''Interim'' is a 1953 American
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
drama directed by
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage ( ; January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film.
Over the course of five decades, Brakhage created a large ...
. It was the first film directed by Stan Brakhage, whose
expansive filmography has made him an influential figure in
experimental film
Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...
.
Plot
The film contains no
dialogue
Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is c ...
, starring only a man and a woman, who meet as if by chance and walk into the countryside together where they stop and kiss. They then return to town before parting again.
Production
The film was shot in
black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...
16 mm film
16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...
. Around the time of production, Brakhage was heavily influenced by
Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism ( it, Neorealismo), also known as the Golden Age, is a national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class. They are filmed on location, frequently with non-professional actors. They pri ...
.
This was his first of many collaborations on film with composer and childhood friend
James Tenney
James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal ...
, who wrote the
piano score for the film at the age of eighteen. In a
foreword published by Brakhage, he cites a fault between himself and Tenney's mother for convincing Tenney to become a musician, shortly before composing the soundtrack for ''Interim''.
Release
16 mm prints of the film are distributed by
Canyon Cinema
Canyon Cinema is an American nonprofit organization for distributing independent, avant-garde, and artist-made films. After starting in the 1960s as an exhibition program, it grew to include a nationwide newsletter and a distribution cooperative. ...
both for rent and for sale to institutions. The organization is also a licensee for many of Brakhage's filmography.
References
Sources
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Further reading
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External links
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1953 films
Films directed by Stan Brakhage
American black-and-white films
1953 drama films
American drama short films
1950s English-language films
1950s American films
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