Classic Experimental Movies

The Killing (1956) plays with chronology. Same with Passage to Marseilles (1944).

Medium Cool (1969) mixes filmmaking and documentary.

The first ones that come to my mind are DUEL, ROPE, I HATE YOUR GUTS, and PRINCE OF FOXES. After tthat, THERE WILL BE BLOOD and SOUTHERN COMFORT


Duel was a project.


Rope was a project in using a limited amount of cameras and angles.


Guts began by making the main character appear to be an outsider with an appearance of doing good, but then we find he is the insider doing evil, and there's a switch between usual positive progressive Shatner and usual red neck trouble maker Leo Gordon.

That Machiavellian piece led me to PRINCE OF FOXES, in which we get the opposite of Machiavellian ideology, as Tyrone Power plays a man the opposite of the prince, a man who on the surface looks to do evil, but inwardly seeks to do good.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD is one of the two "point of view" switches. Most people overlook what to me is most obvious. Generally, we follow the heroic characters, or the ones with victory, such as Arness in the McCahons, McArthur in Swiss Family Robinson, those Calloways, and others. Here, those characters are represented by the only people we never see, the hold out family that emerges heroic. Instead, we get the various antagonists and victims. 

SOUTHERN COMFORT is a complete "point of view" theme. Notice that the story is told by the two survivors. Had the two survivors been the red neck duo of Stuckey and Reese, we'd have a more macho story with Hardin and Spencer portrayed as traitors. If it was the corporal and Simms, they'd be depicted as the two cool heads. If it was the other two, it would be more of a bromance of black man-white man evolving.

Something Wild / Jack Garfein (1961). A young woman traumatized by rape accepts help from a friendly man who then imprisons her in the hope that she will love him. A nightmare within a nightmare. I saw this at an art house back in the mid-sixties and have waited 50 years to see it again. It was never on home video. Then, in January 2017, Criterion Collection released it. Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker play the couple.

Cease Fire / Owen Crump (1953). This early docudrama follows a platoon of infantry men in Korea during the last days of the United Nations action there. Director Crump got permission from the Army to go to Korea and draw some actual soldiers off active duty, take them to a area away from the fighting to stage a patrol and battle against Chinese troops. The names given the characters are the actual names of the actual soldiers turned actors for this film. After the filming, they all returned to the front. Some were later wounded. One of the cast who “dies” in the movie (Ricardo Carrasco) was later killed in action.

Lady In The Lake / Robert Montgomery (1947). To try to duplicate the first person narrative of Raymond Chandler’s private eye novel (the fourth of seven with Philip Marlowe), we see everything from Marlowe’s viewpoint through the camera. Director and star Robert Montgomery is only seen when he narrates directly to the audience and in a couple of mirror shots when he is looking at himself. The experiment wears out its welcome after about five minutes. The actual detective story itself is interesting with the killer coming as a great surprise – but this is the non-experimental part of it.

politicidal mentioned Orson Welles. Welles two Shakespeare films are worth looking at for experimentation, mainly because Welles was always running out of money and having to shut down production till he could raise some more. Both of these films are important to the modern independent film scene because of the innovations he had to come up with due to no budget. Today they are considered bold experiments.

The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice / Orson Welles (1951)
Chimes At Midnight (Falstaff) / Orson Welles (1966)

Without completely leaving the realm of narrative cinema:

Out 1 [France, 1971]

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Belgium/France, 1975]

Pitfall [Japan, 1962], also the next to films by Teshigahara, Woman in the Dunes [1964] and The Face of Another [1966]

Eros + Massacre [Japan, 1969]

I'll add Ana-ta-han to my watchlist 

How 'bout Monte Hellman's minimalist absurdist western The Shooting