20.1.12

Regrets

"I used the word 'structural' to describe a tendency in certain films.  I never spoke of structuralism.  I never spole of structural film-makers, but of particular tendencies in particular films.  The use of the word meant to have nothing to do with anything in Levi-Strauss, or French structuralism.  I had no notion, at all, that this article would catch fire, more than anything else I had ever written; that it would become a disease; that it would come back to haunt me.  It was hopeless.  But it's a word that has stuck, and I'm stuck with it.  You're right, I wish I had thought of a different word at the time.  I want to state my total agreement with you on this thing- that that was a mistake.  I am sorry about it, but the mistake of associating structuralism with structural film was not in the text of mine."
-P. Adams Sitney in a 1977 debate with Malcom Le Grice

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