Things are beautiful where they are inevitable, that is, when they are free exhibitions of a spirit. There is no violence here, no murdering, no twisting-about, no copying-after, but a free, unrestrained, yet self-governing display of movement - which constitutes the principle of beauty. The muscles are conscious of drawing a line, making a dot, but behind them there is an unconsciousness. By this unconsciousness nature writes out her destiny: by this unconsciousness the artist creates his work of art. A baby smiles and the whole crowd is transported, because it is genuinely inevitable, coming out of the Unconscious'.
(Suzuki, D T, Selected Writings, Image, NY, 1996)
Books/Articles
Books and Articles by Erik Knudsen
Creative Documentary: Theory and Practice
Erik Knudsen has co-authored, with Wilma de Jong and Jerry Rothwell from the University of Sussex, a book on creative documentary practice for Pearson Education. The book is due for publication in August 2011 and will be available through good book outlets, including Amazon.
“A brilliantly useful and comprehensive book that takes you through the A to Z of documentary filming. Read it, digest it, take what is useful and go and make a brilliant film!” - Nick Broomfield, documentary filmmaker
Cinema of Poverty: Independence and Simplicity in an Age of Abundance and Complexity
An article written by Erik Knudsen and published by the peer reviewed online film journal, Wide Screen Vol 2 No 2.
Zen and the Art of Film Narrative
A paper presented at the Rethinking the Screenplay Conference, held at the University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland, 11 September 2009, and pulished by the Journal of Screenwriting, Vol. 1 No. 2.
Transcendental Realism in Documentary
This is a chapter which Erik Knudsen contributed to the book, Rethinking Documentary, published by the Open University Press (2008). The chapter, 'Transcendental Realism in Documentary', explores a different approach to thinking of and using film narrative in an effort to portray and elicit our more transcendent feelings and relationships to actuality and the factual. It looks at how the documentary can engage with not just empirical observations and the psychologically explicable, but how documentary can also explore more transcendent realities, which are usually as important as the empirically factual in affecting people's lives. Read the chapter here...
Fact and Mysticism in Documentary
An academic research report by Erik Knudsen on the completion of Heart of Gold, first published in the Journal of Media Practice, volume 8, number 1.
Framing The Eternally Present
A discussion of the use of detail and moment in pursuit of a transcendental realism in Erik Knudsen's feature film, Brannigan's March.
Eyes of the Beholder
First published in the Journal of Media Practice, volume 5, number 3, 2005. An article questioning the UK Film Council's approach to developing screen talent.
Creation and I
Published initially in the Journal of Media Practice, volume 3, number 2, 2004, this article explores the personal relationship between film, filmmaker and teaching. The article was then subsequently published as a chapter in the book, Visualising Anthropology, edited by Anna Grimshaw and Amanda Ravetz (Intellect, 2004).
Fear Eats the Soul
First published in the Journal of Media Practice, volume 1, number 3, 2000. An article about the importance of encouraging students to connect to their personal experinces when creating work.
Types of Emotion and Classic Narrative Mechanisms
A paper presented at the Society for Cinema Studies Conference, Dallas, USA, in 1996.