Re: Zorns Lemma

From: Fred Camper (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Apr 16 2007 - 12:29:20 PDT


esperanza collado wrote:

> ... a proper dvd copy ... [of a Hollis Frampton film]

...is an oymoron.

Frampton was also a still photographer. He did his own lab work for his
photos, worked in a color separation lab, and cared deeply about the way
his films looked. He is not here to tell us what he might think of DVDs,
but his films really depend on film light, even ones you might not
expect that of, such as "Poetic Justice." Late in his life, I heard him
pronounce with enormous sadness that film was dying in favor of video.

In the 1970s ago he was doing a show at Millennium Film Workshop in New
York, a place where filmmakers often liked to ask "shop talk" questions.
Someone asked him of "Autumnal Equinox," "What kind of camera did you
use, and what kind of film did you use." I winced. Frampton seemed to
wince too, and said something like, "I thought we had gotten beyond
asking such questions at Millennium." Then he proceeded to answer. It
turns out that he shot it with several different cameras each loaded
with a different film stock so that he could take advantage of the
different qualities of each. (There were indeed different film stocks
available back then, and not only from Kodak.) This story always stuck
with me as evidence of someone deeply invested in the uniquely filmic
qualities of his imagery.

Fred Camper
Chicago

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