Mark brings up a very interesting discussion. There are dozens of books using stills from our licensed films without our, or our filmmakers' permission. I suspect academics are more willing to ask archives and academics they know for permission, but see everything else as fair use.
Fondest regards, Dennis Doros *Milestone Film & Video • *38 George Street • Harrington Park, NJ 07640 Phone: +1 (201) 767-3117 • Email: [email protected] • www.milestonefilms.com • www.missingmovies.org Pronouns: He, Him JOIN MILESTONE'S MAILING LIST TODAY! <http://milestonefilms.us3.list-manage1.com/subscribe/post?u=4a0b9e434a9f3e8603c29806e&id=f30d1906e2> Support us on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Milestone-Film/22348485426> and Twitter <https://twitter.com/#!/MilestoneFilms>! On Tue, Aug 11, 2026 at 3:26 PM mrktosc <[email protected]> wrote: > Actually this Anticipation image is from a photo I took of the original > for the film, and which has appeared online here and there. The visible > perfs are original to my image and not added by anyone, though they’ve > partly doubled the image for design purposes, it seems. > > I think originally this photo was put online for something I wrote about > inspecting Stan’s film elements but can’t remember. Nobody asks for > permission generally for these kinds of uses, though academics/writers who > have written about Stan’s process have usually asked me if they can include > photos I’ve taken (and I always say yes and give them the original photo to > make sure it’s decent quality). The photos I’ve taken are generally > archival/illustrative documents of the films as objects for informational > or descriptive purposes about archiving or process, and aren’t meant to > represent the films as cinematic experiences, but folks often like the film > strip object as a stand-in for a still, so it’s not surprising they get > used that way. > > Mark > > > On Aug 11, 2026, at 2:39 PM, Dominic Angerame <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Hi Fred to add to the reproduction of your scan, in the image that the > Modern Art Museum used even the sprocket holes are on the wrong side if one > is running the film on a set rewinds. Obviously whoever did this design > knows nothing about celluloid film. They are just using it as decorative > art. > > Dominic > > On Tue, Aug 11, 2026 at 4:09 AM Fred Camper <[email protected]> wrote: > >> This admittedly harsh rant is in response to a little ad for a likely >> very worthy program of experimental films coming up at the MoMA. My >> objection is to an image shown below. The post is at >> https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0JuRUP85Wnng2eC3bzcaZUSG2FoNdxaKnkvrBXvai6mkUrARdjcxrVRhZ1j4jcyX7l&id=100021319367953 >> <MoMAStrip.jpg> >> >> >> Thank you for making me aware of the fact that the Museum of Modern Art's >> Department of Film has stolen one of my many scans of strips from films by >> Stan Brakhage off of my Web site. >> <https://www.fredcamper.com/Film/BrakhageS.html> >> >> Forgive me, because this rant may seem somewhat insane, but I believe it >> to be justified. My many scans of strips from prints of Brakhage films were >> made over two decades with scanners I purchased myself, the images selected >> as carefully as I could based on my feel for his aesthetic and knowledge of >> his films. They were made, more importantly, out of love for the films, and >> I tried to find images that would be interesting or attractive on their own >> but would also represent the film well. Hence many scans, such as this one, >> were chosen to display particularly meaningful cuts. These choices were >> made by someone whose life was changed by discovering Brakhage films at 16, >> attending the world premiere of “The Art of Vision” at Yale at 17, and by >> showing and speaking on his films at various venues throughout the world >> after having shown them at a film society I co-founded in Cambridge, >> Massachusetts, in 1964, which included the presentation of the premiere of >> “23rd Psalm Branch,” with Brakhage in attendance and me projecting, as well >> as other programs of films by Peter Kubelka, Bruce Baillie, and Warren >> Sonbert, with each of them in attendance, and more. >> >> When I showed Brakhage the first pages of stills on my site, right after >> setting it up, in the fall of 2001, only a little less than a year before >> he died, he really liked them. I want to say he loved them. He asked how >> long they would be up on the Internet. When I said something like >> “permanently” or “indefinitely,” he seemed surprised and pleased. >> Twenty-five years later they are still up, and are still being used without >> permission in ways that misrepresent the films. >> >> Isn’t “stolen” a little harsh? I haven't tried to copyright my choices of >> stills; I assume that they can't be, and that seems just. But that doesn't >> mean people should use them without permission. The so-called “Brakhage >> Center” did that some years ago, mixing them in with a student-designed >> mashup of images. Had the Museum of Modern Art, Department of Film, New >> York, bothered to write me for permission, the strip would have been free, >> but they would have gotten a sharper, higher-resolution strip than what I >> put on the Web. They also would not have been able to misuse it the way >> they did. >> >> Marilyn Brakhage and I have never permitted the strips to be run >> sideways. Run that way, they are false to the film. The whole point of >> trying to get people to run strips rather than single-frame enlargements is >> that Brakhage’s ever-changing film spaces are best suggested by strips. But >> sideways? Really? The baby shown sideways? Would you do that with a >> single-frame enlargement? Run vertically, the strips can encourage one to >> imagine an instant of the film. Horizontally, they are reduced to >> decoration. >> >> What’s even worse: we tend to “read” a horizontal strip left to right, in >> the direction in which we read text. Seen that way, the viewer will infer >> that the baby is right side up, and that it appears after the blue light. >> But in this brief segment of “Anticipation of the Night,” the baby is >> shown upside down, and the blue light comes after. In the film, the camera >> swirls about the baby, and it is seen in what feels like all possible >> orientations. >> >> I suppose it’s possible that someone made their own scan from a print of >> the film. That would explain the absurdly “decorative” presence of three >> different lines of sprocket holes running along the edges of the film, two >> very thin ones and a full one. Or would it? This kind of stupid and false >> paste-in job, adding sprocket holes (which in fact some of my strips do >> include), has been done before with my strips. But how would they have >> managed to choose exactly this cut? In any case, their image is not only >> less sharp than mine, but far too “overexposed.” >> >> My dear friend Kirk Winslow said at a dinner in 2002, when I complained >> about a bad editor trying to introduce factual errors into my film writing, >> after the other three of us complained about poor film projection in New >> York, “Fred! People just don’t care,” pounding his fist on the table once >> for each word. I perhaps would not remember this so vividly, and cite it so >> often, if it were not the last time he went out. He died of HIV a month or >> two later. >> If we wish to make the world better, we need to stop thoughtlessly >> slapping things together, and instead, to start caring. >> >> <http://www.fredcamper.com/> Fred Camper <http://www.fredcamper.com/> >> Chicago >> >> >> -- >> Frameworks mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org >> > -- > Frameworks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org > > -- > Frameworks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.film-gallery.org/mailman/listinfo/frameworks_film-gallery.org >
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