Re: Gabriel by Agnes Martin

From: Cari Machet (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Mar 23 2009 - 22:35:00 PDT


awwwwwe - poor fred

Fred Camper
Chicago wrote:

- Our dying planet... -

i don't believe in death
AND
wow super negative glass half empty stuff
AND
who cares if our whole solar system 'dies' it doesn't mean life ends
it's all a little bigger than 'us'

- ...imagery added nothing to cinema, or art. -

please define 'nothing'

+++++++++

your right fred i was sort of personalizing my reaction to your reaction
i should have wrote what i was thinking about which is that if it had the
name of brakhage tagged to the film you would have been [sexual reference]
oh lets just say happy - don't get me wrong i love brakhage - but i question
whether there is a bias - maybe a bias against 'artists' that dare to pick
up a cam - maybe

thanks

cari machet
nyc 347-298-9818
AIM carismachet
Skype carimachet - 646-652-6434
Syria +963-099 277 3243
Amman +962 077 636 9407

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:45 PM, Fred Camper <email suppressed> wrote:

> Cari Machet wrote:
>
> negativity fred
>>
>> she built a house in it's entirety
>> plumbing/electrical...
>> she said all 'artists' should do it
>>
>> maybe she should have filmed that -
>> but then fred would be bored with the pipe fittings -
>> dear fred have you ever heard of duchamp?
>>
>
> Oh, no, of course I never heard of Duchamp. Thanks so much for your
> illuminating reference to him.
>
> What just happened here? I posted my opinion of a hard-to-see film, and
> "cari" responded with what? An argument about cinema? A defense of the film?
> No, a personal attack on me. I guess we're all supposed to love all
> "alternative" cinema here?
>
> Thank you, Cari, for reminding me of why I haven't read FlameJerks in some
> weeks.
>
> A film of pipe fittings could be great, or awful, depending on the skill
> and care and inspiration and originality that goes into making it. But there
> isn't much point arguing skill and care to someone who puts so little of it
> into the writing of her posts.
>
> Our dying planet does not possess infinite resources. Film viewers do not
> have infinite time. Every really bad film hurts the "cause." People who make
> and show art have a responsibility to TRY to make something worthwhile.
> Agnes Martin certainly earned the right to some mistakes with her sublimely
> great paintings. But I am sick of the attitude of many that everything is
> valid, that the epoch-making life work of the painter of the incredibly
> great "Tu m'" can be used as an excuse for junk, that we all have equal
> rights to fill the screen with whatever inarticulate misuses of the film and
> video media we care to make and show (of course I support the legal right to
> show anything-- I'm arguing something else here, the right to judge based on
> quality, and then let others make couter-aruments), that we all should
> happily show poorly made films that the filmmaker hasn't even worked on very
> hard. I'm not talking about "Gabriel" now, but about films that long ago
> drove many of us away from going to too many screenings, films that not even
> the curators that showed them would, when asked, care to defend.
>
> In a great film, every shot is meaningful, and every part connects in
> surprising and complex ways to the whole. A bad film rambles on and on
> incoherently, wasting everyone's time, showing little respect for the
> viewer. And there are also films that elude "great" or "bad" or even "pretty
> good" categorizations, but are original and provocative and worth seeing.
>
> Maybe I'm wrong about "Gabriel." I posted partly to see if it has any
> defenders. But the film I remember is a really bad travelogue, almost
> painfully stupid, whose trite imagery added nothing to cinema, or art.
>
>
> Fred Camper
> Chicago
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>

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