Frampton Comes Alive

Mini-reviews of four Hollis Frampton films screened at Cinema Project last week (thanks to David Abel for the recommendation):

NOCTILUCA (MAGELLAN'S TOYS) (1974) Meditations on the aperture (Galileo's Magellan's, the Lumieres'), with uncanny resolve into MasterCard logo.

OTHERWISE UNEXPLAINED FIRES (1976) If you're going to San Francisco, wear those sad trees that lean into the wind above the Sutro Baths, chrome clockwork horse in Musee Mechanique (still there), & birds from Brakhage's Colorado chicken ranch in your hair. (Come from the east, so movement is against the eye's home syntax.)

WINTER SOLSTICE (SOLARIUMAGELANI) (1974) Primordial fire porn.

MINDFALL PARTS I & VI (BIRTH OF MAGELLAN) (1980) Spanish handhelds taxonomize plant life outside the mission walls.