[Frameworks] Annette Michelson and Peter Gidal

[Chuck Kleinhans]

Perhaps the editor/publisher wanted a broader range of essays than Gidal alone might have preferred.

But hey, he’s still alive, right?  Why not ask him?

He was famously quarrelsome, so an anthology of his correspondence might be…well, “entertaining”?


Chuck Kleinhans


On Feb 22, 2016, at 9:14 AM, John Muse <jmuse at sonic.net<mailto:jmuse at sonic.net>> wrote:

Thanks, Jonathan.  Right, to his credit, Gidal "curates" in the conflict with Snow over "Back and Forth."  Love that.

The Michelson excerpt includes the line that seems to offend him most: "Snow has re-defined filmic space as that of action."  Strange that he doesn't include the exchange of letters.  Maybe he wanted to but was denied rights?

j

On Feb 22, 2016, at 11:20 AM, Jonathan Walley <walleyj at denison.edu<mailto:walleyj at denison.edu>> wrote:

Interesting question. Keep in mind that Gidal also included and essay on Ken Jacobs’ Tom Tom... (by Lois Mendelson and Bill Simon, also from Artforum) that he (Gidal) expressly marked as “symptomatic of current misunderstanding” and “fetishization of process and idealization of the formal in its weak sense.” Vidal attributed the same “blindness” to the film itself. So he was open to polemically including “bad” essays.

He doesn’t include a similar note about the Michelson piece, though he only includes an excerpt. Perhaps he found that excerpt less “wrongheaded” than other passages in the essay. The entire Snow section of Structural Film Anthology is on the polemical side, including the rather pissy letter from Snow to Gidal in response to the latter’s comments about Back-Forth.

Sort of an answer?

Dr. Jonathan Walley
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Cinema
Denison University
walleyj at denison.edu<mailto:walleyj at denison.edu>


Chuck Kleinhans



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