From: john porter (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Oct 19 2005 - 10:30:59 PDT
Thanks Owen!
This gets more & more interesting!
I'd like to hear BEN talk!
Does he have all of his prints now?
Where did the Whitney prints come from in 1999?
Why doesn't he travel w/ them?
What's his problem w/ the Avant-Garde Film
Distribution Industry?
John Porter, Toronto
--- owen <email suppressed> wrote:
> On Oct 19, 2005, at 6:07 AM, Mark Webber wrote:
>
> "- if i remember correctly, at the time of the
> whitney american
> century show
> (1999), some of ben van meter's films were still in
> distribution with
> the
> new york coop, and one or two in london at the
> lfmc/lux (which i had
> previously shown in england, late 90s). "
>
> Hi,
> For the record, in 1999 his prints were no longer
> officially
> available from the new york coop FMC.
> Soon after I screened his films, Colorfilm and
> Olds-Mo-Bile -
> luscious Kodachrome prints -
> at The Electrical Retrospectacle in 1998
> (http://colorbot.com/
> contact.html)
> I emailed him to see if he would rent me a print of
> the legendary
> Acid Mantra. He wrote back an angry email that FMC
> had no right
> to rent those films - the only two Ben Van Meter
> films at FMC - that
> he had long ago pulled them from circulation and
> that FMC
> should send the prints back to him immediately.
> owen
>
>
> On Oct 19, 2005, at 6:07 AM, Mark Webber wrote:
>
> > if i remember correctly, at the time of the
> whitney american
> > century show
> > (1999), some of ben van meter's films were still
> in distribution
> > with the
> > new york coop, and one or two in london at the
> lfmc/lux (which i had
> > previously shown in england, late 90s).
> >
> > chrissie iles did have some direct contact with
> ben when we were
> > setting up
> > the shows, so maybe the prints came from him, but
> i don't think so.
> > he did
> > not come to the show. they were screened on 16mm
> film.
> >
> > robert nelson's films were indeed shown in the
> same series. he had
> > withdrawn
> > all of his titles from distribution at this time
> and was not
> > allowing public
> > screenings. after some discussion, he offered two
> compilation reels
> > of 1960s
> > films, some of which were in the original versions
> and others heavily
> > edited, condensed and conflated. (THE AWFUL
> BACKLASH actually had the
> > optical soundtrack physically scratched off the
> print & robert sent
> > a very
> > quiet tape of him breathing to be played during
> this film.) mark
> > toscano &
> > academy are doing great work in preserving robert
> nelson's films &
> > there
> > have recently been screenings in san francisco and
> new york. the next
> > projections of these films will be a retrospective
> at the oberhausen
> > festival in may 2006.
> >
> > mark
> >
> >
> >
> >> Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 15:49:00 -0400
> >> From: john porter <email suppressed>
> >> Subject: Re: van Meter
> >>
> >> A few people have already said that Ben does NOT
> >> "provide prints", or "loan/rent prints out"! But
> Owen
> >> said Ben insists on travelling w/ his prints. So
> why
> >> doesn't he, hasn't he, like many of us have?
> >> The story was told of his falling-out w/ Canyon.
> Could
> >> that be behind it?
> >> Were his prints shown at the Whitney not "great"
> >> enough to show in other places? Does the Whitney
> have
> >> low standards? (I'm afraid to ask if they were
> shown
> >> on video!)
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
__________________________________________________________________
> > For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
> >
>
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________
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__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.