Practicalmadness

In the just-posted entry on Stan Brakhage's death, there is a link to more information surrounding the filmmaker's passing. It is hosted on Fred Camper's website.

I also mention an upcoming Criterion Collection DVD compilation of Brakhage's work. The essay for that edition is critic Fred Camper.

And I just ran into this posting by Camper -- who is not only a noted film critic, but also taught a class on Hollywood Melodrama two years ago at SAIC which I took and largely enjoyed -- on the Frameworks mailing list:

I think that it's theoretically possible to choose a sampling rate [i.e., for digital reproduction of filmed images] at which no human being could tell the difference in a blind A/B test between a print made from a digital file and one made only from celluloid. And ultimately high resolution digital files are likely the only way to preserve film for the long term, though such preservation efforts might themselves fail due to changes in technology, computers 100 years from now being unable to read today's files, etc. But at least theoretically high-resolution files with lossless copying might give us something close to the original. We already know that with celluloid several generations removed from the original there's significant quality loss, and we already know that celluloid originals turn to vinegar eventually.

I find these comments surprising, as Camper is a notorious video-hater. He has, in fact, been called the only "real" film critic in the United States for his steadfast refusal to watch a video transfer of any film meant to be shown on film, at least for a first critical screening.

I can ultimately accept this very practical viewpoint coming from a man with a well-known desire (not to mention a vested interest) for the survival of the cinema in some form. This just requires a little bit of mental readjustment.