From: Fred Camper (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jan 05 2004 - 07:27:29 PST
Michael Betancourt wrote:
> What would constitute a "perfect" (any definition) film/video?
>
> I'm not sure myself, but wondered what the rest of the list collectively
> thinks. I'm not even sure what I would consider a candidate, but I am
> very fond of Brakhage's Persian series....
I would critique the concept. Some of the very greatest films have
imperfections. And throughout film history filmmakers have defined
cinema art in different ways. In the "world" of Brakhage's (very great)
Persians, Christopher Maclaine's "The End" would look like a dreadful
mess. But it's a great film too, just great in a very different way.
Further, to the best of my knowledge it was Brakhage himself who rescued
Maclaine's films from an increasingly drug-addled Maclaine and got them
preserved and into distribution. The quest for perfection would, it
seems to me, exclude one kind of filmmaking at the expense of another.
Nor was Brakhage himself all that interested in the idea of
"perfection." He tried to make his films as good as he could, but then
would go on to make other films on different terms, and often said he
wanted to include the messiness of life in his work.
Fred Camper
Chicago
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