Experimental Tuesdays at the Union Theatre
Argument
(Anthony McCall & Andrew Tyndall, 16mm on video, 84 min., 1978)
Influenced by both the American and European avant-gardes, notably Hollis Frampton and Jean Luc Godard, Argument offers an inquiry, both beautiful and relentless, into the prejudices and latent content of news and advertisements. This legendary and still timely 1978 film lecture/essay, here presented in a recent High Definition restoration courtesy of the British media center LUX, reads text as image and image as text, deploying fashion photographs as a starting point for a political investigation of news, advertising, and images of masculinity. John Berger’s Ways of Seeing through other means, this uncorked time capsule of media intervention offers a consideration of the ideologies of media but also a consideration of the possibility of radical film practice.
