Description
Book SynopsisThis book is a groundbreaking and comprehensive account of Hollis Frampton's work in its totality, from his earliest films through the unfinished epic Magellan.
Trade ReviewAt long last, we have an authoritative guide to the work of one of experimental film’s most intriguing and polymathic figures. Through his meticulous study of Hollis Frampton’s unfinished
Magellan project, Michael Zryd illuminates the filmmaker’s oeuvre as a whole, shedding light on the relationship among cinema, modernism, and epistemology. -- Erika Balsom, author of
After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in CirculationHollis Frampton was a rigorous and complex individual, as well as a passionate and generous filmmaker/teacher. As a “Meta-Historian” of film, his radical work bridged the fields of cinema, poetry, mathematics, photography, xerography and early digital art. He made one of the defining films of the structural film canon,
Zorns Lemma (1970), following it with the seminal, (anti-)autobiographical work
nostalgia (1971).
Magellan (1976-) was perhaps Frampton’s equivalent to Wagner’s Ring Cycle; an epic, wildly ambitious, calendrical film cycle lasting 36 hours that was only partially completed before his tragic premature death in 1984. Taking on the intimidating task of deciphering and decoding Frampton’s project from the fragments left behind, Zryd not only renders
Magellan legible for film scholars but contextualizes and evaluates the entire project in hugely readable and nourishing prose. This book will surely become the authoritative text, not only on
Magellan, but on Frampton’s oeuvre as a whole. -- Luke Fowler, filmmaker and artist
Michael Zryd’s elegant treatise on Hollis Frampton’s late metafilms is the first to map the terrain of his accomplishment with commensurate intelligence and comprehensiveness. Zryd synoptically conjugates the master’s filmmaking, photography, and writing as an interlaced summa of the history of cinema and the most prescient bridge to its digital successors. -- David E. James, author of
Power Misses II: Cinema, Asian and ModernZryd brings unmatched expertise to the task of resurrecting Hollis Frampton’s last major work. The strength of this book resides in its ability to make the complexity of this massive cultural and artistic undertaking legible. Even for scholars of avant-garde cinema and veteran viewers of Frampton’s films, it offers revelatory readings. -- Bruce Jenkins, coauthor of
The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné: 1963-1965This groundbreaking book offers a richly layered map for navigating Frampton’s complex films and their intertexts. Devoting particular attention to the epic, encyclopedic, unfinished
Magellan cycle, Zryd takes us on a deep dive into a speculative metahistory grounded in meticulous and expansive research. Frampton finds an articulate and generous interlocutor here: the energy of his last work endures through Zryd’s engagement with the idea of a cinema that moves past all limits, towards the infinite. -- Sarah Keller, author of
Anxious Cinephilia: Pleasure and Peril at the MoviesThis authoritative guide to the avant-garde filmmaker/photographer/theorist has been needed for years; finally, 40 years after Frampton’s death, comes this comprehensive look at his life and career. * The Film Stage *
The author of this volume mirrors his subject's all-embracing approach to the art-making task in hand, rigorously tracking the twists and turns in this remarkable artist's creations and the reverberations he had on the discourses of the day. * Leonardo *
Examining not only the Magellan films but also Frampton’s writings and archival materials, Zryd provides a sort of Bloomsday Book for deciphering this vast project, marking an invaluable contribution to the study of this singular filmmaker. * Cineaste *
An incredibly useful and necessary resource for anyone interested in synthesising Frampton’s theories and reconstructing his cinematic goals, which remain pertinent in the digital age. * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: From the Chemistry of Cobalt to the Chemistry of Dirt
1. A Brief Introduction to Frampton’s Films before Magellan
2. An Introduction to Magellan
3. Metahistory and the Archive: “Historical Necessity” and Tradition
4. Encyclopedism, the Universe, and Everything
5. Archeology: Millennial Allegories of Art, Representation, and Politics in the Camera Arts
6. The Constellation
Conclusion: Virtual Future Metahistory
Notes
Bibliography
Index
