Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Aesthetics of the Archive: An Introduction
- Chapter 1 Drafts and Fragments: Reflections around Bill Morrison and the Paper Print Collection
- Chapter 2 The Film of Her: The Cine-Poet Laureate of Orphan Films
- Chapter 3 Ghost Trip: Searching for Potential Myths
- Chapter 4 Decasia: The Matter | Image: Film is also a Thing
- Chapter 5 The Mesmerist: Illustrating the Return of the Repressed
- Chapter 6 Light is Calling: Celluloid Dreams
- Chapter 7 Gotham: Zoetrope: Block by Block
- Chapter 8 Outerborough: Early Cinema Revisited
- Chapter 9 The Highwater Trilogy: Thinking the Liquid – On the Ethics of Water and the Material Ecologies of Disaster and Ruination
- Chapter 10 Porch: Archives, Collective Memory, and the Poetics of Home Movies
- Chapter 11 The Future Lasts Long: The Romanov Lost Family Archives
- Chapter 12 Who by Water: Variations on Matter, Figures, Memory, and Mythology
- Chapter 13 Every Stop on the F-Train: Beyond and within the Restless Netherworld of (Manhattan’s) Mind
- Chapter 14 Spark of Being: Bachelor Machine
- Chapter 15 The Miners’ Hymns: Acts of Resurrection
- Chapter 16 Tributes – Pulse: A Requiem for the 20th Century: Death | Drive | Image
- Chapter 17 Just Ancient Loops: The Loops of Life in Intonation
- Chapter 18 The Great Flood: Water is Transparence Derived from the Presence of Everything
- Chapter 19 Re-Awakenings: Bill Morrison in Conversation
- Index of Film Titles
- Index of Names
- Index of Subjects
- Already Published
Chapter 1 - Drafts and Fragments: Reflections around Bill Morrison and the Paper Print Collection
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Aesthetics of the Archive: An Introduction
- Chapter 1 Drafts and Fragments: Reflections around Bill Morrison and the Paper Print Collection
- Chapter 2 The Film of Her: The Cine-Poet Laureate of Orphan Films
- Chapter 3 Ghost Trip: Searching for Potential Myths
- Chapter 4 Decasia: The Matter | Image: Film is also a Thing
- Chapter 5 The Mesmerist: Illustrating the Return of the Repressed
- Chapter 6 Light is Calling: Celluloid Dreams
- Chapter 7 Gotham: Zoetrope: Block by Block
- Chapter 8 Outerborough: Early Cinema Revisited
- Chapter 9 The Highwater Trilogy: Thinking the Liquid – On the Ethics of Water and the Material Ecologies of Disaster and Ruination
- Chapter 10 Porch: Archives, Collective Memory, and the Poetics of Home Movies
- Chapter 11 The Future Lasts Long: The Romanov Lost Family Archives
- Chapter 12 Who by Water: Variations on Matter, Figures, Memory, and Mythology
- Chapter 13 Every Stop on the F-Train: Beyond and within the Restless Netherworld of (Manhattan’s) Mind
- Chapter 14 Spark of Being: Bachelor Machine
- Chapter 15 The Miners’ Hymns: Acts of Resurrection
- Chapter 16 Tributes – Pulse: A Requiem for the 20th Century: Death | Drive | Image
- Chapter 17 Just Ancient Loops: The Loops of Life in Intonation
- Chapter 18 The Great Flood: Water is Transparence Derived from the Presence of Everything
- Chapter 19 Re-Awakenings: Bill Morrison in Conversation
- Index of Film Titles
- Index of Names
- Index of Subjects
- Already Published
Summary
ABSTRACT
Between 1992 and 1996, Bill Morrison has sourced material from the Paper Print Collection at the Library of Congress, in the context of the Ridge Theater stage productions or for the production of what was to become The Film of Her. Using different materials found in Morrison's The Film of Her folder, and drawing parallels between other ‘moments’ in the history of the avant-garde with regards to the collection (namely Ken Jacobs and Hollis Frampton's interest in those films), this essay illuminates the ways Morrison has engaged with these films and how, in a sense, his work points to a paradigm shift in the way we envision the relationship between the avant-garde, the Paper Print collection, and the archive.
KEYWORDS
Hollis Frampton, Ken Jacobs, Library of Congress, Paper Print Collection
I met Bill in a café. He presented me a thick stack of papers, letter and legal format, old faded fax sheets, typed and handwritten notes, packed in a large yellow envelope on which is indicated in black marker: the film of her. He told me there is a lot of stuff in there that may be useful for my research. He mentioned a treatment of The Film of Her when it was called Figments. He also told me about a 100-page fictional script he had written at a time when he had no idea what the film was going to be and was thinking of turning it into a feature film. He also said that a big part of that pile had to do with film and music clearances for The Film of Her. I thanked him and took the folder with me, promising to send it back as quickly as possible.
I had written an email, a couple of weeks earlier, asking him:
By the way, did you by any chance run into any of the stuff I had mentioned when we met in NY last April? I’m looking for material – pretty much anything – that could be in your personal archives, that would have kept a trace of the research queries you were addressing to the LOC to obtain the 16mm films from the paper print collection (or any other piece of documentation that could relate to The Film of Her).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Films of Bill MorrisonAesthetics of the Archive, pp. 31 - 50Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2017