{"id":3723,"date":"2003-05-31T20:00:32","date_gmt":"2003-05-31T19:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/?p=3723"},"modified":"2018-01-25T15:00:39","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T15:00:39","slug":"essential-frame-dietmar-brehm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/2003\/05\/31\/essential-frame-dietmar-brehm\/","title":{"rendered":"Dietmar Brehm. Schwarzer Garten."},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b><strong>DIETMAR BREHM. SCHWARZER GARTEN.<\/strong><br \/>\nSaturday 31 May 2003, at 8pm<br \/>\nLondon Film School<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The six films in the \u201cBlack Garden\u201d cycle use found and photographed footage from a variety of sources including pornography, ethnographic, medical and scientific materials, to present an unsettling reflection of sexuality and violence. Only the first part, <i>The Murder Mystery<\/i>, is in subdued colour. On the soundtrack a foghorn warns of rough tides ahead and the storm begins. For nearly two hours we are taken on a strange trip through grainy black and white footage, often hard to decipher, and perhaps necessarily so. Out of Brehm\u2019s technique of re-filming 8mm material at different speeds, emerges the \u2018pumping screen\u2019, a pulsing, gentle flicker that mediates our view, sometimes bleaching out the image. The seemingly disconnected soundtrack adds a further strange and unnerving element to the experience. Something is happening and you don\u2019t know what it is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Dietmar Brehm, The Murder Mystery (2nd Version), 1987\/92, 18 min<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, Blicklust, 1992, 18 min<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, Party, 1995, 18 min<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, Macumba, 1995, 18 min<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, Korridor, 1998, 18 min<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, Organics, 1998\/99, 18 min<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cEven though the six films function perfectly well as individual works, I always had the feeling of filming a single work. The source of inspiration was much of the historical Roman literature I read. From this sprang the motivation for the sombre-sexual treatment of the pumping screen body portrayals. In the end we are all living corpses and very soon dead again.\u201d (Dietmar Brehm)<\/p>\n<a onclick=\"wpex_toggle(194082458, 'PROGRAMME NOTES', 'Read less'); return false;\" class=\"wpex-link\" id=\"wpexlink194082458\" href=\"#\">PROGRAMME NOTES<\/a><div class=\"wpex_div\" id=\"wpex194082458\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><b><strong>DIETMAR BREHM. SCHWARZER GARTEN.<\/strong><br \/>\n<\/b>Saturday 31 May 2003, at 8pm<br \/>\nLondon Film School<\/p>\n<p><strong>THE MURDER MYSTERY (2ND VERSION)<br \/>\nDietmar Brehm, 1987\/92, 16mm, colour, sound, 18 min<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u201cIn about 1987 I wanted to make a film more for the audience than previous films. When working on <em>The Murder Mystery<\/em>, I hesitated which style to give the film. Not that <em>The Murder Mystery<\/em> was to be a slick film, quite the opposite. But the question for me was what to show, and with what kind of clarity? Not with regard to the sharpness of the film, but more the relationship between the time structure and the determination of content; the question was what did I want to show, and how did I want to show it? In any event, I wanted the film to be optically manipulated using the \u2018pumping screen\u2019 technique. In previous films (eg <em>Kopfst\u00fccke<\/em>) I formulated more abstracted structures and blurred films, which drive the viewer from the film image into his own world of presentiment. <em>The Murder Mystery<\/em> was to be more direct. I had some fantastic super-8 material, partly found, partly bought by chance. In addition, I had some pornographic material with an ideal scene. I devised a plan, whereby I ensured that I had enough room to manoeuvre in order to hallucinate my way cinematically into the prepared material. Nevertheless, this plan had to retain a rigorous structure; it was not to become indistinct. I filmed approximately another 30% in addition to this outside material, and then filmed myself into the montage of the scenes. An effective sadistic-pornographic matrix was generated.<br \/>\n\u201c<em>The Murder Mystery<\/em> was to be deceptive. The story of <em>The Murder Mystery<\/em> begins to speak in the minds of the viewers.\u201d \u2014Dietmar Brehm<\/p>\n<p><strong>BLICKLUST<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, 1992, 16mm, b\/w, sound, 18 min<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u201cIn 1991 I received a non-identifiable + worn out super-8 S\/M Porno film, which shows a woman tied up in various manners + I couldn\u2019t resist. I knew that I had film material of surgery + I mixed the tied-up woman with the surgery material confrontationally + still a few more + and to 2\/3 of a drawer of found footage until <em>Blicklust<\/em>-end.<br \/>\n\u201cThe \u2018pumping screen\u2019 films <em>The Murder Mystery<\/em> + <em>Blicklust<\/em> are the first two of a planned six-part series which reflects on sexuality + violence + which will possibly be combined under the title \u201cDietmar Brehm Horror\u201d. Title of next episode: <em>Party<\/em>. Basically, I show in this series what I always see on TV. The TV set is one of my favourite sources. I like to watch TV without sound + with other manipulations. And I watch restlessly the real + fake dead bodies. They are always there + I have simply gotten used to the fact that TV is a pump of corpses. In fact, I like better the filtered reality than the actual one. I prefer distance rather than closeness. At the moment, Yugoslavia + Somalia produce a mountain of corpses, others next. According to schedule. The planet is a planet of destruction. The bullet flies without contact somewhere + all around the area of inexplicability + sometimes I have the feeling that all is a process of decay of bodies alive + I suspect that all the structures of society, as well as the way their function, are legalised diseases of the mind. Everything should work differently. Parallel to the film work, which tackles the problem of sexuality\/violence, a matrix develops in several short and longer films, in which various cinematographical manifestations of light will be investigated + next to filmic considerations are a few considerations to graphical and painting work on paper surface and on screen.\u201d \u2014Dietmar Brehm<\/p>\n<p><strong>PARTY<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, 1995, 16mm, b\/w, sound, 18 min<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>\u201c<\/strong>Sometimes I film so that the actors seem to belong to the undead. The construction of the Found-Footage-Party shows Russian, Japanese, American and my own material which is hallucinated into a matrix in which functioning and non-functioning body parts appear as optical lubricant shadow labyrinth whilst simultaneously we hear someone shaving.\u201d \u2014Dietmar Brehm<\/p>\n<p><strong>MACUMBA<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, 1995, 16mm, b\/w, sound, 18 min<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u201cSometimes the camera films of its own volition. <em>Macumba<\/em> shows an optical tangle in 13 scenes. As a start signal one hears a double hammer blow arising from a black screen, a sound like the nailing shut of a coffin. <em>Macumba<\/em> develops slowly out of the black. A black porno couple on the telephone in London. Then they meet on a snake in a park and are, together with Kalahari Bushmen, mixed to a film matrix which is as incomprehensible as real life. Throughout <em>Macumba<\/em> the sound of rain can be heard.\u201d \u2014Dietmar Brehm<\/p>\n<p><strong>KORRIDOR<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, 1998, 16mm, b\/w, sound, 18 min<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u201cAt the end of 1996 in an old shop in Vienna specialising in film materials I found a tin with indeterminable pieces of 16mm film showing much wear and tear. They dated from the late 60s. After a cursory glance I thought \u2018yes\u2019. The found footage material was ideal for the horror series.<br \/>\n\u201cI prepared the film for compilation using mirror projection and filmed myself in detailed structures through the light axis. For the introductory sequence I chose the top of a poplar tree and a neo-gothic house. The lighting of the body scenes as filmed is very harsh, whereas I shot the poplar top and the neo-gothic house both over and under-exposed. Then I mixed associative tones throughout the corridor. The first version cut showed the bodies in a state which was too excited and then I began to structure the film with black frame sequences of varying lengths.<br \/>\n\u201cThe man who is lying in bed with the woman who appears dead was perfect for the start of the body scenes. I concentrated the lens on a very narrow view and allowed the horde of found-footage actors to react with each others. I wanted to construct a insidious \/ traumatic phenomenon in which the head and body glide through the picture again and again and are extinguished in the black frames. At the end a man whips a man and an actress is tied up. The top of the poplar tree appears under-to-over exposed while a hand glides through the picture twice.\u201d \u2014Dietmar Brehm<\/p>\n<p><strong>ORGANICS<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dietmar Brehm, 1998\/99, 16mm, b\/w, sound, 18 min<br \/>\n<\/strong>\u201cSince 1996, parallel to all the other paintings and film work I made hundreds of pictures each with the title \u201cOrganics\u201d, and each on the same size of paper \u2013 61 x 43.5 cm. It is from this drawing phase that the film <em>Organics<\/em> developed. I already had the perfect found-footage lead whom I named \u2018Hey Joe\u2019. Round \u2018Hey Joe\u2019, who appears repeatedly as an observer, I constructed a matrix of body details which are broken up by a number of explosions.<br \/>\n\u201c<em>Organics <\/em>begins with the observation of a Zorro mask and a distorted \/ veiled woman\u2019s face. A shot of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris develops into a women\u2019s foot scene which leads to a longer kiss scene punctuated by an explosion, falling leaves, a tank, touching hands, a hand in a plaster cast, bunches of grass and a dark cellar door. After observation of a skeleton detail, the found footage actors become involved in slowly feeling each other\u2019s body. A man swings a necklace back and forth like a pendulum, a head being bandaged, attempts at face make-up, details of operations&#8230; in a flickering, pumping screen light until, in the end, \u2018Hey Joe\u2019 centres the picture briefly with his penis. After the hand movements which follow, the veiled face of a woman appears again, longer this time, to be observed by \u2018Hey Joe\u2019 until the film floodlight is turned off. The <em>Organics <\/em>soundtrack is pared down to a few slow note combinations.\u201d \u2014Dietmar Brehm<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#top\">Back to top<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DIETMAR BREHM. SCHWARZER GARTEN. Saturday 31 May 2003, at 8pm London Film School The six films in the \u201cBlack Garden\u201d cycle use found and photographed footage from a variety of sources including pornography, ethnographic, medical and scientific materials, to present an unsettling reflection of sexuality and violence. Only the first part, The Murder Mystery, is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essential-frame"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}