Film ist. (1-6): An Exemplary Use of the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica

摘要

The compilation film is the best-known example of recycling in cinema history. The uses to which this mode has been put in the domain of the science film, however, have received scant attention. Gustav Deutsch's Film ist. (1-6) (1998), an experimental work that consists entirely of science films, has been interpreted as following the compilation film's typical aesthetic procedures-namely, going against the grain of the images it reworks. However, by contextualizing a significant source for Deutsch's film-the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica project-a different relationship between source materials and their recycled use emerges. In certain sequences, Deutsch's film does not contradict or radically transform the meaning of the source material. Rather, Film ist. (1-6) occasionally adopts the editing patterns suggested by the unusual formal features of the Encyclopaedia Cinematographica, thus constituting an instance of the isomorphism of art and science.