Poetic Procedures in David Gatten’s The Great Art of Knowing and The Extravagant Shadows

This essay examines certain poetic procedures (among them, metaphorical association and calculated illegibility) in two films by the American filmmaker David Gatten, The Great Art of Knowing (2004), and The Extravagant Shadows (2012). While the former is 37 minutes, silent, black-and-white, shot on celluloid film and can seem at times to be utterly abstract despite relating a very particular story, the latter is a sound and color digital video (Gatten’s first) at the remarkable length of 175 minutes. Throughout this film, we observe thick layers of paint of varying hues and colors being applied across the surface of a glass window; and, as the paint slowly dries, panels of text fade in, linger, and fade out. However seemingly disparate, both films lie firmly within the tradition of the artisanal, craft-based approach of avant-garde cinema. The close readings offered here testify to continuities in Gatten’s procedures and concerns, no matter the medium. The poetic staging of language in both films (though certainly not without antecedents) extends even further the radical aspirations of the cinematic avant-garde.