Tyler Hubby's documentary, "Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present," exceeded any expectations I could have about learning the history and thought process of someone and how their art became so. I believe it does great justice to who Tony Conrad is, where he came from, and what he is all about. Sometimes I hate being as young as I am, because I felt immensely ignorant when not knowing he was a part of the Velvet Underground. Of course, when telling my musician boyfriend later about the screening, he said with crass that "he never thought they were that great," which can be expected, coming from someone who idolizes Dave Mustaine from Megadeth, but I'll digress.
There is some metaphorical spice that can be felt from just watching the documentary, something about being able to recognize Conrad's greatness and the beauty of his work, or at least the beauty of the process of it. When originally watching the trailer in class, I was not impressed, but during the viewing and after, I realized how I am not worthy of even having the right to preconceive judgement of any sort toward Tony Conrad's work, and felt that hard realization of how ignorant I was.
I am not sure of how long it took Hubby to do the interviewing process, but it is wonderful that he tracked down other living members of the Velvet Underground to capture as much reflection that can be given on that part of history that only they can adequately describe. Conrad also had a son with his at the time wife and often muse, although I hate how overused that word is now in today's world, but seeing the way Conrad interacted in an old clip of his son talking to him through the television was touching, because he was including his son on his innovative ways of creating a film. I hope Tony Conrad agrees that Hubby did an excellent job at presenting the many aspects of Conrad and his work.
As for the Flicker, I was incredibly intrigued and almost giggly at the fact that it was described in the documentary in thirds of what peoples' reactions were to the film: some people would walk out, some would stay and later vocalize that they hated it, and another third would watch it and enjoy it or at least report what they saw during the film. It is fascinating that supposedly the brains receptors peak during the viewing, so I was ready to have my own experience. Ken claims to have seen shapes develops, and some of the descriptions from the documentary stated past audience members had even seen a landscape or letters, etc. However, I saw some flashes of colors, mainly red, green and blue. How ironic, I thought, but I so terribly wanted it to morph into some shape or form that I could interpret, but I had to just let it exist as my brain translated.
I am very happy that this is one of the viewings that I was able to make.
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