 | George Landow (also known as Owen Land) was an experimental film-maker, painter, writer ad photographer. His reputation as an avant garde film-maker, marked him as one of the early artists of the "structural film" movement in the United States in the 1960s. An artistic movement that made the actual film, the celluloid itself, a central element of their films. Films often contained the strobe "flicker" of the projector, both visually and aurally. A fixed camera position, and looped off-centre film, showing the sprocket holes. Landow eventually began to parody the concept of structural film in his work in the mid to late 1970s. Even parodying his own earlier work. He would employ the use of long complex witty titles for his films, that displayed a sense of humour that was often missing in much of the overly serious and self-regarding avant garde art movement. |
One of Landow's most well known pieces of film is called "Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc." (1966). It was made using found footage, a technique he would often employ. In this case, a strip of film used by the Kodak company to as a "leader" test colour reproduction. The original short piece of film was looped, so that it lasted 6 minutes. On first screening, it had to be stopped part way through due to adverse audience reaction. The more the film was played on its loop, the more it would collect dust and scratches, which Landow would sometimes stand-up and point out at screenings.
| The film is considered an important piece in experimental film-making. The bland piece of found footage, seemingly unending forcing the viewer to examine the immediacy of "film", rather than its visual content, or any form of narrative. With Film Which There Appears... You are watching "the" film, not a film in the conventional sense of the meaning. If ever asked what his film was about, it is likely that Landow would have answered... "It's about 6 minutes!" | |
