User:Wkres/Back and Forth (film)

= Back and Forth (film)[ edit] = <---> (alternative title: Back and Forth) is a 1969 experimental film by Canadian director Michael Snow. Shot in a classroom at the Madison, New Jersey campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University, the camera continually moves back and forth, and eventually up and down, at varying speeds. Shots of different lengths are cut together.

Content[ edit]
https://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2019/02/29184/ :

"The camera pans back and forth across an outside wall of a classroom while a man crosses part of the field. The pan resumes inside the classroom in a fixed trajectory, revealing an asymmetrical area including part of a blackboard and a door on a far wall, two pairs of windows on the wall closer to the camera, and desks in front of the blackboard; trees, building and occasionally passing vehicles are partially visible through the doors and windows.

Throughout, one hears the sound of the camera’s mechanisms, including a loud report at the beginning and end of each pan. Various cuts emphasise that certain parts of individual pans, or entire pans, or a number in series, were filmed at different times.

As the pans gradually slow down, a man’s face appears briefly and successively in the third, fourth and second windows, then is seen washing the second, third and fourth; inside the room, a figure is seen sweeping the floor from right to left and then exiting by the door. Other figures appear in and around the desks and elsewherein the room; a woman and man play catch; a woman appears reading a book; a couple embrace; two men spar playfully in the midst of a crowd; voices are intermittently heard, and during different times of day (shown achronologically) the room is periodically seen empty. After reaching its slowest speed, the panning begins to accelerate, until the opposite sides of the room almost appear to be superimposed; eventually the image becomes a flat blur punctuated by quick flashes of light coming from the door and windows. After achieving its fastest speed, the panning reverts to an up-and-down movement that passes from the floor to the window and-back again, eventually altering its trajectory so that it first excludes the floor but encompasses part of the ceiling (including a light fixture) and then includes both, gradually slowing down. A policeman is seen peering through the window; after he leaves, the sound of a motorcycle is heard. Following the credits on a single title card, earlier segments of the film are shown in various superimpositions, utilising black-and-white footage and reverse and upside-down images in addition to the material in its previous_form, including the title card itself. Sound is eliminated shortly before this sequence ends, after which the sound of applause is heard over black leader."

Reception[ edit]
Need to decide what to include from these quotes:

"This neat, finely tuned, hypersensitive film examines the outside and inside of a banal prefab classroom, stares at an asymmetrical space so undistinguished that it's hard to believe the whole movie is confined to it, and has this neck-jerking camera gimmick that hits a wooden stop arm at each end of its swing. Basically it's a perpetual motion film that ingeniously builds a sculptural effect by insisting on time-motion to the point where the camera's swinging arcs and white wall field assume the hardness, the dimensions of a concrete beam. "In such a hard, drilling work, the wooden clap sounds are a terrific invention, and, as much as any single element, create the sculpture. Seeming to thrust the image outward off the screen, these clap effects are timed like a metronome, sometimes occurring with torrential frequency" https://www.artforum.com/print/197001/wavelength-standard-time-and-one-second-in-montreal-38534.

"Not only did 'Back and Forth' expand the possibilities of cinematic framing as postulated in 'Wavelength'; it actually expanded the parameters of movie narrative as we'd previously recognized them, expanded them even beyond Godard's bold effects in such films as 'Weekend.' For in 'Back and Forth,' Snow was able to completely suffuse form with content, while not relinquishing the traditional elements of characterization and acting. The relentless back and forth pan stresses similar concepts which Snow had engaged in his sculptures and carries still further the experiments with perception and illusion which began in 'Wavelength'" https://www.cfmdc.org/film/102.

References[ edit]
Need to actually source these reviews, so references are now very preliminary:

Farber, Manny. Artforum. https://www.artforum.com/print/197001/wavelength-standard-time-and-one-second-in-montreal-38534.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Monthly Film Bulletin. https://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2019/02/29184/.

Youngblood, Gene. LA Free Press