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Asleep at the Movies

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on May 3, 2012



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They Might Be Giants

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on April 28, 2012

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Some Typewriters I’ve Watched Recently

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on April 20, 2012


The Seven-Ups, Philip D’Antoni, 1973

Pauline at the Beach
Pauline à la plage, Eric Rohmer, 1983


Heat, Dick Richards, 1986


Hard Target, John Woo, 1993

Death Wish II 2

Death Wish II, Michael Winner, 1982



A Dangerous Method, David Cronenberg, 2011


Welt am Draht, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973

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Accidental/At Will

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on April 5, 2012

A typewritten page about a Jacques Rivette article where he compares the shot and the sentence; I compare this to Roland Barthes distinction between "monumental writing" and "ephemeral speech" and discuss the character Angie in Olivier Assayas's film Carlos.
A typewritten page about a Jacques Rivette article where he compares the shot and the sentence; I compare this to Roland Barthes distinction between "monumental writing" and "ephemeral speech" and discuss the character Angie in Olivier Assayas's film Carlos.

A typewritten page about a Jacques Rivette article where he compares the shot and the sentence; I compare this to Roland Barthes distinction between "monumental writing" and "ephemeral speech" and discuss the character Angie in Olivier Assayas's film Carlos.

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Virginia at the Movies, Part V

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on April 2, 2012

A typewritten page about Virginia Woolf's essay "The Movies and Reality," discussing her reaction to the horrific quivering tadpole of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

A typewritten page about Virginia Woolf's essay "The Movies and Reality," discussing her reaction to the horrific quivering tadpole of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

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Evenly Suspended Attention

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on March 26, 2012

a typewritten page applying Freud's notion of "evenly suspended attention" to Abbas Kairostami's Certified Copy (Copie conforme), particularly focusing on the son's complaint that his mother is "starry-eyed"Juliette Binoche telling son to wait in Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)a typewritten page applying Freud's notion of "evenly suspended attention" to Abbas Kairostami's Certified Copy (Copie conforme), particularly focusing on the son's complaint that his mother is "starry-eyed"
Juliette Binoche negotiating with son to wait for five more minutes a typewritten page applying Freud's notion of "evenly suspended attention" to Abbas Kairostami's Certified Copy (Copie conforme), particularly focusing on the son's complaint that his mother is "starry-eyed"The son in Certified Copy (Abas Kiarostami) explains Freud's "evenly suspended attention" to Juliette Binoche

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Madness and Writing

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on March 21, 2012

a typewritten page about François Ozon's Regarde la mer [Sea the Sea] and how madness is show through writing (via Shoshana Felman) Marina de Van's mad writing in Regarde la mer (François Ozon)a typewritten page about François Ozon's Regarde la mer [Sea the Sea] and how madness is show through writing (via Shoshana Felman)

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Written on the Scrim

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on March 18, 2012

This is the first of a series of meditations on writing systems and instruments in cinema: typewriters, pens, computers, tattoo guns, and so on.

The Shining, Jack Types, typewriter

written on the scrim, Think of films that present either real authors like William Shakespeare (Shakespeare in Love), the Marquis de Sade (Quills or Marat/Sade), Sylvia Plath (Sylvia), or fictional authors like in The Shining, Sunset Boulevard, Barton Fink. Think of films settled in the nitty-gritty world of newspapermen, investigative journalists, poètes maudits; of films that circle around secret code, alien writing, the delivery of cryptogrammed documents; of films that mangle communication, misdirect letters, spill coffee on manuscript pages. Think of all those films that visually fetishize (but is there any other way?) the bountiful excesses of the technologies of script, inscription, description (prescription, circumscription, conscription, transcription), in both real and in futuristic directions. Think of: the scriptal demi-materiality of thought. Thus the history of writing instruments in the cinema uncovers for us one of the questions of cinema itself--where does it come from, and where is it going? In showing individual humans using some graphological technology to create text, films confront their own mystery, giving the lie to the illusion that they too are so simply assembled.

Almereyda Hamlet 2000 Note Rosencrantz Guildenstern computer

written on the scrim, Think of films that present either real authors like William Shakespeare (Shakespeare in Love), the Marquis de Sade (Quills or Marat/Sade), Sylvia Plath (Sylvia), or fictional authors like in The Shining, Sunset Boulevard, Barton Fink. Think of films settled in the nitty-gritty world of newspapermen, investigative journalists, poètes maudits; of films that circle around secret code, alien writing, the delivery of cryptogrammed documents; of films that mangle communication, misdirect letters, spill coffee on manuscript pages. Think of all those films that visually fetishize (but is there any other way?) the bountiful excesses of the technologies of script, inscription, description (prescription, circumscription, conscription, transcription), in both real and in futuristic directions. Think of: the scriptal demi-materiality of thought. Thus the history of writing instruments in the cinema uncovers for us one of the questions of cinema itself--where does it come from, and where is it going? In showing individual humans using some graphological technology to create text, films confront their own mystery, giving the lie to the illusion that they too are so simply assembled.

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Virginia at the Movies, Part IV

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on March 14, 2012

"storm over asia"

The ending of Storm over Asia:

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Virginia at the Movies, Part III

by Kevin L. Ferguson Posted on March 11, 2012

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