Anthony is one of the most important expanded and structural filmmakers of the last 30 years: e.g. he’s internationally famous for his ‘solid light’ films such as Line Describing a Cone ¹ . Andrew is a well-kent, influential US media commentator. Have a look at The Tyndall Report and its in-depth monitoring of US television news. They’re going to introduce the film a little, by video from New York.

Argument, first screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1978, has been almost unseen for the last twenty years. In it, three male voices dissect one edition of The New York Times, revealing the prejudice and latent content of news and advertisements. Reading images as texts, presenting text as an image, it investigates the ideology of news, the language of fashion and the construction of masculinity. And at the same time, the filmmakers reflect on their own position and the possibility of radical film practice.

“The twin principles of modernism and marketing: seeing fresh promise in familiar things”

Influenced by both the America and European avant-gardes, notably Godard and Hollis Frampton, Argument is stylistically beautiful and relentless in its enquiry. It’s a provocative, multi-layered film essay, a trenchant analysis of the media and remains a critically relevant and critically inflammatory tract. ²

At this event the screening of the film was followed by an interview with the filmmakers by Skype.