so I'm sure there will be an update soon!