Description

An icon of the American avant-garde, Hollis Frampton made rigorous, audacious, brainy, and downright thrilling films, leaving behind a body of work that remains unparalleled. In the 1960s, having already been a poet and a photographer, Frampton became fascinated with the possibilities of 16 mm filmmaking. In such radically playful and visually and sonically arresting works as Surface Tension, Zorns Lemma, (nostalgia), Critical Mass, and the enormous, unfinished Magellan cycle (cut short by his death at age forty-eight), Frampton repurposes cinema itself, making it into something by turns literary, mathematical, sculptural, and simply beautiful—and always captivating. This collection of works by the essential artist—the first release of its kind—includes twenty-four films, dating from 1966 to 1979.

Special Features

• New high-definition digital restorations of all twenty-four films, with uncompressed monaural audio on the sound films on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary and remarks by filmmaker Hollis Frampton on selected works
• Excerpted interview with Frampton from 1978
• A Lecture, a performance piece by Frampton, recorded in 1968 with the voice of artist Michael Snow
• Gallery of works from Frampton’s xerographic series By Any Other Name
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an introduction by film critic Ed Halter; essays and capsules on the films by Frampton scholars Bruce Jenkins, Ken Eisenstein, and Michael Zryd; and a piece by film preservationist Bill Brand

Collection Includes

EARLY FILMS

• Manual of Arms (1966 • 17 minutes, 10 seconds • Black & White • Silent)
• Process Red (1966 • 3 minutes, 37 seconds • Color • Silent)
• Maxwell’s Demon (1968 • 3 minutes, 44 seconds • Color • Mono)
• Surface Tension (1968 • 9 minutes, 30 seconds • Color • Mono)
• Carrots & Peas (1969 • 5 minutes, 21 seconds • Color • Mono)
• Lemon (1969 • 7 minutes, 17 seconds • Color • Silent)

• Zorns Lemma (1970 • 59 minutes, 51 seconds • Color • Mono)

FILMS FROM HAPAX LEGOMENA

• (nostalgia) (1971 • 36 minutes, 7 seconds • Black & White • Mono)
• Poetic Justice (1972 • 31 minutes, 28 seconds • Black & White • Silent)
• Critical Mass (1971 • 25 minutes, 11 seconds • Black & White • Mono)

FILMS FROM MAGELLAN

• The Birth of Magellan
  The Birth of Magellan: Cadenza I (1977–1980 • 5 minutes, 41 seconds • Color • Mono)
• Straits of Magellan
  Pans 0–4 and 697–700 (1969–74 • 1-minute each • Color • Silent)
  INGENIVM NOBIS IPSA PVELLA FECIT, Part I (1975 • 4 minutes, 48 seconds • Color • Silent)
  Magellan: At the Gates of Death, Part I: The Red Gate 1, 0 (1976 • 5 minutes, 10 seconds • Color • Silent)
  Winter Solstice (1974 • 32 minutes, 36 seconds • Color • Silent)
• The Death of Magellan
  Gloria! (1979 • 9 minutes, 36 seconds • Color • Mono)