Re: Urban Legends

From: Steve Polta (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Feb 26 2008 - 10:58:08 PST


I believe the film in question is SLEEP by Warhol, and
that Brakhage (it is claimed) declared it a
"masterpiece." Original projection speed for SLEEP was
actually 16fps; at 18fps--I know from experience--the
film is a whole 30 minutes shorter. Does this make it
less than a masterpiece? Maybe Brakhage should have
sat through it a third time. What a way to spend a
weekend in New York.

BTW, on the Brakhage/Warhol contrast in another
posting, David James, in his ALLEGORIES OF CINEMA,
discuses a bit some similarities in films by this
apparently radically different artists, there is also
an reference to a piece of writing that goes even
deeper into this comparison. Sorry I can't recall the
details or cite the reference; my house is too much of
a mess for me to find the book...

Steve Polta

--- Tom B Whiteside <email suppressed> wrote:

> Was the article in Art Forum in the 1970's, the one
> with Wavelength on the
> cover? Jonas Mekas reported that back in the day,
> Stan Brakhage had
> watched one of Andy Warhol's slow movies (I think
> "Empire," not sure)
> Brakhage told Mekas that he didn't like it much,
> Mekas asked him When you
> watched it, what was the projection speed? Brakhage
> replied 24fps. Well,
> that's wrong, said Mekas, you have to watch it at
> 18fps. So Brakhage went
> back and watched the film again at 18fps and then
> said, Ahh, I get it now!
> This was the story as Mekas told it.
>
> This always seemed unreasonable to me. I asked
> Brakhage about it and he
> said it never happened and he had no idea why Mekas
> said that.
>
> Urban Legend or Rocky Mountain Lie? I think it was a
> NYC publication.
>
> - Whiteside
>
>
>
__________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
>

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__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.