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Celebrating the Marginal

In Tom Gunning’s “Towards a Minor Cinema,” the author identifies a unique set of filmmakers that are constantly creating work that challenges the norm found within the medium. Gunning mentions Kafka’s celebration of “minor literature” which he states “remains aware of, and celebrates, its minor identity, fashioning from it a revolutionary consciousness.” Thus, he makes the claim that “minor cinema”, as he defines it, calls into question the terms in which the future of the avant-garde has been theorized in recent decades. Gunning identifies that the films which were considered to be “alternative” during the 80s aimed to distance themselves from the “ghetto” of avant-garde film. However, the recent films that he finds exciting, openly maintain a position outside of the mainstream cinematic languages. In northern words, the filmmakers do not represent desire to be included in commercial cinema. These filmmakers also most often work within analogue technologies, such as Super 8.
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Gunning, Towards a Minor Cinema - Response

Tom Gunning's, "Toward a Minor Cinema" essay aimed more at the intimate cinema. Gunning called it "submerged narratives" and wanted people to understand that it explored the fine grain of imagery.
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Philip Hoffman - Vulture Aesthetics

In Hoffman's article called, Vulture Aesthetics, he states that it is the moment of transformation. To be completely honest that is all I got from this reading. It wasn't the most clear to read in my opinion.
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Tom Gunning - An Aesthetics of Astonishment

From the attraction of a movie to scenography of a film, Tom Gunning discusses how movies appear to people, and how every element of a movie is important. Gunning focuses on the attraction of the film mostly, stating how it "address the audience directly." It engages the viewer, peaking their curiosity, making them want to watch even more. Though the language was slightly confusing, I interpreted Gunning stating that even in the early films about a train car coming toward the camera, and people being terrified to watch more, people would still watch the films, despite being scared, because of the curiosity, the want to know what occurs in the film. This is still used today in modern horror movies, as often times people want to look away from the screen, but they simply cannot due to the fact that they most know what happens next.
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Tom Gunning - An Aesthetics of Astonishment

During this reading, I liked seeing how art was described as a game. I like to think about this being represented as art in a form of the viewer not knowing what is going to happen until it does. It shows that art is represented in a story form where it is layed out piece by piece and where the reader learns throughout the game. 
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The Imaginary Perceived as Real

Gunning aims to analyze the myth of late nineteenth century spectators' confusion of reality during the first projections of films, such as at the Grand Cafe's Salon Indien, by tracing the early history of "the cinema of attractions". This early cinema was utilized as a part of magic theatre shows, for example at London's Egyptian Hall, and its audiences were typically "sophisticated urban pleasure-seekers." The author claims that the "illusionistic arts of the nineteenth century cannily exploited their unbelievable nature, keeping a conscious focus on the fact that they were only illusions". He then goes to further prove this statement by emphasizing how these early films were projected: a still photograph was shown until it was suddenly "brought to life" through the animation of the scene through film. Thus, the audience's sense of shock came more from the visual transformation occurring before their eyes than the belief that
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Youngblood

I like how Wittgenstein described art as a game. He says that the game's rules become so as the game is played. Not before the game is actually played. This for me plays into the whole context of the world of the video or art as being made as it goes on. The viewer learns about the rules of the world as the artwork goes on and is thus slowly kept inside, mesmerized unable to make sense of the world until the end when everything has been explained.
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