Hans Richter: "At such golden times, film entertainment and film art might become identical."

"This institution has to avoid moving away from the traditional forms of story-telling to which the maximum number of people are conditioned: the theater, with the supremacy of the actor, and the novel or the play, with the writer."

Amalgamate is one of my favorite words. and that's what film does, it amalgamates: "it mixes or merges so as to make a combination; blend; unite; combine." while there are things in the film world that can only belong there, a great deal of it is simply the natural evolution of storytelling. if theater and photography are the parents of film, literature and painting are the grandparents of film, and cave drawings or tribal dances and ancient epic tales that were told around hearths ages ago are the great great grandparents of film. And all are just ways of mankind trying to bestow meaning on existence. (But that's a whole other question)

Back to amalgamate. Richter is right in the sense that film has a tendency to take from other forms. It does however have its own unique qualities. Film's greatest techniques are being able to reproduce the illusion of motion and to montage and cut to another image. The perspective of being able to capture or view motion from more than one angle (as opposed to theater which is only one angle) creates a genuine intimacy that is unique to film. The contrast that is then implemented through editing is unique to film. Where photography and art had previously presented one image or object for consideration, film is able to present more than one image in conjunction with another and subsequently create another meaning through that contrast.

Experimental film has tested the boundaries of these techniques and strayed from those that the other forms of art have. It strays from a central narrative and protagonist. It presents images and motion that have no specific role or part. It explores the primary techniques of film outside of the context of story. Perhaps understanding is overrated and bewilderment is underrated.