From: kenneth wayne peralta (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Jan 22 2006 - 13:01:19 PST
dear james harding,
when you step immediately into the invective and hurl personal insults, it's
hard to take you seriously.
but in response:
1 - it was me who pulled the premiere from rotterdam. whether this was
constructive or not is immaterial. the film is not finished and can't be
premiered. the film can't be finished until the photographs licensed and
paid for are in it.
we accepted an invitation to premiere in rotterdam based on written
assurances by jim hoberman that the photonegatives would be forthcoming.
last week when jim made it clear he would not provide the negatives in time
to make the rotterdam screening, i wrote the festival director to pull the
premiere.
the film will have two work-in-progress screenings on 31-jan and 2-feb.
2 - it was my production company (not mary) who filed legal action in the
new york supreme court against jim hoberman and penny arcade's plaster
foundation. it's been over three years since we licensed and paid for 40
negatives from jack smith under a contract. after months-on-end of being
volleyed around from one to the next to the next plaster foundation
representative, followed by months of unreturned correspondences, i was left
with no alternative except to pursue legal action to enforce our rights.
3 - from the outset of this project it's been mary's intent to focus on a
specific group of jack smith's photographs. for the most part, this is why
we undertook finishing to 1080 lines of vertical resolution; to feature jack
smith's photography.
the assertion we should be satisfied with scans from contact sheets
befuddles, as does the implication that mary should be grateful to work with
crumbs doled out by jack smiths gatekeepers.
jack smith was a master photographer. shouldn't his work be featured? what
are the grounds on which hoberman should be de-facto gatekeeper of a
national heritage? is being a sacred cow of the avant-garde enough for you?
or being at the right place at the right time?
4 - mary's film is not finished and has never been publicly screened. your
statements are simply not true. assemblages of interview sequences were
shown at both shows mary did, as were elements that will be included in her
film. your authority on this subject is vacant, though your emotional
reaction against mary seems real enough.
sincerely,
kenneth wayne peralta
On 1/22/06 8:45 AM, "James Harding" <email suppressed> wrote:
> Is this supposed to be constructive? Pulling your own film out of Rotterdam?
> Use your brains, folks! We all know that Mary Jordan finished the film and
> already showed it publicly several times. This is a great publicity
> gimmick that she needs to pull because her so called “documentary” is going
> to need all the help it can get to convince people that it actually SAYS
> something about Jack Smith and his work.
>
> I was at a film screening last week and another filmmaker told me that she
> and her production company have already filed a multi million dollar lawsuit
> against the plaster foundation: the people who actually saved and preserved
> Smith’s work. She’s probably trying to gain control over the Smith Estate.
> She has slandered decent people everywhere she goes: Hurt HER feelings??
> Are you freakin crazy?? That woman has stepped all over YOUR colleagues and
> people that have helped the American Avant Garde Cinema and worked without
> thanks or recognition– and she does so with an arrogance that has NO real
> understanding of film history.
>
> When she showed her Jack Smith Circus Show in NY last year, wasn't it clear
> that she has hundreds of photographs and many hours of film footage? Use
> your brains, people: why is she pulling this stunt over “40 images”???
> PUBLICITY !! needed to make up for the rancid failure of her own mediocre
> film.
>
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> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.