(nostalgia)

(nostalgia)

Playing with both a structural principle of the cinematic medium (the synchronization of sound and image) and one of its core dimensions (to function as a machine for the reproduction of ghosts) with boundless gusto, the greatest polymath of the 1970s New York avant-garde devotes this first part of his Hapax Legomena cycle to nostalgia. He sets it, though, in brackets and openly wonders: can we feel nostalgia for the present? Via a sequence of 13 shots, each of which sees a photograph Hollis took of the New York arts scene ritually burned on a stove while the narrator has already moved on to describing the next still, this classicist poet, photographer, sculptor, critic, and filmmaker who set cinema on a new course explores the limits of representation, rescinding and resurrecting the capacity of the image to speak of reality.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Direction: Hollis Frampton
Narration: Michael Snow
Format: 16mm
Color: B/W
Production Country: USA
Production Year: 1973
Duration: 36'
Contact: The Film-Makers’ Cooperative

Hollis Frampton

American artist Hollis Frampton (1936–1984) is known for the broad and restless intelligence he brought to the films he made, beginning in the early 1960s, until his death in 1984. In addition to being an important experimental filmmaker, he was also an accomplished photographer and writer, and in the 1970s made significant contributions to the emerging field of computer science. He is considered one of the pioneers of what has come to be termed structuralism, an influential style of experimental filmmaking that uses the basic elements of cinematic language to create works that investigate film form at the expense of traditional narrative content. Along with Michael Snow and Stan Brakhage, he is one of the major figures to emerge from the New York avant-garde film community of the 1960s.

Filmography

1966 Information (short)
1968 Maxwell’s Demon (short)
1969 Prince Ruperts Drops (short)
1972 Public Domain (short)
1973 (nostalgia) (short)
1974 Summer Solstice (short)
1975 Pas de Trois (short)
1979 Gloria! (short)