[Frameworks] canyon in the news (bad news dept)

[Pip Chodorov]

This is a point that concerns me on a daily 
basis, as a publisher of video reproductions of 
avant-garde films.

It is essential to see the films on film. It is 
not enough that a reproduction looks good, or 
looks like the original. What is important is not 
what it looks like, but what it IS.

When I film an event on 8mm or 16mm - a flower, a 
sunrise, a smile, whatever - the emulsion is 
phsyically altered on a molecular level on the 
film strip, the developing chemicals transform 
these into opacity and transparency, the 
projector's light is again physcically altered by 
this opacity and transparency, and the light that 
hits the screen and bounces into my retina is 
physically affecting my optic nerve, lateral 
geniculate nucleus and the visual cortex in my 
occipital lobe, again on a physical, cellular, 
atomic level. There is a direct, physical 
connection between the original event - the 
flower, the sunrise, the smile - and the here and 
now of watching it, my brain stimulus, 
invigorated by the flicker which produces the phi 
phenomenon, transforming the rapid slide show 
into motion.

In a digital reproduction of the film, there is a 
veil of zeroes and ones interposed; these have no 
basis in material reality; the lack of flicker 
means no phi phenomenon, but only the beta effect 
is produced. We are far removed from the original 
physical event of filming, no matter how much it 
"looks like" it.

This is why I called my company "Re:Voir" - "to 
see again," or, "about vision" - to raise 
consciousness that the DVDs are only 
reproductions to be used for study purposes, 
after we have seen the original film projected on 
film. These are only high-quality reproductions, 
such as a good Rizzoli art catalogue, that nobody 
would ever possibly mistake for the real thing. 
And no Cézanne lover would avoid a good Cézanne 
show, simply because they already have a 
catalogue with good color reproductions. Would a 
Brakhage lover stay home if Dog Star Man came to 
their home town, just because they happen to have 
the DVD on their shelf?

Of course the digital signal is an interesting 
artistic medium too, since the neuronal brain 
activity in the act of vision is also made up of 
digital signals, but film artists using physical 
film technology to capture moments of life or 
perception are anticipating the physical 
projection event, just as a painter anticipates 
that people will see his canvas on the wall, not 
a photocopy, or a jpeg on a website...

-Pip Chodorov



At 17:32 -0800 19/02/12, Tim Halloran wrote:
>Great observations, and I have in 
>fact structured my teaching of film studies 
>along the lines of the art history model. Just 
>as any worthy art history instructor speaks 
>not just to the value of experiencing the 
>original work of art but also to the fundamental 
>differences and deficiencies in the 
>reproduction, I too stress 
>the distinctions between experiencing a film as 
>it was intended to be seen and its 
>digital reproduction. This is not to ignore 
>the fact that commercial cinema was essentially 
>an art form of reproduction or that what we are 
>seeing when we watch a film print of any 
>experimental or avant-garde work is also very 
>likely a reproduction of the original. But a 
>certain deference and respect to the intended 
>exhibition format must be maintained and 
>accommodated whenever possible.
>
>Tim