[Frameworks] Quo Vadis Celluloid?

[Fred Camper]

The light in "The Tree of Life" may have been flatter than in works  
shot on film, but that didn't matter nearly as much to me as the many  
other problems I had with it!

As I was arguing earlier, though, how much one hates the "flatness" of  
digital is going to vary from person to person, and probably cannot be  
debated very well.

John Cage didn't like recorded music, and mostly couldn't listen to  
it. Bravo for him. I agree that great music is better live. But for  
me, a great performance on CD or vinyl is a lot better than a bad one  
live. If someone else disagrees, that's hard to argue too. (And, just  
to be clear, I'm talking only about "classical" music here.)

I think statements of the form "video will never be able to do what  
film can do" are as dangerous as any dogmatic statement about a  
changing technology, whether that claim be positive or negative. Such  
statements do not have a good history of being right in the long run.  
In the early days of research into nuclear power, it was thought that  
it would prove to be "too cheap to meter." In the early days of video,  
I would guess that many of the statements that could have been made  
then about the difference between it and film would have to be  
modified today. If film can produce a convincing illusion of a human  
body, video might be able to produce the convincing illusion of a  
film, if people keep trying.

I doubt that anything one sees on TV would have been scanned from  
nitrate, which is highly flammable. I'd be fascinated to learn if it  
was, though.

I *do* hate the way people constantly want to show off their new  
technology the way that, indeed, joints used to be passed around at  
parties. No, I don't need to hear anyone else telling me all the  
things they love about their iPhone.

Part of my point is that if you're going to abandon moving image art  
because you like film and don't like video and it's getting harder and  
harder to work with film, be sure you have really worked with video  
and tried many of its options and tried controlled projection  
situations. all with an open mind, first.

A story that I have told on FrameWorks before is worth retelling here.  
As many know, Stan Brakhage railed against video for much of his life,  
using some of the same arguments Marilyn used. The light of digital  
was flat. You could change the color with a spin of the knob. All this  
is of course very true.

He also said, "I guess the muse favors film," an example of the kinds  
of mystification I oppose.

So once, on the phone, late in his life, I posed the following to him:  
"Suppose someone offered you, totally free of charge, the best digital  
image creation setup imaginable, and a technician to help you explore  
all its possibilities." He answered the question I was leading up to  
before I could even ask it, saying, "I would work with it." This  
surprised and moved me, and it proves, I think, that his anti-video  
statements were not meant as unalterable dogmas.

Quoting gregg biermann <mubbazoo at optonline.net>:

> ...The idea that a completely novel form of cinema will change the way we
> see the world (and thus change the world) is a kind of utopian glamour
> that has been replaced by a more contradictory and provisional sort of
> work...

Well, I'd like to think that the way we use existing forms of media,  
the way one can build up complex and new perceptual and emotional and  
intellectual fields of experience for the viewer out of existing  
materials and technologies, might be able to "change the world" by  
first changing individual perceptions. This was, indeed, Brakhage's  
goal. These could arguably be more subtle, more specific, and  
ultimately more profound, changes than the ways a whole new technology  
can change everyone.

Fred Camper
Chicago