Think less “avant garde” and more “treasures”…

Above, a typically arresting image from George Kuchar's hilarious and strangely humane 1977 I, An Actress, starring Kuchar and Barbara Lapsley, one of the 26 films collected on Treasures IV: American Avant Garde Film, the latest offering from the American Film Preservation Foundation and Image. I write about thebeautifully put-together box over at The Auteurs', concentrating largely on the variety of the pieces contained therein and how they contribute to an ever-malleable definition of the term "avant garde." What I don't think I convey sufficiently is how fabulous a lot of these pictures are, and how some of them are still working on me. I need to look at, for instance Christopher Maclaine's The End, Hollis Frampton's (nostalgia), and Wallace Berman's Aleph some more, and soon. The Treasures project is something that deserves every cinephile's support, I think, so even of you believe you're sort of "meh" as far as this sort of thing goes, you still might wanna consider getting this—it'll stretch you some, and in some hopefully enjoyable ways.