Avant-Garde, Experimental & Non-narrative Films

[Gregory]

Uh, the discussion was purely about image quality - my argument being that the films move so fast that DVD resolution is less of an impediment to projection that in the case of, say, Playtime. That there is less time to perceive the details (and imperfections) that exist within each image. This was in no way a value judgement of the films in question (nor was my use of the word amateur).

There are a few separate points I'd like to make -- might as well put them in a list.
1) There's no way you can limit this discussion to just resolution. First, there are major differences in the texture of light between celluloid and digital, which are fundamental characteristics of vastly different media and mechanisms of projection/display rather than merely a question of resolution. But if you disagree with this, fine. There are also undeniable problems that mpeg2 compression introduces particularly with films like Brakhage's painted films. (I assume those are the main works you have in mind when you say "the films move so fast.") To me, this issue seems not irrelevant, but perhaps less problematic with films that employ more conventional, predictable movement, or those in which the precise form of motion is not as key to the experience. I think it's wrong to chalk this distinction up to anyone necessarily being pretentious.

2) There are more differences between film and video that one could point to, but this would invite more insistence that the effects of these differences are not really perceptible, or that the difference in perception is somehow negligible. In fact, the line between perceptible and imperceptible is not only a fine one, it's generally impossible to determine and with any precision at all because neuroscientists (not to mention philosophers of mind, etc.) have only come so far in figuring out how our sensory apparatus and minds process visual stimuli. But in many cases, of course, experience can tell us a lot about our perceptions, so I think it's unfair to dismiss people's feelings that certain film experiences were not recreated well by video, or to assume that it must have been a result of the type of digital projector they were using.

3) I would personally be careful about predicting the death of a longstanding medium or technology, especially making dramatic predictions within a close timeframe. People are always predicting that such-and-such "will soon be a thing of the past" (a phrase that appears somewhere inside just about every issue of Wired magazine) and these predictions usually turn out to be completely wrong.

4) Trivial, but I'm curious: if you did not mean "amateur" or "semi-amateur" as a put-down, then what was the point in using it as a qualification in your description of Brakhage's films?

Edit, after reading Nothing's next post: Just as I expected, I've been wasting my time again.

[planetjake]

Do you really think that to appreciate Brakhage's painted films it is necessary to 'properly process' every single frame of the film?

Uh, the discussion was purely about image quality - my argument being that the films move so fast that DVD resolution is less of an impediment to projection that in the case of, say, Playtime. That there is less time to perceive the details (and imperfections) that exist within each image. This was in no way a value judgement of the films in question (nor was my use of the word amateur).

To Foggy, I repeat "If a digital projector was good enough". They're not good enough - yet - although they're getting close. Take the setup you would find in a professional D/I suite: a high-end 4k projector and a relatively small screen; if this weren't extremely close to the 35mm version of a film it would be a useless and very expensive tool. In any case, you conveniently ignored the first part of my argument: that Snow's work could pass from film into the digital realm and back to film and even he wouldn't notice the difference. That the audience always views a copy is, in fact, key. This is the difference between a painting and a film, the place where this 'artbook' analogy falls down. A better analogy would be a record-collector saying that a vinyl recording is 'medium specific', that if you listen to the SACD or DVD-A then you haven't heard the recording "at all" - and everyone knowing that the poor old guy is just past it.

How is rudimentary bad? How does it qualify as a negative criticism?

Rudimentary means basic and, yes, in this context it is a negative (and utterly preposterous) criticism. You clearly have no grasp of even the most rudimentary basics of cinematography. Whether or not you like the films in question is another issue.

Qualify the term "nothingness".

Film projection equipment will malfunction and degrade and new equipment will not be available - 16mm equipment being the first to go. Prints will degrade and labs will stop dealing with 16mm, eventually 35mm also. Theatres and academic institutions will move away from film projection into digital projection, it being simpler and more economical. Internet download / streaming will eventually replace all other modes of distribution. Ultimately, films that have not been transfered into the digital realm will be lost forever.

Of course in reality what will happen is that Snow will die, his estate will be looking for a pay check and people will be watching Wavelength of their i-Phones before you know it.

From the dictionary, folks: Rudimentary: Pertaining to rudiments or first principles; elementary: a rudimentary knowledge of geometry. They are narrative filmmakers and their rudimentary knowledge of filmmaking serves their dramatic work. In fact it's what they can do with their rudimentary knowledge of aesthetics that makes them so special, no? You need a rudimentary knowledge to make tables and chairs. You need a rudimentary knowledge to make dramatic work. I have given you numerous opportunities to explain yourself. You instead choose to insult me without reason (and without qualification). Well it's my turn. You have failed to clarify ANYTHING. You have failed to adequately explain your ideas. You have failed at properly interpreting the context of our conversation. You have failed to convince ANYONE active in the thread that you make any sense whatsoever. You are talking out of your ass, acting like a complete moron and insulting the intelligence of everyone on this forum. You. Are. A. Failure. Any reply to this post from you that doesn't begin with "I'm sorry Daddy, please don't spank me or embarrass me in front of our dinner guests, I'm afraid I might wet myself" will be ignored.

[Nothing]

Just because a filmmaker employs narrative techniques that doesn't make their filmmaking rudimentary - don't worry, you'll learn this by the time you get out of high school. The funny thing is, you object so vociferously to being type-casting and yet, with each post, you comform more and more convincingly to the cliche. It's quite sad, really.

[planetjake]

Just because a filmmaker employs narrative techniques that doesn't make their filmmaking rudimentary - don't worry, you'll learn this by the time you get out of high school. The funny thing is, you object so vociferously to being type-casting and yet, with each post, you comform more and more convincingly to the cliche. It's quite sad, really.

Once again, you're not responding to anything I wrote. You are (again) responding to what you chose to read into what I'm saying. Once again you are childishly insulting me. And once again I'm telling you to fuck yourself.

[Nothing]

I thought you were ignoring me :-"

[MichaelB]

This would be wildly inappropriate in an avant-garde/experimental thread under normal circumstances, but...

[foggy eyes]

To Foggy, I repeat "If a digital projector was good enough". They're not good enough - yet - although they're getting close. Take the setup you would find in a professional D/I suite: a high-end 4k projector and a relatively small screen; if this weren't extremely close to the 35mm version of a film it would be a useless and very expensive tool. In any case, you conveniently ignored the first part of my argument: that Snow's work could pass from film into the digital realm and back to film and even he wouldn't notice the difference. That the audience always views a copy is, in fact, key. This is the difference between a painting and a film, the place where this 'artbook' analogy falls down. A better analogy would be a record-collector saying that a vinyl recording is 'medium specific', that if you listen to the SACD or DVD-A then you haven't heard the recording "at all" - and everyone knowing that the poor old guy is just past it.

All this, for one thing, is why the "copies" (which I maintain is an irrelevant argument) have to be projected on film. I'm not at all convinced that digital will be able to replicate the quality of light that one gets from its passage through the film strip, but that's an argument for another day!

[Nothing]

Gregory, if you review the last couple of pages you'll see that I've never denied the many drawbacks of present digital technology in comparison to celluloid (and if we're to talk about celluloid vs. digital as an acquisition format then, god, that's a whole other level). There's no greater advocate of the genuine theatrical experience than myself.

You're taking it a bit far, however, when you say "there are major differences in the texture of light between celluloid and digital". Light is light, it has no texture. Film has grain; film has greater resolution; film has greater latitude; film has deeper colour space; film is uncompressed. The nature of film projection also means that 50% of the time you're staring into darkness (although, as I say, this could be replicated digitally). The light, however - that's coming from a bulb. I can, therefore, envisage a day when digital projection is able to accurately replicate the qualities of film projection. Truly, we have to hope that this occurs, as digital projection is going to replace celluloid whether we like it or not. This is not a 'prediction' - it is already happening, digital 'networks' are stretching across the globe. Of course, some rep houses will maintain 35mm equipment for the time being but 16mm is already on the way out. Most festivals now refuse to screen from 16mm, whereas a decade ago it was commonplace. And note the story above about the avant-garde film professor who now has to carry his own aging 16mm projector with him into classes: what better symbol could there be for the way all this is headed.

So coming back to Blu-Ray: no, it doesn't compare to 35mm or even 16mm. Watching a Blu-Ray of ANY celluloid work one isn't getting the FULL experience. On the other hand, it is a closer approximation than any home video format that has gone before. Grain structure is visible, for example, especially if taken from a 16mm source. And, given the enormity of the canon that is already available on DVD (Antonioni and Kubrick were merely illustrative examples, Brakhage is another), I don't believe anyone has made an effective argument here as to why Snow (or Benning's) work is so special - why it can't possibly be appreciated in HD projection, even if film projection is presently superior. Honestly, what's so henious about the idea of reaching a wider audience? Expand the audience through a high-profile Criterion release and perhaps these 16mm film events of yours can sustain themselves for a few years longer... I understand that Snow doesn't WANT the work seen that way - but he's not God, he's a human being, and human being gets things wrong. Kafka wanted his manuscripts burnt also, but luckily his friends didn't feel the same way.

[Gregory]

Stating that film distribution and projection will be totally dead in five years most certainly is a prediction, thus my comments about that. There are certainly signs that it's becoming less prominent, such as the use of 16mm in classrooms having become rare -- but that's not even anything recent.

I understand your points that certain things like the flickering effect of film projection could be replicated by Blu-Ray, and so on, but the salient point for this discussion is what exists now. Your calling on Criterion to release more avant-garde films is not something I disagree with per se, quite the contrary. However, in light of the news about By Brakhage 2 not coming out on Blu-Ray, it seems we're talking about what would be SD releases from them. And I can fathom quite a few reasons why an independent filmmaker might not want their films on regular old-fashioned DVD, particularly with a lot of the postwar avant-garde stuff. For a number of different reasons, I especially bristled at Stereo's suggestion that the solution is to make one's own DVDs of Snow's films from mp3 files. Anyway, those kinds of problems are what's relevant to the question of whether we should making everything available in whatever form, no matter what -- not what the limitations of digital might be in the future.
The more philosophical question raised by watching abstract films (and other kinds, to a lesser extent) on mp3 video or streaming is akin to asking whether someone who sees a slightly blurry 3" x 5" reproduction of a painting printed with cheap ink on newsprint has "really seen" the work in any sense. I don't think there's any simple answer to that question, but frankly I would lean toward "no" rather than "yes."

[MichaelB]

The more philosophical question raised by watching abstract films (and other kinds, to a lesser extent) on mp3 video or streaming is akin to asking whether someone who sees a slightly blurry 3" x 5" reproduction of a painting printed with cheap ink on newsprint has "really seen" the work in any sense. I don't think there's any simple answer to that question, but frankly I would lean toward "no" rather than "yes."

For a really dramatic example of the differences, compare the YouTube version of Jeff Keen's Marvo Movie with the version on the BFI's Blu-ray edition.

Although they're both sourced from the same HD encode (I should perhaps stress that the YouTube version is entirely legit, for once), the Blu-ray is light years ahead in its reproduction not just of the film's grain structure but also its surface texture (Keen often interfered with the actual physical celluloid in postproduction, but you can't really make this out in lower-res versions).

And as the YouTube version proves, streaming is particularly poorly suited to rapid-fire material like this - I've got a pretty good broadband connection, but it still stuttered and pixilated regularly on my system.

[stereo]

For a number of different reasons, I especially bristled at Stereo's suggestion that the solution is to make one's own DVDs of Snow's films from mp3 files

Bristle away; it was meant to be provocative, not to insult your intelligence. My implied point through an extreme example simply aimed to shift the discussion from auteur intent toward viewer's rights to accessing art history (it appears we have none). That is to suggest in a manifesto-y manner to wrest the means of 'distribution' from the elitists and empower the masses. Again, merely to provoke discussion, not insults as seems the norm around here.

but frankly I would lean toward "no" rather than "yes."

And here I clearly lean toward yes, a difference of opinion, and one which (I believe) the filmmakers do not have exclusive control over. Viewers' responses, aesthetic priorities, and what we see as 'authentic' I at least do not believe are limited to the opinion or intent of the filmmakers. I'm glad to have their opinions and I know my DVD is/may not be how they intended me to see it, but I (like many others) are entitled to our own aesthetic priorities. There is nothing objective about aesthetics. (See Kant's Critique of Judgment for more fun loving writing on this.)

What I 'bristle' at are presumptions that existing avant-garde/experimental distribution is adequate (it is not for those outside major metropolitan areas) and that someone without archival access should avoid sites like Ubuweb with the mere hope that someday s/he'll find an archive retrospective on vacation to experience that object in any manner. Further, for academics, that would make detailed research difficult, if not impossible in many cases.

Should I really annoy you now? I 'love' my subtitled bootleg of Out 1 that I will likely never be able to see in the preferred (non-video) context. I love my Raro Warhol discs, too. Would I love to see them in theatres or archives projected at correct speeds? Absolutely. Will the video versions sate me for now? yes. Again, viewers gather an 'approximation of intent' but do we really ever grasp more than that in any context? As a matter of degree, I would love to see them in suggested contexts, but reality prevents that in most cases. I do get wary of the 'vanguard' when it supports policing the gaze; aesthetics are political. For me at least, the avant-garde is about promoting new ways of seeing, not protecting the old as immutable artifacts.

Guy Maddin's view on YouTube/piracy (I think he still counts as vanguard)

[Gregory]

I should point out that I'm actually sympathetic with most of the Ubuweb manifesto, and that I'm hardly a purist. I have a few things burned to DVD-R, but all are regular studio-produced films by filmmakers who are dead and can no longer control the distribution of their work, which has some relevance I think. The question of artists' estates is another can of worms. I also have heaps of CD-Rs, mostly things that have been long out of print or otherwise impossible to obtain, but I'm taking actual CDs, not downloads, and importing them as AIFF files with no compression, so this is not really analogous to burning Ubuweb files to DVD. Anyway, I'm not trying to take any kind of morally superior position at all.

Existing film distribution is hardly perfect, but then what is? My main concern about things like Ubuweb is that I'm not sure most users really understand the compromise they're making. Even aside from questions of technical inferiority, I think there's a loss of curatorial integrity presenting itself here, a problem of which people generally seem to have little or no awareness. I actually have never looked at most of what's on Ubu, but from what I've seen the information they provide is sometimes erroneous. What's worse, it seems that emails to them requesting these errors be changed have gone unanswered. Yes, I understand that they're totally volunteer-run and have no funding -- but QED, it's fraught with problems of its own.

As for independent filmmakers as elitists lording their control over the masses, I couldn't disagree more. The masses are watching the latest Terminator, Star Trek, X-men, and Night at the Museum Sequels, and the oppression going on with all that has been the consolidation of control over media in the hands of a few giant conglomerates who integrate everything vertically and the destruction of real diversity and egalitarianism in the sharing of culture. Filmmakers and distributors in the spirit of Brakhage are in opposition to all that. Major cities have always had more of that kind of culture to offer -- it's hardly the doing of artists.

[stereo]

My main concern about things like Ubuweb is that I'm not sure most users really understand the compromise they're making.

Fair 'nuff.

The masses are watching the latest Terminator, Star Trek, X-men, and Night at the Museum Sequels, and the oppression going on with all that has been the consolidation of control over media in the hands of a few giant conglomerates who integrate everything vertically and the destruction of real diversity and egalitarianism in the sharing of culture.

You see, and here is where I would take it one step further, or at least evaluate that statement in a different light...and thus we should free the masses from chains, by giving them options, the chance for exposure and change. You seem to have a very negative view of the masses which I do not share and also which I don't think limiting distribution supports changing. Still, it seems at the end of the day, we probably agree on more things than disagree Gregory.

[MichaelB]

Guy Maddin's view on YouTube/piracy (I think he still counts as vanguard)

Well, I treasure a recorded telephone interview with Maddin in which he warmly encouraged me to make stuff up if I needed to check facts and couldn't contact him in advance of a tight deadline, so I'm not sure how representative he is of typical independent filmmaker opinion!

Of course some filmmakers welcome online free-for-alls, and that's fine (provided they control the rights to their own work, though that's a different can of worms altogether and best thrashed out between the filmmaker and the rightsholder). But just because some do doesn't mean that we have the right to assume that they all do, because we all know perfectly well that that isn't the case.

Just out of interest, where would you stand on something like the Quay Brothers' The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode, which I know for a fact they want buried and forgotten? (They made this very clear when I went down their filmography with them, title by title). I daresay there are still a few VHS copies floating around, since it was broadcast on Channel 4 in the early 1980s, but given the artists' adamant opposition to its continued circulation, what gives anyone else the "right" to take on its distribution, especially given that such distribution would be illegal by definition? It's all very well talking about "the chance for exposure", but in this case the artists themselves don't want the exposure!

[stereo]

Just out of interest, where would you stand on something like the Quay Brothers' The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode, which I know for a fact they want buried and forgotten?

Do you know where I can get a copy? O:) J/K Seriously though, I've never heard of it, but I do love the Quays. You make an interesting point, but I don't think you'll like my answer. Not to invoke Kubrick again, but for the same reason I sought out Fear and Desire for years, I might very well seek out that film by the Quays as well. Kubrick is/was entitled to his opinion as is his estate, but damn, if you love Kubrick how could you not want to see that?! I love art history as process (one of the primary reasons I also love experimental film), but I also love 'auteur' as process --how did they come to be major artists and where did they slip and fall along the way. What mistakes were made (if any) and corrected or reacted to in their later films? So, my curiosity would probably get the best of me.

[MichaelB]

Just out of interest, where would you stand on something like the Quay Brothers' The Eternal Day of Michel de Ghelderode, which I know for a fact they want buried and forgotten?

Do you know where I can get a copy?

I believe you can book a research viewing at the BFI National Archive, but they don't let you take copies home with you. At least not without the copyright holder's permission, which in this case you can absolutely guarantee you won't get!

[vogler]

I do mostly understand where you're coming from Stereo. I have a profound love of avant-garde cinema and it is my own personal artform of choice. I've been lucky enough to see a number of key works projected properly from decent quality film prints, however the vast majority of films which have had an incredible artistic impact on me have been viewed via video sources. These sources have ranged from excellent quality (as good as possible) DVD sources to terrible quality downloaded VHS rips. If it weren't for all this video material I would never have been able to see even a tiny fraction of the films that have been such a huge inspiration for me. If I can get to a film screening then obviously that is the method of choice, if I can get hold of a decent quality DVD then I'm happy to be seeing a reasonable approximation of the film on an official release. If need be, if there is absolutely no other way, then I will download bad quality VHS rips so that I can at least get some idea of the work that particular artists have been involved in. Of course I don't try to fool myself into thinking that this viewing experience is anywhere near that envisioned by the creators of the work (and I'm not saying enyone else is fooling themselves).

I certainly want to see more avant-garde films released on DVD - as many as possible in fact. The ironic thing about the Snow/Brakhage debate is that attempting to encode Brakhage's films digitally, especially on SD DVD, is just about the most difficult thing you could ever attempt with the medium. Yet he did agree to it, and the results exceeded everyone's expectations by far - even Fred Camper expressed his surprise at how much of the original intent did make it through to the DVDs. The films of Michael Snow, or at least the ones I've seen, would actually be far less challenging as they are nowhere near as frenetic and dense as Brakhage's. This would apply even more to the films of James Benning that I've seen, all of which have been very slow in pace and almost entirely static.

In the case of Michael Snow the choice is entirely his, and I can perfectly understand his point of view. I've been trying for more than a year to successfully encode my own 16mm films in SD DVD and I'm only now starting to approach something acceptable thanks to a few recent encoding discoveries. I do think it's worth it for artists to at least try to do a transfer and see how it works out. The results, in many cases, would probably be able to maintain the majority of the intent of the original works. It can be such a valuable thing for people to have access to great works from art history. It promotes a love of art, inspires creativity and can be so beneficial to many people who otherwise would never have had a chance to experience these works. It makes me think how much poorer I would be if I had never seen the images of so many great works of art printed in books, the majority of which I'll probably never be able to see in reality. Or if I'd never heard the weird and wonderful sounds of Harry Partch and his hand made instruments reproduced on CD (of course the acoustics of these sounds can never truly be reproduced with any recording technology), or all the other composers and musicians that I have only had the chance to experience through recordings. All of this experience enriches our understanding and appreciation of art and creates a desire to experience more, to visit galleries, to attend film screenings, to visit the concert hall etc.

[stereo]

I believe you can book a research viewing at the BFI National Archive, but they don't let you take copies home with you. At least not without the copyright holder's permission, which in this case you can absolutely guarantee you won't get!

See, but now you're making my points for me! No worries MichaelB, I do understand your point --and I certainly recognize you're also arguing on the right side of the law. Like yourself/ves, I do worry about absolutes, questions of authenticity, the limits of intentionality, censorship, 'objective' aesthetics, encroaching politics, archival access, and the future of cinema; just from a different perspective. Hence, I think it's worth promoting rather than shutting off the debate valve. That said, I'm going to perform some hypocrisy here as I now need to ditch out of this conversation for the next four days. I have to take off for an anniversary vacation with the missus.

[MichaelB]

No worries MichaelB, I do understand your point --and I certainly recognize you're also arguing on the right side of the law.

Given my job, I have to! That said, I've got an ongoing work-in-progress double-disc DVD-R of what I hope will be my next project, the films sourced from whatever materials I can lay my hands on (everything from umpteenth-generation dupe VHS to DVD rip).

But its function is essentially illustrative of my plans rather than any kind of adequate substitute for the official version (assuming it ever happens), and it's clearly not for anything other than the most limited circulation.

[vogler]

That said, I've got an ongoing work-in-progress double-disc DVD-R of what I hope will be my next project,

Hmmm, I wonder what this could be (Please let it be The Complete Short Films of ****************). I imagine I'd be more than happy with any project you'd be likely to choose though.

*Edited to remove name just in case I'm right.

I just thought of something else that is relevant to the issue of Michael Snow not wanting his films on DVD. In fact this may even be the crux of the matter. For some reason I didn't recall this point until a moment ago.

Here is an excerpt from an interview with Snow that can be found here.

"I had just gone through something in Paris with a guy named Pip Chodorov who has something called Re-Voir Editions (and its US affiliate). He is doing video transfers of experimental films." "...we selected Rameau's Nephew which is about four and a half hours long from 1974. At first I thought it should be on DVD because it is made up of 30 different sections which are really quite separate because they do not have any narrative continuity. Inevitably it appeared to me that if you would want to own it you would want to be able to flip between the chapters. It was never designed to do that because it was supposed to work by pilling all these things up in your mind so that in the viewing of the film in a theater situation you learn the language of the film. It is a temporal experience. But since I had given up on that by accepting to make this version that people can dip into I thought it should be DVD. Well any way Pip Chodorov, who is an American Filmmaker who was been living in Paris for about 10 to 15 years, convinced me against DVD because of the compression issues and he demonstrated this for me. Obviously for some things, narrative films, this would not be noticeable, but for anything that has a concern for single frames there will be distortions that are going to affect the translation. He pointed out certain things in Rameau's Nephew that would not come out as well on DVD as on tape. So oddly enough we are putting out Rameau's Nephew on two video tapes. I wish I could be more precise about his technical objections but he convinced me against DVD at this point in time. Even though he thinks that DVD will be improved in the future. (A brief description of Chodorov’s technological objections can be read here Filmmaker Magazine ).

So Michael Snow's objections to DVD would seem to stem entirely from Pip Chodorov. Chodorov has always been vehemently against DVD. He makes a lot of good points but a number of them are bogus in my opinion. There are also many things about Rameau's Nephew that would come out better on DVD than tape. In fact I think VHS would do far more damage to the film, in far more important ways, than a well encoded DVD would. I seem to recall Chodorov referring to those who prefer DVD to VHS as having been "brainwahsed" by big corporations, but many who have seen the Criterion Brakhage DVDs would beg to differ.

[planetjake]

Isn't Rameau's Nephew being released by re:voir on Blu-Ray? Rumor also has it that he's doing a transfer of Anticipation of the Night.

[vogler]

Isn't Rameau's Nephew being released by re:voir on Blu-Ray?

I wasn't aware of that but it sounds very likely. Pip Chodorov has been planning to start releasing films on Blu-Ray for years. He seems to feel that Blu-Ray has overcome the worst of the problems he associates with DVD. In many ways this is probably correct although it's still far from perfect. The resolution is higher but I'm still not sure if the compression issues will be resolved. Obviously there is a far greater capacity on a Blu-Ray disc than a DVD, but on the other hand there is far more data to be encoded because the resolution is higher. I'm about a million miles from being an expert on Blu-Ray though, so I'll say no more. I hope his Blu-Ray releases go well.

If re:voir start releasing on Blu-Ray then I may have to seriously consider getting into HD asap (though unfortuantely ASAP is not in the foreseeable future for me).

[Gregory]

You seem to have a very negative view of the masses which I do not share and also which I don't think limiting distribution supports changing.

I don't think that's true at all, and I don't know what I said that would have given that impression. I simply rattled off a list of the movies the largest numbers of the masses are flocking to see right now as part of the point I was making, which I thought made it pretty clear that the growing influence and reach of corporate conglomerates over the past few decades is the main thing shaping the world of media. The masses are not trying to get ahold of works by avant-garde filmmakers, but that's not a negative commentary on them; they've just had a steady diet of completely different stuff shoved down their throats their whole lives. But this is really a tangent.

[ptmd]

It's certainly true that Pip has convinced a number of people to release their films through Re:Voir on VHS but not DVD, but I don't think that's the only reason Snow is resistant to putting Wavelength and La Region Centrale on any video format. Presents and Rameau's Nephew are both on VHS now and Blu-Rays are forthcoming; the works lose a lot in that format, obviously, just like any film, but because they're more rooted in the time-based than the perceptual/mechanical aspects of cinema, they still survive in some capacity. Wavelength and La Region Centrale, focused as they are on the specific properties of the film camera and projector, wouldn't work the same way on a video monitor and that's why Snow wants them to remain film-only works.

I really don't understand this assumption that every work ever made, especially small-gauge avant-garde films that have always existed on the margins and were never intended for commercial theatrical release, has to be immediately available to anyone at any time. There are more prints of Snow's films now than there have ever been and they screen all over the place, just like they always have. The only thing that's made them slightly harder to see in recent years is that many colleges and universities have dramatically slashed film rental budgets and eliminated 16mm projectors as a cost-saving measure (sadly, some festivals have done this as well). That's extremely unfortunate and I wish it would change, but the only thing keeping the coops operating - and the prints circulating - at this point are the rental fees they get from (relatively) high-profile films like Wavelength. I'm not saying that justifies anything or that it's a good situation long term, but it is the reality of things right now and it is one of the many things affecting these decisions.

[vogler]

...but I don't think that's the only reason Snow is resistant to putting Wavelength and La Region Centrale on any video format.

No, I think you're right about that. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Snow said many years ago that he had no intention to ever release Wavelength on video. I have no idea about La Region Centrale though. There is some kind of a digital VHS rip version out there. I wonder what the source of that would have been. He certainly doesn't seem to be entirely against the idea of his films being released on video though.