»THE MAGMA OF HUMANITY
An interview with Fred Kelemen about Remodernist Film
by Florian Maricourt
....................................................................................................................................................................... Florian Maricourt: As for you, did you ever think of remodernism?
Fred Kelemen: I never thought about remodernism as a term or label.
Certain artistic elements of my work are influenced by - among others - the German expressionism, classical Indian music and by the modern classical music of the late 19th and 20th Century, especially by the works of of Béla Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, other so-called modernist artists and philosophers and their predecessors at all times, as well as by so-called postmodern artists, and of corse by the Punk movement. When I started expressing myself artistically with painting and music, and later with video and film, it was during the time of Punk in the early /mid 80s, and its libertarian spirit with its ideas of freedom and non-conformism, self-responsibility and scepticism towards authorities and the capitalistic principles was waving in my work. At that time - actually in 1990 - I was writing together with two artist friends the manifesto of Poetical Compressionism being aware that Poetical Compressionists have lived and created in all epochs and that they are connected beyond all borders of time and space. And in the year 2000, together with some kindred spirits, I established Art Combat International (ACT) and penned the Cine Combat Manifesto.
Only a decade after Punk, adolescents were more conformist and they worried about their future whilst we knew that there is no future and that we possess only our present.
So of course, the general attitude expressed in the manifesto of Remodernism of the Stuckists and the Remodernist Film Manifesto is spiritually akin to me even though I always walked an autarkic, independent way and never subjected my thinking and artistic expression to an ideology or dogma.
I hesitate to say that the term "remodernist" is appropriate for me. Modernism is a very heterogeneous label which subsumes contradictory movements. Parts of the Remodernist Film Manifesto even could be understood as belonging to certain postmodern or neoromantic positions.
F. M. How do you feel involved with it?
F. K.: I do not feel involved or entangled with it. But with most of the points of Jesse Richard's Remodernist Film Manifesto of August 27, 2008 and with the Remodernist manifesto of the Stuckists of the year 2000 I feel sympathy and a closeness to a great extent. I do not agree with everything written in the Remodernist Film Manifesto - for example with the last part of point 8 about Stanley Kubrick - but the attitude expressed in the manifesto is definitely an attitude which I share.
And some years ago, when Jesse Richards initiated Cine Foundation International I supported this initiative with a text I wrote and with my willingness to support it further.
I share for example - along with many others - the idea of seeking spirituality in cinema and of perfectionism by imperfectionism. It is important to permit clefts, breaks, cracks to let the warmth and light stream in - like magma streaming through the cracks of the surface of the earth. This magma of a personal, singular and equally universal humanity needs inlets into any artistic work.
F. M.; What do you think about remodernism?
F. K.: The attitude and ideas expressed in both manifestos contain a spirit which was of course already present sone time before 2000 as position opposing so-called postmodernist manifestations and appearances visible in many art works of different artists working in different art forms. To remember the not at all homogeneous spirit of modernism, to bring to mind its reflexes, aims and values, to tie up with certain of them and to understand them as a starting point for a way out of a dead-end road, is of course not a reactionary step but possibly a step forward to open doors for a new avant-garde, far from imitating. Detecting the substance and recognising the sense does not mean being forced to adopt the form. To understand the similarity which connects the epoch of modernism with our present time despite the differences after two world wars, the Holocaust and the atomic bomb, the new communication and war technologies etc., is not a backward-looking view but an analytical and synthetical one facing the present in a wider radius in all directions.
In my opinion both manifestos, no matter if we call it remodernism or what ever, articulate a relevant attitude and spiritual need in the arts, which has a meaning as well for our professional, social and political thinking and acting.
F. M.: I was lucky enough to see "Krišana", which I think is one of the best films I've seen in my life. I was totally blown away by it.
But I can't find your other films anywhere. Is there any way to find them? Or do I need to wait for a retrospective that might come one day ?
F. K.: I guess you have to wait for a retrospective of my films somewhere close to the place where you are at that moment. DVD copies of my films have never been released.
..................................................................................................................................................................... January 2014