Page 21 - Studio International - October 1972

while at the same time, creating other kinds of author and/or director, whereas in. Snow consciousness of another kind of film space
illusions. In Dripping Water (1969) by Wieland relies principally on the technology, formalizing and another kind of film time. The materials of
and Snow, one watches almost hypnotized by those technological potentials present at the film, as used by Jacobs, paradoxically defeat the
the irregularly dripping water accompanied same time that he exposes or 'lays them bare,' illusions they had served to create in the
by the sometimes synchronous, sometimes so that the perceiver is consciously involved in original. When one sees Bitzer's work again at
asynchronous, water sounds. Street noises are an intellectual and physiological manner. the end, one inevitably perceives it differently.
also heard and seem to surround the screen Reflexively aware of the processes, he is Other comments on film history, more
frame, setting the image off and out of context, participating in a radically other kind of film oblique and not in the form of encomiums,
and thereby emphasizing the perimeters of the drama. occur in Hollis Frampton's Surface Tension
screen. By way of its film location, a classroom, (1968) and Artificial Light (1969). Surface
In other works, the camera remains fixed on Snow's work takes on a consciously didactic Tension satirizes the standard 'well-made'
its tripod but there is actual movement of the dimension. Ken Jacobs's Tom, Tom the Piper's narrative film form with its mechanical
camera or a part of it. For instance, Michael Son (1969) assumes another kind of didacticism beginning, middle, and end, and its expected
Snow's Wavelength (1967) is a forty-five- in the form of a tribute to early film history. unifying parts. At the same time, it endows
minute continuous zoom which moves slowly Tom, Tom the Piper's Son, a film believed to those structures with other functions. Asked
across an eighty-foot loft toward the front have been directed and shot by Billy Bitzer about this work, Frampton stated: 'I wanted to
windowed wall where it ends on a photograph. (famed for his later associations as make a film out of a relatively small number of
The primary sound is a glissando sine wave cameraman for D. W. Griffith) becomes the simple elements, which would be of a piece,
which begins after about five minutes and material for another film. As part of his longer to see how much resonance I could generate
continues to the finish. Events occur, creating a work, Jacobs has retained the original among those elements'.15 In contrast to the
simple, minimal narrative. Light changes which ten-minute work; in three parts, the 1905 chase standard fiction film which attains its unity
take place in and outside of the room, changes film appears at the beginning and again at the through its content, which is cast into
in colour stock, flash frames, colour filter and end, with Jacob's rephotographed re-exploration unquestioned a priori forms, Surface Tension
and negative shots, constantly alter the spatial of the original in between. One might draw questions and mocks such assumptions, and in
perspective of the room for the viewer. These useful analogies from art history with what so doing achieves its own kind of unity based
are variations along the slow continuum of the Jacobs does here. If one were to compare on the structural possibilities generated by its
zoom shot as it moves from deep space to more Picasso's various works entitled Le Déjeuner sur minimal sound and visual materials. The
and more shallow space, finally ending on the l'Herbe (I960) with Manet's famous painting film is in three parts, each consisting of a
photograph of the sea. For a moment, the of the same name (1863) from which these separate continuous single camera position shot,
horizon line of the seascape invites one's eyes renditions were made, or an example of one with sound accompanying the first two. The
out again into infinite space, until the painting taken not directly from an earlier voice overheard in German in the middle is
photograph is gradually taken out of focus into canvas but whose classical motif is closely that of the man seen but not heard in the
almost whiteness by the changed focus of the followed, such as Cézanne's Bacchanal beginning, whose stories appear in English
camera's lens. Through its film time of one (1875-76) compared with Titian's Bacchanal titles superimposed in the end, so that a unity
long take, Wavelength orchestrates the entire (circa 15I8), in one instance the same, and in both satiric and at the same time functional is
spectrum of film space and simultaneously the other like, subject matter have been totally achieved through 'character'; the man seen,
underscores light's role in the creation of this transfigured by the later artists. The highly then heard, whose words are finally read, binds
space. illusionistic bent of the earlier works gives way the parts together.
In Snow's-. (I969), the activities inside a to other kinds of painterly concerns, as space is The third part is particularly rife with
classroom and seen outside through its windows brought forward and delineated toward the satirical devices. For instance, its use of titles
and open door, reiterate the back and forth surface of the canvas. Analogously, Bitzer's refers to the subtitled foreign film. A comment
movement of the camera : a man washing narrative is transformed in Jacobs's work into reads 'a film in three parts', followed by brief
windows, another sweeping, a fist fight, a the new spaces of a contemporary narrative. descriptions of what one might call mock
game of catch, a back and forth symbol drawn The original story, composed of a number of subplots, all humorous and each diverse from
on the board, a couple meeting and embracing, scenes, all filmed as a theatre production in one another, yet still comically united to the
and so on. From its fixed place in the corner of long shots and single takes, is dissected whole by way of the one 'character' whose tales
the room the camera begins panning, at first in time and space. By way of medium and these are. A reference is made to 'a film the
slowly, irregularly increasing its speed until closeup shots, movements are slowed down, colour of American cigarette ads'. Frampton's
'it reaches an extremely fast rate, followed by a objects are frozen in space and reframed. film is in fact composed (one would assume
rapid vertical tilting movement which finally Jacobs's film moves in and out from deep to purposely) of very meticulous colour shots,
slows down. The film ends with a coda of flat space; at times the magnified film grain reminding one of the well-made commercial
superimposed shots at various speeds and assumes the look of a pointilist canvas. film. Moreover, Frampton even welds on the
rhythms, taken from different parts of the film. Through pronounced wipes and masks within time-worn increment of romantic unity — a
At certain speeds, the back and forth panning his work, Jacobs pays further homage to film brief opening and closing shot of a rolling
movement gives the screen the illusion of history, to a time when such techniques were wave.
expanding into cinemascopic size and then more heavily employed. By way of these and Artificial Light extends its ground of attack.
contracting, back and forth. The film unfolds other means, such as the use of flicker, frequent This time both camps are taken to task for, in
into a catalogue of abstraction governed by fades to black to allow for the play of Frampton's words, their 'historical film
the speed of the camera's movement combined after-images, and the winding of the frame banalities', as conventions of past and present
with changing light in and outside of the room, line up and down between a scene, Jacobs avant gardes along with the commercial film
the grain of the colour stock and the wide-angle draws attention to the film-making process are satirized and played off each other. Loop
lens used. Formally and technically the title itself. As with the creation of a new painting printed images and processes of permutation
literalizes itself. One can draw an interesting from a study and analysis of a prior work, are used. Conventional quality footage
contrast between the fiction film and.. In Jacobs's work bears the evidence of its time. identified with the commercial cinema is, in
the former, the viewer loses or abandons The original film remains but is also each of its twenty loop appearances, obscured
himself to the characters, places and metamorphosized into a new Tom, Tom the by a different permutation — painting,
machinations of the plot at the hands of the Piper's Son through a contemporary pseudo-solarization, use of negative, etc.,
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