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Tentatively, Convenience's Reviews > Abstract Film and Beyond
Abstract Film and Beyond
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It's strange. I'm an abstract filmmaker from time to time, an experimental one, an underground one, a materialist one, a structuralist one, a documentarian, someone outside of previously existing categories. I take this stuff seriously: the history, the theory, the sense of purpose.. - &, yet, I'm amazed that such bks exist! I'm amazed that MIT wd publish such a thing. It's so SERIOUS & so outside the concerns of most people. Seeing it published is like seeing an endangered species nourished by more than one person. I understand why I care but I'm not so sure I understand why enuf other people do so to enable this bk & all the others that I have that're like it to exist. Having seen the Carnegie Museum of Art Film & Video Department winked out of existence & the Andy Warhol Museum Film & Video Department debilitated almost beyond existence, it's almost as if I expect bks like this to just disappear - never to be reprinted - embodying a lost knowledge.
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Michael
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Feb 26, 2008 08:13AM
I used to own and worship a copy of this book when it first came out. LeGrice had come to a meeting/screening of OASIS in L.A. and shown a couple of his films. I remember that one member of the group, the outspoken and flamboyant writer and filmaker, William Moritz (author of "Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger"), really hated LeGrice's work, and let him have it. He said something to the effect of: "Come on, you've got to be kidding, this is just plain boring!" Quite a conversation ensued after that.
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Yeah, it's funny. I've only seen one or 2 of LeGrice's films & I thought they were atrocious! Poorly filmed super-8 of a bare lightbulb or some such. Still, he's got a deep knowledge of the subject. Of course, just b/c a person can write a good bk on abstract film, doesn't mean that their films are necessarily fascinating. Personally, I'd like to see them all - a whole retrospective - so that I can judge. Instead, I only get to see them thru Jefferson Presents - &, then, only rarely. It reminds me of when I finally got to see the films of Gregory Markopolous - after reading about them for decades. I HATED THEM. But at least I finally got to see them.
