Claire Bentley

It is simple enough to begin with the fact that all films have some sort of setting. Whether avant-garde or not, films take the viewers somewhere. It might be just one place; a classroom, a wall, or a high school gym. It might be of many places; a hundred different areas of a metropolis, the path of a freight train or an array of factory buildings. Where and how the filmmakers choose to take us is just as important as other components of filmmaking – storyline or lack thereof, background/context and subjects. In four different films made in a period extending from the 1960s to early 2000s, Go, Go, Go! (1964) by Marie Menkin, Spacy (1981) by Ito Takashi, Energy Country (2003) by Deborah Stratman, and Castro Street (1966) by Bruce Baillie, filmmakers tamper with different methods of effect to change our perspective on setting and architectural space, as well as elicit the importance of place in avant-garde film.

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