Max Tohline’s 2021 Video Essays
A Supercut of Supercuts: Aesthetics, Histories, Databases
A video essay by Max Tohline
2021
131 minutes
Published at Open Screens Journal
Three years in the making, this feature-length pop-academic investigation of the SUPERCUT asks where supercuts came from, how they hold our attention, and why they became so popular when they did. Tracing back the genetic lines of experimental film, fan remix, documentary, news, and more, this video essay uncovers the roots of the supercut well before YouTube: back in the 1920s and beyond. These multiple interlocking genealogies reveal that the supercut isn't just a new form of compilation editing; rather, it's a new way of thinking expressed by a mode of editing. Viewed in this way, the supercut makes up only a small part of a much larger story about a culture that traded one paradigm of knowledge and power, that of the archive, for a new one: the database.
Awarded Outstanding Excellence in Research at the Documentaries Without Borders Film Festival, May 2021.
Full statement and citations at Open Screens Journal || Full transcript here
Rate on IMDb || Press: Film Threat review, Criterion Daily, Kottke, FilmScalpel
The Conversation is the Confessional
a video essay by Max Tohline
2021
4 minutes
This project was inspired by the very fine collection of video essays on The Conversation (F. F. Coppola, 1974) produced by students of Johannes Binotto [here]. After I expressed my jealousy over not being a student in his course, Johannes graciously invited me to make an essay myself [here]. This is what I made. Full description (with some cool extra facts) over on Vimeo.
Re-Reading Time: The Emergence of Reverse Motion as a Narrative Technique in Post-Classical Cinema
A paper given by Max Tohline at the PCA/ACA Annual Conference (held virtually) on 4 June, 2021
17 minutes
In 2021, I delivered a conference paper as a video essay for the first time. This is that paper/video. Full abstract on Vimeo.
Video Postcard 3: Better Homes through Editing
A video postcard by Max Tohline
2021
8 minutes
As discussed by Ian Garwood on Will diGravio’s The Video Essay Podcast, Ep. 27. A rumination on how to build and rebuild virtual worlds (in this case, virtual houses) with editing.
On Twitter, film scholar and video essayist Ian Garwood put out an invitation for other video essayists to quote or remix his essay/supercut Mr Grant's Dream House into something new. Here's my response to that invitation. Along the way, I also mention my own essay/supercut Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Stairs. You'll enjoy this video more if you watch both Garwood's video and mine first (follow the links above).
Full citations in the YouTube description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48VYQBrDnck
See also my other two video postcards: https://www.maxtohline.com/video-postcards
TV Dictionary: Cosmos
a video by Max Tohline
2021
5 minutes
An effort to encapsulate Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (1980) in one word. My contribution to Ariel Avissar's TV Dictionary project, here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/8660446
Reversible Divers Forever
a video by Max Tohline
2021
1 minute
My contribution to The Essay Library Anthology, Vol. 2: TIME, a collection of one-minute-long micro-essays organized by The Essay Library discord server.
Playlist link (with individual video links): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf8nkNAU9qB4dVJ2Oy5t-R27dMbH1A_93
Full compilation link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Meiwn6-NApk