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would gradually speed up to its fastest and then cut to the vertical pans and finally slow down. I made these two sides to the tripod, so that when I panned, I couldn't go further than a certain point, which would define the arc I wanted. I tried making a little machine with a display motor, but it was uncontrollable, so I did it by hand.
My use of that space was similar to my use of the space in
Wavelength:
there's a difference in the space when there are people in it and when it's empty. Before shooting, I had set up places where certain kinds of things would happen, and I wanted them all to relate to the idea of back and forthness, or reciprocity, or exchange.
MacDonald:
More fully than in
Wavelength,
every action that happens in front of the camera seems to be specifically referential to the process of the back-and-forth panning.
Snow:
That's right. It's more integrated into one set of issues than
Wavelength
. I did
Back and Forth
during the summer of 1968. A number of artists were invited to Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey over a period of a month. I decided to shoot it there in a classroom that had the interesting situation of being right on the street, so that would allow the imagery to be inside and outside, another kind of back and forth.
Back and Forth
was also shot out of order, depending on who was available when.
MacDonald:
Both films start slowly and build to a kind of climactic fast motion, and then calm down during a denouement. This is particularly evident in
Back and Forth
. In fact, after the credits there's a passage of "reminiscence" about earlier moments in the film. Was that a conscious play on conventional narrative?
Snow:
Well, no, though, as you say, the shape is climactic.
Wavelength
literally "cums" at the end: the last thing you see is liquid. I was and am interested in sex and so I suppose maybe that's the source of the shape, at least in those two films, though that's not the only way to think of that shape. As I told you, I really have no background in the development of narrative film and have never had any particular interest. I'm not consciously trying to subvert the movies. The structure you mention is just one way of moving in time, as far as I'm concerned.
The main problem with narrative in film is that when you become emotionally involved, it becomes difficult to see the picture as picture. Of course, the laughing and crying and suspense can be a positive element, but it's oddly nonvisual and gradually destroys your capacity to see. There's really no narrative in
Back and Forth
. There are isolated incidents that are called for partly by the kind of space you see, but no narrative connection between them.
MacDonald: One Second in Montreal
followed
Back and Forth
. Whereas
Wavelength
and
Back and Forth
have often been called mini-