(nostalgia)

As its name suggests, Nostalgia is autobiographical. Its maker, HOLLIS FRAMPTON, is recognised as one of the leading figures of the New American Cinema, a contemporary of Michael Snow, Paul Sharits and George Landow. This film, made in 1971 and itself part of a larger work called Hapax Legomena relates to a period between 1958 and 1966- before Frampton was known as a film-maker and was working mainly in still photography. Twelve photographs are presented as ‘documents’ of that period. A number are of friends in the New York art world, others are images that were of aesthetic interest. The tone throughout is dry and ironic. Each photograph is presented to the camera and a voice, speaking in the first person, describes the content of the image, the personal circumstances that surround it and the memories it evokes. After a minute or so when the commentary has ceased, each photograph gradually curls up and burns, transformed into black ash by the hotplate on which each in turn is placed. The structure of the film is complicated by the fact that the commentary for each image is ‘out of synch’: each commentary fits the photograph to follow not the one before our eyes. The spectator himself is thus caught up in the process of memory and prediction that are the subject of the film.