Reworking Soviet predecessors: Hollis Frampton and the Magellan cycle

When the American filmmaker Hollis Frampton died in March 30, 1984, he left behind an unfinished project he had worked on for more than a decade of his life. The project was entitled Magellan and was intended as a cycle of films spanning nearly 36 hours. Approximately 9 hours of the proposed material were completed. In this ambitious project, based on Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage around of the world, Frampton sought to probe deep into the mentality of western culture, through a metahistorical resynthesizing of the history of art and film. To do so he wanted to utilize, among other elements, the theories of the pioneers of early Soviet cinema, such as Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov and Dziga Vertov. In my thesis I show how Frampton rework and transform the ideas, imagery and techniques of these filmmakers, and furthermore demonstrates how they are being applied within the films in the Magellan cycle. Frampton’s transformation of the theories and practices of these Soviet filmmakers is discussed throughout the thesis in relation to the categories of sound, image and consciousness. In the chapter on sound I have shown how Frampton have made use of the concept of vertical montage with the intention of exploring asynchronous relationships between sound and image. In the chapter on the image, I have demonstrated the importance of appropriation strategies in Frampton’s work, especially how it relates to the works of Eisenstein and Vertov. The last chapter deals with the concept of inner speech as Eisenstein envisioned it cinematically and its relevance for the Magellan project. The function of subjectivity and autobiography within the cycle has also been explored. Likewise, an examination of the concept of the pensive image, as understood by Hanneke Grootenboer, has been investigated and seen in relation Frampton’s films in the Magellan cycle