In art, avant-garde is something that is ahead of its time. Take "The Black Square" by Kazimierz Malewicz (Not a Jew). In 1915, he painted, well, a black square. Revolutionary! Unheard of! Avante-garde!

But then, through the years, it becomes more or less the norm. Heck, Malewicz himself painted "The Black Circle" and "The Black Cross"... as well as "The Red Square" and "The White Square". Other artists, like Piet Monrdian (another Not a Jew) took it even further: multiple squares of various colors! Nowadays, modern art is full of all kinds of colors and shapes (even hexagons!). So it's no longer avante-garde.

That's art, but what about film? (Here, we can have a debate whether film is art, but let's not.) Take Maya Deren, a Ukrainian-born American Jew, who is considered a major figure in the avante-garde movement of the 1940s and 50s. Her first film, "Meshes of the Afternoon" is 14 minutes of... pavement, flower, shadows, stairs, telephone, arm chair, close-up of an eye, shadowy figure, running, knife, Maya dancing, telephone again, more stairs, knife again, Maya, the beach, Maya's husband, death. It ends with death, of course. Avante-garde? Definitely avante-garde!

It will never become the norm. Probably for the best...