Screen/Society--AMI Showcase--Michael Snow visit--"Wavelength" + "So Is This" (filmmaker Q&A to follow)

2 Films + Director Q&A: "Wavelength" (Michael Snow, 1967, 45 min, Canada/USA, in English, Color, 16mm). Michael Snow's meditation on cinematic practice, takes the form of a zoom that moves from the end of an 80-foot urban loft to a photograph of waves on the wall at the opposite end of the room. At the beginning of the shot, most of the room is visible. Eventually, the zoom excludes the rest of the room as it focuses on four vertical double windows, three intervening sections of wall space, and a desk, radiator and chairs by the opposite wall. As the zoom progresses, it goes through a series of jerks and jolts between occasional shot changes. Meanwhile, the image passes through a variety of color filters, film stocks, degrees of processing (positive and negative) and light exposures. / "So Is This" (Michael Snow, 1982, 43 min, Canada, Silent, Color, 16mm). Made during the heyday of film theory's infatuation with the textual aspects of the medium and of complex semiotic approaches to the language of cinema, the film is a text in which each shot is a single word, tightly-framed white letters against a black background. Snow manages to defamiliarize both film and language and enters the contemporary debate about film being or not a language./ Related event: Public lecture/presentation by Michael Snow: "Michael Snow Photo-Centric: His photographic work." Feb 17 @ 7pm - CARR 103 / Visit Snow's video installation: "Condensation (A Cove Story)" (Feb 13-Mar 3, Bay 11, Smith Whse)