Collection of essays by Peter Gidal that includes “Theory and Definition of Structural/Materialist Film” and other texts on metaphor, narrative, and against sexual representation. Also discussed in their specificity are works by Samuel Beckett, Thérèse Oulton, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. Throughout, Gidal’s writing attempts a political aesthetics, polemical as well as theoretical. One of the foremost experimental film-makers in Britain since the late 1960s, Peter Gidal was a central figure at the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, and taught advanced film theory at the Royal College of Art. His previous books include Andy Warhol: Films and Paintings (1971), Understanding Beckett (1986) and Materialist Film (1989).

Hardcover, 288 pages, including 16pp of colour images, including film stills, manuscripts, archive documents, and paintings by Thérèse Oulton, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol.

Published 2016

Table of Contents:

Preface
Mark Webber

Introduction
Peter Gidal

Essays
Theory and Definition of Structural/Materialist Film (1975)
Further Footnotes (1976)
Problems ‘relating to’ Warhol’s Still Life 1976 (1978)
The Anti-Narrative (1979)
Technology and Ideology in/through/and Avant-Garde Film: An Instance (1980)
Samuel Beckett’s Ghost Trio (1981)
Against Sexual Representation in Film (1984)
Fugitive Theses re Thérèse Oulton’s Paintings (1984)
Dialogue and Dialectic in Godot (1986)
The Anti-Zoom (A Little Polemic Against Metaphor) (1987)
In Representation or Out? Some Condensed Notes on Aesthetics
and Politics (1988)
Endless Finalities (Richter’s Abstract Paintings) (1993)
The Polemics of Paint (Richter in the Nineties) (1995)
NO EYE: Theoretical Reflections on the Eye, Metaphor and Film/Video (1995)
Once is Never: Warhol’s Saturday Disaster & Blow Job (2001)
Against Metaphor (1998, revised 2005/2015)

Miscellany
Letter to Artforum (1971)
Letter to Screen (1976)
Letter to Afterimage (1976)
Eight Hours or Three Minutes (1971)
Notes on my Film Work (1975)

For a compilation of Gidal’s Films, look here!

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