From: Fred Camper (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Feb 16 2010 - 21:34:41 PST
Mark,
I appreciate that you're open to more viewings of the parts of "Hapax
Legomena," and in any case, of course good viewers can disagree about
films. I just wanted to register my disagreement.
But, as you likely agree, some of the greatest works of art in all
media, and certainly in avant-garde film, are not, at least at first,
especially "loving" of, or even "accommodating" of, an audience.
You also wrote, "For me, this brings into question how rigidly the
piece was conceived to begin with (i.e. not at all), and therefore how
religiously we have to relate to it in its finished form as a whole
work (i.e. not as much as one might think)."
Information on the stages a work goes through is interesting, and I
was especially interested to hear of the earlier sound track for
"Ordinary Matter." But just because Frampton's conception of "Hapax
Legomena" changed during the time he was working on it doesn't mean
that the final form isn't perfect, profound, absolute, and all the
rest. Plenty of masterpieces go through many changes as the artist
works on them. Plenty of stinkers were conceived in their final form
by the artist from the beginning. And in both cases, also vice versa.
Fred Camper
Chicago
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