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Moving Image
"The anti-illusionist project engaged by Clouds is that of dialectic
materialism. There is virtually nothing on screen, in the sense of
in screen. Obsessive repetition as materialist practice not
psychoanalytical indulgence." - PG (Nov 1975)
"Gidal's film Clouds establishes an awareness of position, a
confrontation, and it takes you back to you from the far reaches
of eternal space the confrontation as with you." - Steve Dwoskin,
Independent Cinema (1970)
Peter Gidal is both the chief theorist of the 1970s film avant-
garde, and its most austere image-maker. Clouds , which depicts
just sky and an occasional plane, keeps the viewer guessing as
to what if anything is moving?
Summing Up
Many filmmakers lamented the definition of this period of film as Structuralist, as
they feared it would lead to an era of theory over practice. Structural film can
often be seen as the typical and pretentious definition of experimental film and
the successive decades did lead to over-theorising and conceptualism.Brakhage
lamented that Structuralism was the worst thing to happen to Artists film.