list movies with no story/plot

The no guns question got me thinking (or rather the mention of an Andy Warhol film did).

I assume you mean non-porn movies.

Koyaanisqatsi.

all movies have a story

i foresee this thread awash with controversy

Innermost Limits Of Pure Fun.

Tracer OTM. narrative is imposed by the viewer.

Well a lot of porn has a story line, maybe there should be another thread for films where the story is wholly inconsequential to the...er...point of the film?

if you ran it through the projector in a mobius strip you potentially remove the story element but the power cut out eventually, or the sun would explode and consume the earth

OK, instead of "story", how about plot?

Stretching the meaning of "story" and "narrative" to snapping point, I think.

Is this the equivalent of when people say "that's like, not even music"

Koyaanisqatsi has a narrative, I guess, but no plot. Innermost Limits Of Pure Fun is just 45 minutes of a guy surfing in tubes. You could say it's "the narrative of surfing in tubes" but that's pushing it. Mind you, no one's EVER heard of it bar me and my friend Robin, who's got a doctorate in surf culture economics.

It starts, has a middle, and ends. That's a plot.

All three are the same though, in Innermost Limits Of Pure Fun. It's just a guy in tubes, surfing. I don't think he even paddles out or paddles back.

i think he means "list movies without a traditional story arc/plot" but feel free to ruin this thread some more everyone

that one movie where vincent gallo gets a bj

this thread was ruined from birth

Stretching the meaning of "story" and "narrative" to snapping point, I think.

Yeah, I haven't really thought this through (nothing new there), I imagine I was thinking of Empire by Warhol and wondering if there was anything a bit more interesting that that.

Than that.

Like Smile by Yoko Ono.

Also Whiney otm - that EXACTLY what I was thinking about - even if I didn't know it myself.

Head, if yer not high

pulp fiction guys

Southland Tales!

Werner Herzog, "Fata Morgana"? Silly thread tho.

"Pulp Fiction" has a traditional story arc, it's just told out-of-sequence.

i thought we were talking only about plot now? it doesn't really have a plot. maybe. i dunno.

Mouthy, surely "Innermost Limits of Pure Fun" stops at some point? and if you have the knowledge of about when that will happen your attitude towards what you're seeing will change as the movie goes on, creating differentiation (boredom, anticipation, impatience) - these are the same rhythms surfed by Hollywood movies (some more rippin than others)

Silly thread tho

Nothing wrong with that.

slacker

It starts, has a middle, and ends. That's a plot.

you could not be more wrong

A good example is Leaving the Lumière Factory. At first sight, the film is nothing but a record of an ordinary procession of a handful of employees leaving their workplace. The grand gates to the factory are at first closed, then when opened the workers move in small groups or independently, on foot, on bicycles or in carriages, directing themselves towards their homes. Once everyone has left, the gates are closed.

If we consider the single shot, running at just under one minute, as a spontaneous snapshot of a social event, then it is quite hard to justify the fact that there are three versions of the film available. They differ only by the number of horses used in the shot (ie. none and two, or one in the originally released version), and in one of them employees fail to exit the factory in time. It appears quite clear that Louis Lumière was searching for something else when shooting the scene. The opening and closing of the factory gates were the two elements that he wanted to have integrated, representing quite obviously the start and the end of the film image. The workers’ leaving process was therefore destined to represent the core substance of the work.

In one word, what Lumière was after was narrative. Leaving the Lumière Factory is unique in as much as it is the first work that aims at constructing a story, with a beginning and an end, solely by using the film image.

The factory workers are diverse in their mood as well as their social status. The general atmosphere is complicated. Excitement is mingled with a certain tired boredom, but also relief. It would be interesting to know to what degree Lumière directed his actors, and whether he actually desired a specific mood throughout. Was there a statement about class-consciousness that he was trying to deliver? On the other hand, did he just want to stand back and watch, with the aesthetic eye of a filmmaker?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that there was little rehearsing of the scene, at least regarding the performance of the workers. The relative consistency of the three alternative versions, however, works against this argument slightly. However, it is reasonable to assume that his directorial effort was mainly focused on choreographing the action, rather than directing the mood of the workers. (The enthusiasm of the boy on the bicycle, always referred to as the first film star, is unquestionably the spontaneous reaction of a young man who was simply told to impress, and in consequence made himself noticeable.)

http://www.culturewars.org.uk/index.php/site/article/la_sortie_des_usines_lumiere_leaving_the_lumiere_factory/

plot == cause/effect, motivation/consequence

pulp fiction? huh?

Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda?

Here's To Love?

I guess Innermost Limits does finish, aye - I've not actually seen it, just read about it. My understanding is that it's just edited footage of dudes surfing in tubes; I guess once you recognize individual sequences then you know what's coming next. But off first viewing...?

Taking another tack, slightly, and less "meta : what is a plot : all is a plot" - Magnolia is pretty much just a series of events, of things that happen; not much gets really resolved. Although...

id be more interested in a list of movies where plot is minimal or at least secondary...The Thin Red Line being a good example.

While I think that was what I was after but never underestimate ilx pedantry.

oh see i just figured it would be a thread full of brakhage or warhol or michael snow movies.

2001

and at least in terms of disrupting the narrative this old ILF thread is helpful

Movies with relatively inexplicable endings

Schizopolis

Yeah, I haven't really thought this through (nothing new there), I imagine I was thinking of Empire by Warhol and wondering if there was anything a bit more interesting that that.

Sorry, I wasn't criticising the thread's premise Ned. I knew exactly what you meant. I'm vehemently disagreeing with Tracer's assertion that any event that begins and ends is a "story". Films shot on celluloid generally have to begin and end, of necessity. Saying that this is the definition of a story just seems to call for a definition of story that's so broad as to be meaningless. I'd go so far as to say that it's privileging one way of encountering a film as if it's secretly the only possible way to encounter it, like the human brain can't help but make order. I don't buy that, and if I did I'd still say there was a distinction between order, pattern and story.

Flicker by Tony Conrad

also Conrad's "Yellow Movies"
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_/ai_n24354919

Harry Smith's Early Abstractions
(but not Heaven and Earth Magick nor Mahagony--those have plots/stories however obscure)

I got a flier for the recent Kill Your Timid Notion festival in Dundee that had a lot of films/multimedia events that seemed to be aiming for pure abstract visuals. Anybody go?

Decasia is probably the most recent example that I've seen, though I suppose it does contain 'events' like "Man climbs ladder - film clouds up".

schizopolis has a plot

Presumably the correct answer to this thread is a Webcam.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies !!? is supposed to have a plot, but you wouldn't know it while watching the film

Wayne's World

monster a go-go

Jackass

id be more interested in a list of movies where plot is minimal or at least secondary...The Thin Red Line being a good example.

― ryan

While I think that was what I was after but never underestimate ilx pedantry.

― Fat Penne (Ned Trifle II)

oh see i just figured it would be a thread full of brakhage or warhol or michael snow movies.

― ryan

Ok this exchange explains what you want a bit more clearly. But story and plot are two different things. Last Year at Marienbad has a plot but no story. (The same is true of Lynch films like Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire but I'd need some cold hard cash before I argue that point again.) So it's not true "all movies have a story" nor that "narrative is imposed by the viewer." Some viewers may do that (certainly not all viewers) but that doesn't mean the story is there. For a superb discussion of the difference between plot and story, check out David Bordwell's essay on Last Year at Marienbad in Film Art.

But here are some films I think you're looking for:

D'est
Mother and Son
The Color of Pomegranates
Porn Theatre (aka La chatte a deux ettes)
Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train
La Cienaga
Céline and Julie Go Boating
Conspirators of Pleasure
Crash Cronenberg's
The Driller Killer
Flowers of Shanghai
Dust in the Wind
The Hole
On Top of the Whale
Finished
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Page of Madness

Some of these definitely tell stories. But for a variety of reasons, story is definitely secondary (if not completely besides the point) in each.

And for a measure of how close classical Hollywood got to this, check out two Jerry Lewis films: The Bellboy and, especially, The Ladies Man.

How are you defining "story" there? I kind of don't see how you can credibly argue that "Mulholland Drive" doesn't have a story...?