Films by Hollis Frampton

Wednesday, March 15 at 8pm

An important figure in avant-garde film, Hollis Frampton created films beginning in the early 1960’s and continuing until his death in 1984. Coming to filmmaking from a career in still photography, his films often exploit cinematic language to explore the materiality of the filmic image, rather than concentrating on narrative content. Simultaneously playful and intellectual, Frampton’s films at times confound comprehension in their structuralist exploration of film art.

A screening of Hollis Frampton films will take place at The Bridge on Wednesday, March 15. The films will include Lemon, Zorns Lemma, Critical Mass, and Nostalgia. Approximate running time for the entire program is 2.5 hours. Sponsored by The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, OFFScreen, and the Virginia Film Society.

Lemon [1969] 16mm, color, silent, 7-1/2 min.

As a voluptuous lemon is devoured by the same light that reveals it, its image passes from the spatial rhetoric of illusion into the spatial grammar of the graphic arts.

Zorns Lemma [1970] 16mm, color, sound, 60 min.

“In his most important work to date, and the most original new work of cinema I have seen since Brakhage’s Scenes From Under Childhood: Part IV. Frampton’s film is an exercise in mathematical logic in cinema. Or is it a mechanical logic?… It’s about alphabet. It’s about the unities of similarities. It’s about sameness in a confusion. It’s
about logic in chance. It’s about structure and logic. It’s about rhythm. Ah, what a difference between Zorns Lemma and all the ’serious’ commercial movies that I occasionally praise!”– Jonas Mekas, Village Voice

Critical Mass [Hapax Legomena III] [1971] 16mm, b&w, sound, 25-1/2 min.

In this semi-autobiographical film, a couple’s quarrel is chopped into structural segments and then recomposed.”As a work of art I think [Critical Mass] is quite universal and deals with all quarrels — human relationships and the difficulties of them. It is very funny, and rather obviously so.” — Stan Brakhage

Nostalgia [Hapax Legomena I] [1973] 16mm, b&w, sound, 36 min.

Narrator: Michael Snow. Nostalgia recounts Frampton’s own transformation from photographer to filmmaker. Frampton burns photographs while Snow narrates a story
about a photograph, but the story is related to the following photograph, not the one shown. Through formal structure and displacement, the film undermines the expected unity of image and sound to create a striking representation of memory.

“[Hollis Frampton's] achievements in two decades of filmmaking place him in the top rank of American avant-gardists. His films are beloved by academics for their didactic and self-referential qualities, but they have an allusive and poetic side that’s been less appreciated.” — Fred Camper, Chicago Reader