I found David Bordwell’s piece really interesting because it introduced me to a new way to watch experimental films. In the past I have simply told myself to forget everything I know about conventional films and try to watch the film with a completely open and fresh mind but Bordwell actually says that Hollywood cinema is crucial for us to be able to understand art cinema. He makes the statement that we can understand art cinema by seeing the moments of ambiguity and confusion that differ from conventional narrative cinema and trying to reason out why they are that way. He says that it will either be because of the standards of realism in art cinema not only in the place but in the character, moments where a character would be pushed towards a goal or make an important decision are subverted in art cinema with the motivation of realism and this creates confusion and ambiguity for a viewer. If this motivation does not fit then the motivation is authorship. In art cinema the director and/or creator has much more creative control than in classic Hollywood cinema. Because of that when we ask questions such as “why does it happen like this” the answer is often very personal because it comes down to the author. Which means when confronted with ambiguity we can ask “who is telling the story, how is the story being told, why is the story being told this way” in direct relation to the author.

What I also found interesting is the relationship Bordwell points out not between classical cinema and art film, not just art cinema building off of art but classic cinema taking elements of art cinema. Things like the freeze frame and sound bridge are things I wouldn’t have even realized came from art cinema and originally weren’t in classical cinema if it hadn’t been pointed out here.

The last thing I wonder is what kind of films Bordwell references and how well his method of watching would work for all experimental films. Two films he mentioned were Bicycle Thieves and Persona. While Persona is certainly a weird film and harder to follow than Bicycle Thieves I think it can get even weirder and harder to follow and I am curious if any of the other films mentioned meet that criteria or if maybe there is point where an experimental film is so weird this method of understanding isn’t even enough, and what do you do then?