Zorns Lemma (1970)

Director:

Hollis Frampton

Stars:

Rosemarie Castoro, Ginger Michels, Marcia Steinbrecher

Cast

Credited cast:
Rosemarie Castoro	...	(voice)
Ginger Michels	...	(voice)
Marcia Steinbrecher	...	(voice)
Twyla Tharp	...	(voice)
Susan Weiner	...	(voice)
Joyce Wieland	...	(voice)

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

surrealism | avant garde | independent film

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

12 September 1970 (USA)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

User Reviews

Amazing

This is an amazing experimental film from American avant-garde filmmaker Hollis Frampton. It begins with a dark screen and a woman narrating from The Bay State Primer, an early American grammar textbook that teaches the letters of the alphabet by using them in sentences derived from the Bible, then the rest of the film is mostly silent. It presents us with a recurring structure that perpetually moves throughout a 24-letter alphabet via various signs in New York with words that propel the film along. Gradually other images are added to the loop, some of them themselves slowly developing as we arrive at them the next time around. It concludes with a man, woman and dog crossing a snowy field, while several narrators each narrate one word at a time read from an 11th century treatise, "On Light, or the Ingression of Forms", by Robert Grosseteste. Ambiguous, metaphorical and fascinating. A veritable masterpiece of structural filmmaking. 

The film is also a major influence on Peter Greenaway - it is one of the films he most admires.