[Frameworks] Three recent articles of mine

[Fred Camper]

Dear Jack,

Thanks very much for writing. I appreciated all your comments.

At the center of my argument in the article you mention is my notion 
that the differences between as mainstream a classical Hollywood 
filmmaker as Raoul Walsh and the best avant-garde films are not as great 
as most imagine. At the same time, I don't much like seeing how far this 
list has long veered from the charge to discuss only experimental film. 
There are endless lists of and suggestions for mainstream features in 
which I have no interest, often in reply to hardly-ever-explained 
queries for films featuring swimming pools, or flying geese, or 
whatever. Therefore, I will reply to you at greater length offlist.

Yours,
Fred


\On 5/12/2022 3:32 PM, Jack Seibert wrote:
> Dear Fred,
>
> Thank you so much for sending these articles out. I've just read /The 
> Myth of the Avant-Garde Film/, and was cheering along the whole time. 
> I just discovered your writing a few weeks ago actually, from the 
> a_film_by archives. I've never found somebody who describes film the 
> way that I see it as well, primarily as negotiations of space. (And I 
> enjoy reading back your proving-wrong of other critics who, while they 
> seem to be thoughtful and nice, just get it all wrong.) So many 
> critics—even the "good" ones—seem to just trade in plot summaries, to 
> the degree that it shocks me that they even /enjoy/ something like /El 
> Dorado/, which to me seems rather boring (or perhaps "tedious" is a 
> better word) if one isn't attuned to the careful way in which Hawks 
> describes and juxtaposes the spaces of the film. Sometimes I think the 
> only good critical work on narrative filmmaking has been by people 
> like Rivette or Straub who, even if they cannot verbalize, comment on 
> and reframe earlier directors' uses of space. And what a shock to hear 
> you also give a director six films, which is about what I've figured 
> out I need as well. Needless to say, our tastes are almost perfectly 
> aligned, though I know much less experimental work than you do. On a 
> recommendation of yours that I found on a_film_by, I've watched some 
> of Warren Sonbert's films, which have blown me away.
>
> Have you watched much Tsui Hark? Not sure if you're in the mood to 
> find new work or not. Another filmmaker with a loyal fanbase à la 
> Hawks, but whose magnificence I have never heard someone get to the 
> root of. As you point out in /The Myth/, it is often hard to talk 
> about specifics in writing about topics like this—much easier to point 
> out repeated themes or something.
>
> Hope you're doing well, and mostly just wanted to say that I 
> appreciate the writing.
>
> Best,
> Jack
>
> On Wed, May 11, 2022 at 10:55 AM Fred Camper <f at fredcamper.com> wrote:
>
>     I have had three articles related to avant-garde film published
>     online in the last year. Two are fairly recent, and the third,
>     /The End of Avant-Garde Film/, is from 1986, and hence way out of
>     date; in my introduction I explain the ways in which it is not
>     current but perhaps still of interest. That article caused much
>     controversy at the time, including many negative replies ("Whose
>     side are you on," one noted filmmaker, also a friend, asked me).
>     It also helped inspire the 1989 Experimental Film Congress in
>     Toronto, which was offered partly as a response, and where I was
>     the opening speaker.
>
>     Another article, /The Myth of the Avant-Garde Film/, tried to
>     argue for certain commonalities between some avant-garde films and
>     some of the great films of classical Hollywood. The third,
>     /Political, Or Not/, is about Eisenstein, Brakhage, and the
>     problems of "political" filmmaking.
>
>     Two of the three were published by a relatively new online arts
>     journal, /Caesura/, which should be of interest to anyone
>     interested in the arts.
>
>     They are all linked to at the top of the page at
>     https://fredcamper.com/Film/writingF.html , just under "Writing on
>     Film."
>
>     Fred Camper
>     Chicago
>
>     -- 
>     Frameworks mailing list
>     Frameworks at film-gallery.org
>     https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://film-gallery.org/pipermail/frameworks_film-gallery.org/attachments/20220513/867794cd/attachment.html>