Though the artist's quest for 'alternative' forms of consciousness can be
traced back to 18th/19th century English visionaries like painter and poet
William Blake and writer Thomas de Quincey (and, in other cultures, far beyond)
the term 'psychedelic' - from the Greek psyche (soul) and delos (manifest) -
gained currency in the mid-to-late 1960s to describe the experiences associated
with hallucinogenic drugs (particularly LSD) and the music and art which evoked
such experiences. In music, the psychedelic scene was particularly associated
with San Francisco and with London, where it found its twin homes in the UFO
club on Tottenham Court Road and Middle Earth at the Roundhouse in Chalk
Farm.
Such clubs and ad hoc 'happenings' offered a full range of sensory
stimulations, supplementing the music with vividly coloured lights, projections
and other effects, helping to inspire artists and musicians to collaborate or
simply expand and grow more ambitious. While Paul McCartney began making
experimental home movies influenced by experimental American work and the
Beatles developed their Magical Mystery Tour film (ITV, tx. 26/12/1967), the
once simple pop promo film began to take on a new, more distinctive identity.
Peter Whitehead, unofficial documentarian of the underground London scene, was
frequently hired to produce unusual images to accompany the latest wild sounds
concocted in the studio by the likes of the Animals, Nico, the Rolling Stones and the Pink Floyd. Whitehead's assistant, Anthony Stern, was instrumental in
developing the experimental techniques used in these films. Increases in speed,
jolty frame work and overexposure blurring techniques play major parts Stern's
San Francisco (1968). The film also uses a rare and unusual version of the
much-eulogised early Pink Floyd freak-out, 'Interstellar Overdrive'.
The degree of experimentation with which musicians and their followers were
prepared to engage was paralleled in a smaller but significant underground film
culture, also largely based in the capital. This practice centred around unusual
ways of producing and exhibiting film, often drawing inspiration from visiting
American films and filmmakers, in time leading to the foundation of the London
Filmmaker's Co-op and the Spontaneous Festival of Underground Films, both in
1966.
The British Film Institute funded a range of short experimental films during
this period through its Production Board, which replaced the earlier
Experimental Film Fund in 1966. Like much experimental work of the time, the
films were shot on 16mm, a gauge originally developed for use by amateur
filmmakers. Changes to the format, such as the development of faster stocks and
the introduction of sophisticated lightweight cameras which satisfied a desire
to get closer to life as it was lived on the street, were such that unorthodox
filmmaking of high pictorial quality suddenly became more affordable. This
development allowed the BFI to support a number of filmmakers, several of whom
went onto show their films in underground venues such as the UFO and Middle
Earth and the London Filmmaker's Co-op on Charing Cross Road.
Films, projections and music frequently collided, often in the context of the
new underground venues. Mark Boyle regularly provided light projections at UFO
and usually for the Soft Machine, the band he later joined on an American tour
with Jimi Hendrix - indicating the importance of fusing the aural and visual.
Boyle's 1969 film, Beyond Image, is set to a manipulated loop of Soft Machine
music and is built from a film recording of convulsing and pulsating oils,
similar to those he projected live at UFO and elsewhere. Here, however, he cut
and reversed the images to expand on his usual presentation. Beyond Image was
reputedly projected at the ICA in a 360-degree version lasting many hours. The
film was not limited to normal cinematic presentation despite the BFI's
involvement.
Jeff Keen made several films through the Production Board and similarly
rarely showed them in the cinema. Keen had strong links with the London
counter-cultural scene but actually lived in Brighton. His film Marvo Movie
(1967) bridges the gap; concrete poet and London Filmmaker's Co-op founder, Bob
Cobbing, provides the soundtrack while the images come from Keen's house and
surrounding area. Marvo Movie and others were then shown in underground venues
in Brighton, mainly in unlicensed shops after hours. Also part of the Brighton
scene was Tony Sinden, who made several films with the BFI, including Arcade
(1970) and Size M (1970).
As the times progressed, however, and the scene became more popular, clubs
like UFO began to attracted 'weekend hippies', much to the annoyance of the more
seasoned regulars who considered themselves more in tune with the political and
philosophical directions of leaders such as Timothy Leary. The political power
of 'turning on' and seeing society in a new way slowly crumbled under the weight
of the movement's own idealism and the arrival of these new holidaying
hedonists. By the end of the 1960s rock music came into its own as it morphed
into full-blown circus and took the nation's youth into stadiums and the next
decade. Meanwhile, experimental film refocused and went its separate way,
becoming increasingly radicalized in parallel with the revolutionary politics of
the time.
For Jeff Keen, this only served to demonstrate how little the changes in
London affected Dr Gaz and the Cineblatz down in Brighton. His films were
psychedelic in that they were bright, colourful and sometimes childlike, but
they always contained something harder too. Keen had served in World War II and
was now well into his forties; his palette and frames of reference ran deeper
and darker than that those of the bright young things in London.
Meanwhile, the London Filmmaker's Co-op began to increase its output. Artists
such as Peter Gidal and Malcolm Le Grice and others who'd previously been part
of the underground scene refocused their attentions on the physical and
experiential qualities of film and were soon joined by new filmmakers. The 1970s
began with the first films to be funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain -
reflecting a recognition of film as an art - and, paradoxically, The First
International Underground Film Festival at the BFI's National Film
Theatre.
William Fowler
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