22/69 Happy-End

In the first action he filmed, 6/64 Mama und Papa, Kren’s editing leads to many interlocking continuous shots; central takes recur like a leitmotif, circular motion and networking can be observed throughout the film. Kren painstakingly weaves the fury in front of his camera lens into dense geometrical figures. Shot/countershot sequences alternate, lumping back and forth between single (!) frames, they turn the Actionist turmoil into ornaments, rigid geometrical patterns, the equivalent in time to what Mondrian used to distill on canvas in space. (Peter Tscherkassky)

"It became easier to understand Kren's method of approaching film when he illustrated his matter-of-factness with a story: he was asked to shoot and deliver a film, for a festival, given four day's notice, which he did ('foot'-age shoot'-out'). He normally takes a long time with a film; this one he terms a "rape." He removed his name and copy-right from the piece. "Probably my last film." I asked whether he'd ever seen a print. "Yes, it's great," he replied..." (April Rapier)

A meadow, a lake, the silhouette of a hill, trees. 21 days of the same view in Saarland. 21 days with five different cut-outs in a mask before the camera, which finally reveals a complete panorama. The landscape changes with the advancing seasons and becomes slowly delirious in its technical alienation.

In Schatzi Kurt Kren films a photo which shows an SS officer standing on a town square which is littered with dead bodies.

This three-minute film was far more akin to the American-style "happening" in that the content was not particularly extreme. It was built up from items such as broken bicycle parts, a nude model, pieces of furniture, and these elements were then obscured or transformed by having a layer of paint thrown on them.

The first embodiment of (a) concept of structural activity in cinema comes in Kren's Bäume im Herbst, where the camera as a subjective observer is constrained within a systematic or structural procedure, incidentally the precursors of the most structuralist aspect of Michael Snow's later work. In this film, perception of material relationships in the world is seen to be no more than a product of the structural activity in the work. Art forms experience.

Kren in New Hampshire, New England. Together with friends he lived from the demolition of wooden houses and sale of the wood. Kren was the "nail puller". (Hans Scheugl)

Kurt Kren films an anti-war poster in extreme close-up moves to subvert the quick responses of viewers to its loaded imagery.

In a TV film about the film Casablanca, Kren is meant to read aloud three letters that Groucho Marx wrote to Warner Bros., because they wanted to take legal action against him over A Night in Casablanca. The recorded material could not be used on television and was meant to be destroyed. Kren found it and showed it uncut with its repetitions.

The third of the "bad home movies". Kren moved, along with his Thunderbird from New England in winter to the warmth of Texas. Part of the film was shot in Austin. (Hans Scheugl)