Avant Garde

AVANT-GARDE

A term applied to any experimental movement in the arts that is in opposition to conventional forms. In cinema, it specifically refers to a group of influential and radical filmmakers who were active throughout Europe from the end of World War I. The spirit of the avant-garde movement lived on in the American Underground and in the films of Jean-Luc Godard, and Chris Marker. These films disturbed the accepted continuity of chronological development and attempted new ways of tracing the flow of character’s thoughts. Collages of fragmentary images, complex allusions, and multiple points of view replaced logical explanation of meaning.

What to Watch: L’Inhumaine (Marcel L’Herbier, France, 1924); Un Chien Andalou (Luis Bunuel, France, 1928); and L’Age d’Or (Bunuel, 1930).