SOME NOTES ON THE HOME MOVIE

Author(s): FRED CAMPER

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 38, No. 3/4, Home Movies and Amateur Filmmaking
(Summer-Fall 1986), pp. 9-14
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the University Film & Video Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20687731 .
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SOME NOTES ON THE HOME MOVIE
FRED CAMPER
Virtually every general history
of cinema
awards
hegemony
to the commercial nar
rative feature film. The various documen
tary
traditions are dealt with in a subsidi
ary manner; independent
and
avant-garde
filmmaking
is treated as an
appendage,
if
it is even mentioned at all. While it is not
difficult to understand how this state has
arisen, given
the
prominence
of commer
cial entertainment films in our mass cul
ture,
the
present
condition of our film his
tories
is,
in
my view, impossible
to
justify.
A
complete history
of cinema should be a
history
of all
types
of films made since the
invention of the medium. It is hard to see
how
any objective person
could
argue
with
so
tautological
a
claim,
which makes the
fact that film historians have not
attempt
ed to
put
this
principle
into
practice
all the
more inexcusable. While a
"complete"
his
tory
is
admittedly impossible
to construct
fully,
the film historian who holds this
principle
as an ideal would at last be led to
treat
documentary
and
avant-garde
tradi
tions with the
equality they
so
richly
deserve.
But,
one must also
ask,
what of
the
cartoon,
the
newsreel,
the
ethnograph
ic
film,
the
travelogue,
the medical and
scientific
recording film,
the industrial
documentary,
the instructional
film;
and
what of our
present subject,
the home
movie?
Questions
of aesthetic
merit,
over
all influence on the
medium,
social
impor
tance,
or the historian's individual
tastes,
often influence the choice of works fo
cused on in histories of
cinema,
as is the
FRED CAMPER is a writer-on-film and
filmmaker,
who has
taught filmmaking
and film
history
at several
colleges.
He has
published
in
Film
Culture,
Millenium Film
Journal, Spiral
and other
periodicals.
Copyright
? 1986 by Fred Camper
case in other
arts,
and these are
certainly
legitimate
criteria.
However,
the relative
newness of cinema as a medium
argues
against awarding
too much
weight
to one's
own
tastes,
or even to
generally accepted
evaluations of aesthetic merit. The medi
um is far too
young
for an even semi
definitive list of masterworks to have
sifted itself out from the natural chaos of
multiple
tastes.
It seems
likely
that the
history
of cinema
has seen the creation of far
greater
num
bers of home movies than of
any
other
type
of film. And while we
tend to think of
the cultural influence of feature films as
dominant,
the instructional
film,
for ex
ample,
has
surely occupied
a
great
deal of
the
viewing
time of most of us at
very
for
mative
periods
of our lives. To
every
argument
about how the dominant ideolo
gy conveyed by
the form of the narrative
feature has
shaped
the world-view of the
masses,
one
might
counter that the func
tional
equation
of
image equals
word that
informs most instructional films has
likely
had an
equally prominent
role in deter
mining
how we
perceive,
and relate
to,
imagery. Indeed,
each of the
filmmaking
modes mentioned comes
complete
with its
own varied set of
stylistic motifs,
each
with its own
aesthetic,
moral and cultural
implications.
The
prominent place
that
the home movie has
played
in the lives of
many families,
not
simply
as a recorder of
events,
but in the
way
in which the
making
of,
and
showing of,
home movies becomes
an
important family
event in
itself,
has
surely
had a cultural
impact
of
major,
but
hitherto
largely unexamined, propor
tions.
It is often remarked that
important phe
nomena, both natural and man-made,
are
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVIII, (Summer/Fall 1986) 9
often
appreciated only
at the moment of
their demise. In our nation's recent his
tory,
the
celebration, by artists,
of the
spiritual
values of our wilderness
emerged
largely
in the mid-nineteenth
century,
dur
ing
the
period
when that wilderness was
being rapidly destroyed.'
In a certain sense
there seems
something
almost inevitable
about this
pattern;
that which
always
exist
ed,
or so it
seems,
tends to be taken for
granted. Perhaps
the demise of the home
movie as a dominant
form,
as a result of
home
video,
will awaken us all to an
appre
ciation of what is
surely
a
major aspect
of
American folk-art.
No one should confuse the home movie
with home
video,
however much
they may
be related.
Perhaps
the
primary
technical
fact of the home movie is the time limita
tion: for almost all
cameras,
whether 8mm
or
16mm,
the usual
length
of a roll of film
is about three minutes. This enforced
brevity, together
with the other limits of
the medium of
film,
has
helped
determine
the distinctive
shapes
that home movies
assume.
The home movie, of
course,
is
extremely
various in its manifestations. I am
making
no claims of aesthetic
accomplishment
ei
ther for
particular
home movies or for the
genre
as a whole. What I think is
clear,
from even a
preliminary
examination of
some of its
varieties,
is that the
way
in
which home movies are
filmed,
the
partic
ular
relationships
established between
camera
(representing implied
filmmaker/
family member)
and
subject-matter,
are
extremely revealing
of the attitudes adults
have about
themselves,
each
other,
their
homes, family events,
their children. It
would be hard to
imagine
a richer source
to mine than these
primary
creations of
"the
people" themselves,
and when one re
gards
the
lengthy
tomes of
sociological
analyses
of
Hollywood
films that have
been
produced,
the
neglect
of the home
movie seems all the more inexplicable.
Just as Sol Worth and John Adair studied
films made
by Navajo
to discern truths
about the
Navajo's perception
of the
world,
so one
might
examine the relation
between
style
and
subject-matter
in the
home movie for a richer awareness of the
nature of our own culture.
It would be
presumptuous
to offer
any
thing
but the most
preliminary
of taxono
mies of the home movie. What is needed is
first of all an
archival
source,
in which all
type
and manner of home movies are col
lected and
preserved.
Then scholars could
go
about the work of
screening, studying,
evaluating. My primary goal
here is to as
sert that such work should be
done,
especially
now,
when families are increas
ingly transferring
their home movies to
video. There is
always
the
danger
that this
aspect
of our cinematic
heritage may
be
lost.
There are several
ways
of
categorizing
the
home movie. Several forms of
subject
matter
commonly
recur. There is the film
of the
special family
event: a child's birth
day party,
a
wedding.
There is the
portrait
of a
family
member of the
group:
Auntie
observed on her
visit;
Junior
playing
with
his toads. And of course there is the travel
movie,
with or without
family
members
included in the
image.
One can
also,
how
ever,
categorize
the home movie
by
the
mode in which the
subject
is
depicted.
There are the
pseudo-narrative forms,
with an
editing style
that often borrows
from classical
narrative,
and devices such
as
intertitles. This form is
relatively
un
common,
though
if one
merely
reads
publications
on how to make home mov
ies rather than
examining
the actual
objects
one
might
assume that it was the
norm. There are the unedited
presenta
tions of a
subject
in which filmmakers
have tried to observe their
subject-matter
with a minimum of interference.
Equally,
if not more
common,
are those films in
which the subject, rather than ignoring the
10 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVIII, (Summer/Fall
1986)
camera, actually poses
for
it,
even to the
extent of
mugging
or
waving
at the
lens;
the filmmaker often interacts with this
subject
in turn.
Finally,
there is the most
extreme
case,
those films in which it seems
that the
subject
exists
only
for the
camera,
such as the children's
party
in which all the
children are seen in obvious
poses.
The existence of the latter two modes is
partially
attributable to the
brevity
of the
home-movie roll. To
capture
an event in
one,
or even a
few,
three-minute
segments,
filmmakers must
try
to limit themselves to
the
"highlights,"
rather than
recording
the
entire affair
continuously,
as home video
makers have
begun
to do. At the
very least,
the home movie-maker have had to exer
cise their own
selectivity.
Such films
reveal,
if
nothing else,
what the "filmer"
(most typically,
the
father)
finds
worthy
of
preservation.
To the extent that those
filmed
pose for,
act
for,
and even at times
seem to exist
solely for,
the
camera,
such
films offer an
implied commentary
on the
ways
in which we see each other. Femi
nists,
for
instance,
have noted the
ways
in
which little
girls
are
encouraged
to look
pretty
for the
eyes/lens
of
daddy-filmer.
More
generally,
there is a sense in which
the children of home movies are seen
by
the
camera/parent
not as human
beings,
but as
objects
and
images,
as
appearances
to be
preserved
rather than as whole
per
sons with their own
independent psyches.
When adults film each
other, by contrast,
the result is often different. A
neat, posed
appearance
is often
replaced by
a
greater
willingness
to
mug,
to call attention to
oneself,
to
appear
as unusual as
possible.
Children
mug
for the camera
too,
to be
sure,
but
they
are
frequently
filmed in
ways (most simply,
from
above,
from the
perspective
of a standing adult) that tend
to
encapsulate
that
mugging
within the
whole made
image,
whereas adults,
filmed
from
eye-level,
can with the same
gestures
violate the
image, disrupting compo
sitional dominance.
The
process
of the
subject reacting
to the
camera,
and the even more extreme case
of the event created for the
camera,
which
is almost
always perceived
as
such,
inevi
tably
tends to break the
particular
kind of
illusionistic
grip
that
representational
filmmaking
can exercise on the
viewer,
an
illusion which
depends upon
an efface
ment of the camera's
presence.
The
many
technical
"inadequacies"
of most home
movies,
such as
shaky
camera,
jumpy
edit
ing,
and varied and discordant
lighting
effects,
all must be seen as
distancing
it
from the realm of the commercial
feature,
even in
many
of those cases in which the
filmmaker is
trying
to imitate same. But
one must be careful not to over-ascribe
meanings
to
every aspect
of a home movie.
For
every
instance in which a camera
placement, composition,
or
editing juxta
position,
can be read as
revealing
of the
maker's
intention,
there is another mo
ment that can best be
explained
as an
unintended technical
event, something
that the filmmaker himself
might
call a
"mistake." Thus the home movie
possess
es a
degree
of randomness not
present
in
more
polished
forms. It is indeed the com
bination of individual
intentionality
and
technical lack of control that
gives
most
home movies their
peculiar
flavor. An
oddness
enters,
in the
juxtapositions
be
tween
people
and
things
as a result of the
framing,
in a
surprising
in-camera
cut,
in
what in conventional terms
might
be
called
"poor"
camera
placement,
to the ex
tent that it is often not clear how much of
the
style
is due to technical
lapses
and how
much to the eccentric attitudes of the
filmmaker.
I have seen
many curious,
and not a few
near-magical
moments in such home mov
ies. The
relationship
between seated
adults and
living-room
decor will seem
oddly out-of-place,
as if
nothing
fits
quite
as it was intended to. A
pet such as a
dog
will enter the frame in the
foreground,
and
its size relative to the people present is hu
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVIII, (Summer/Fall 1986)
morously disruptive.
The admixture
pro
duced
by
such events is like
nothing
else in
cinema,
with its
peculiar
filmic
incongrui
ties,
inconsistencies of
point-of-view,
and
with the
way
in which its accidents seem to
in fact reveal
something
not
quite speci
fiable about the
subject-matter.
A home movie
screening is,
as often as
not,
accompanied by
the
extemporaneous
nar
ration
provided by
the
filmmaker,
who
usually
doubles as the
projectionist.
While
the intention of the narration often
ap
pears
to be the most conventional
imagin
able,
that of
providing
a lucid identifica
tion and
explanation
of the events
shown,
the actual result is
generally quite
differ
ent: the filmmaker will tell
jokes,
make his
own
personal
comments on the
people
and
events,
let
pass many slips-of-tongue.
In
many
cases home-movie narration has the
same
degree
of randomness as the films
themselves.
A home movie is neither a
transparent
record of an event nor is it a modernist cri
tique
of illusionistic modes of
representa
tion. It is not as unified as a classical
narrative,
but neither are its
incongruities
as
carefully
calculated as the discordant
architectual elements in a
"post-modern"
building.
In
short,
the home movie fits
into none of the neat
categories
film critics
have
constructed,
and for that reason
alone it is of interest.
Indeed,
the
particu
lar combination of intention and error
varies from one home movie to the
next,
making generalizations
about the
genre
difficult. One result common to
many
home-movie forms is a sense in which the
movie
itself,
rather than the event
depict
ed,
is the real event.
Thus,
it can seem
from some travel movies that the sole
pur
pose of
visiting Paris,
Mount
Rushmore,
or
wherever,
is to have oneself
photo
graphed
there. The
resulting
film then has
little to do with the
places visited,
and
everything
to do with the way
in which the
participants see themselves, each other,
and the external
world,
which becomes a
terrain into which one
continually
inserts
one's own
image.
A
peculiar insularity
emerges:
one's
image
remains constant
around the
world,
which world seems de
signed only
to serve as a
background
for
the
superficial
self. When all the
images
of
children in a
birthday-party
film seem
posed
for the
camera,
one
similarly
has a
sense not of
any
actual
party,
but rather of
a
gathering by, for,
and
about,
the
camera,
the
images
it
makes,
and the "filmer" be
hind the lens. A theme of modem mass
culture,
which
many
have commented
on,
is nowhere more
apparent
than here: Our
existence as whole
beings
is made secon
dary to,
or
worse,
seen
only
in terms
of,
the
images
we make of ourselves.
At such
moments,
the whole idea ofa film as
an
object
which is
separate
from life
disap
pears;
film and
reality
are
collapsed
into
each other in a manner far more total then
can occur in the so-called "illusionistic" or
"transparent"
narrative. There is no world
external to the
people depicted
in the
film;
the
landscapes
of a travel movie or the reali
ty
of an event which is in fact
only staged
are
thus reduced to mere
back-drops.
When the
filmmaker is
present
as
narrator,
and some
of the
people
who
appear
in the film are also
in the
room,
it not
only
seems as if the event
was
staged only
for the
film,
but that the film
was made
only
for the
projection
one is now
witnessing.
One
might speculate
that the advent of
home video
may
make this
collapse
even
more
complete.
With
film,
each roll is
quite short,
so that in home movie screen
ings
there is
commonly
a
thread-up
break
every
three minutes. Film has to be sent
away
for
processing;
it is most
typically
at
least several
days
after an event before the
movies of it can be viewed. A
projector
must be set
up, and the room
darkened;
the whole process of
screening
a film has a
certain ritualistic
quality
to it that
implies
a certain separation between film and life.
12 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVIII,
(Summer/Fall 1986)
Video, by contrast,
can be viewed instant
ly,
even while the event is still in
progress,
so that one's
image
and the
images
one has
produced
on video can be
instantly
com
pared.
It is often viewed in a lit
room,
and
seen as
part of,
rather than
separate from,
its surround.2 The dominance of the
imag
es we create of ourselves over our actual
bodies
can thus
grow
even more
complete,
as those
images
become a real-time
part
of
our
daily
lives. A home video can last an
hour or
more,
so that the maker is not
forced to be selective in what is recorded.
It
requires
no
special projection set-up,
but can be
readily
viewed in
any
room al
ready
set
up
for television. It is even better
suited,
in
short,
to become continuous
with the life it
depicts.
Perhaps
most
extraordinary
are those
home movies in which there is a tension
between film as illusionistic
representa
tion and moments in which the
persons
depicted acknowledge
the camera's
pres
ence. When a character stares
directly
into
the
camera,
he also stares out of the screen
at the
viewer,
and in
doing
so breaks the
spell
of
illusion,
the sense one is
watching
a
world
separate
from oneself. The move
ments and
gestures
that
accompany
such
gazes
in home movies contribute to this
rupture.
But the
rupture
is
rarely
com
plete;
the
gaze
is not
unvarying.
Other
movements,
other
positions,
occur,
so that
one is aware of a constant oscillation be
tween a
represented
world contained
within a series of film frames and those
moments in which the
very
borders of the
frame
appear
to
collapse
into a
particular
personage.
Such films are
constantly leap
ing
out of
themselves,
and then
settling
back into the mode of
simple recording.
Curiously,
the
gaze
into the camera is in
some
ways
a more
powerful
illusionistic
device than
any
in conventional narrative
film. The
paradox
here is that that same
direct stare that breaks the
"spell"
also re
places
the frame-created illusions,
which
depend upon the artifice of a whole frame,
with the direct
physical presence
of the
character,
in which whatever else is con
tained in the frame borders has no
relevance
except
insofar as it reflects di
rectly
on the character shown.
Perhaps
the most
powerful insight
into
this
aspect
of the home movie is to be
found in Jonas Mekas's Lost Lost
Lost,
a
three-hour masterwork and one of the
most
extraordinary
works in American
cinema.
Indeed,
it must be noted that
many
avant-gardists, among
them Ken
Jacobs,
Stan
Brakhage,
and Bruce
Baillie,
have drawn considerable
inspiration
in
some of their own works from certain as
pects
of the home-movie form. Mekas's
film is a record of his own
early years
in
America,
in
part
seen
through
a series of
home-movie
images
of characters
waving,
mugging,
and so on. A soundtrack
pro
vides Mekas's
poetic commentary
and
distances the viewer from the
imagery.
We
simultaneously experience images
of re
cent
immigrants
to the U.S.
struggling
to
assert their
identity,
before each other and
to the
camera;
the
way
in which those as
sertions dominate the
frame;
and Mekas's
own meditations on
displacement
and
times
past.
The home-movie elements
function here
partly
as
they
do in
ordinary
home-movies;
character
gesturing implies
that one is
observing
not an actor
placed
in
the artifice of a
composed frame,
but an
instant in a life that was once
lived,
in
which the filmed
object
insists on assert
ing
his humanness before the
photome
chanical machine. The veil of
lapsed
time
that Mekas's narration and
editing lays
over the
image hyperbolizes
an effect that
such
mugging
has in
any
home movie: at
the same time that we see the
gestures
dominating
and
collapsing
the
image
into
the
person represented
we are aware of the
impossibility
of this
collapse; that, illu
sions
aside,
we are
finally observing
mere
images.
It is part of Mekas's achievement
that he has included this dual awareness,
one which is
usually supplied by
the view
er himself, in his film's expressive form.
JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO XXXVIII, (Summer/Fall 1986) 13
The home movie is a form of cinema un
like
any
other. Its varied forms have
different effects and
implications
than the
narrative
feature,
the
documentary,
the
commercial
travelogue.
Its
presence
in our
culture has been
strong
since the 1930s
and
pervasive
in recent decades. Film his
torians should cease their
worship
of
commercial narrative and
open
their
eyes
to "see" all the varieties of our medium.
2Further reflections on the differences be
tween film and video are offered in Fred
Camper.
"The Trouble with Video."
Spiral
5
(1985).
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DUNCAN,
INC.
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14 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO
XXXVIII, (Summer/Fall 1986)
Notes
'See,
for
example,
Barbara Novak. Nature
and Culture. New York: Oxford
UP,
1980.
Works Cited
Worth,
Sol and John Adair.
Through
Na
vajo Eyes.
New York: Oxford
UP,
1972.