Letter from Hollis Frampton to Sally Dixon
(1/5/1975-1/19/1975)
There are lips, thighs I shall not touch, part, kiss again
There is a path whose end I will never see
Ah, how my passing diminishes the world
Epigraph, MAGELLAN 1/5/75
1/19/75
Dear Sally,
that thing above, the first thing remotely like a poem in nearly twenty years, dropped in one day and I invited it to stay. It looks more like Magellan's epiTAPH than my film's epigraph, but it'll find its way in there someplace.
Thank you for your cheery postalcard from Limburg, It arrived on a glum day, so I'm double grateful. From every account I heard, the Knokke beano was chilly, greasy. Most of all I'm really sorry for Jacques Ledoux, who really broke his ass over it. And I'm sorry that Broughton's new film, and Bill Brand's most recent work, were thrown out by the preselection jury, presumably because they were insufficiently redolent of the warmed-over New York chic of the mid-60’s. But I'm glad, on the other hand, that I didn't accede to Ledoux' wish that I go over my self and be [of all things] a judge. As it was, I’ve heard numerous reports that the European film-makers...and especially the British...were extremely resentful of my retrospective presence there, and detested the films.
Which doesn't leave me feeling very sanguine about going to Europe, as I had thought to late this year or early next and touring. Shit.
Anyhow, about VERNAL EQUINOX. Personally, I just treasure it. It is, I think, a very special work in my own canon, and indeed through-out the film tradition. Whence it came, I ain't got the faintest notion: it came one afternoon all in a rush, and then there was just the very considerable labor of making it. The footage (the original, about 71/2 minutes worth) dated to January, 1970, before ZORNS LEMMA, and was made for no particular reason I could defend. Yours is the first kind word except Bill B's, in whose loft it had its sneak preview. So I thank you. I hope you enjoyed my jittery summer cows as well; me, I find them very amusing
