Free Radicals

Free Radicals uses white lines handily engraved on black reel with oscillations on each frames, to define the nerve of the cinema as a ritual of movement filled with energy. It reduces and distils the dynamics of the hand-made film to a primitive kinetic dance of white lines and angles. The jaggedness of these meticulously executed scratches in an indexical evocation of the concentrated energy required to each them onto film. The film-maker has described the quality of the movement as "spastic". (P. Adams Sitney)

This powerful abstract film with a soundtrack of African drum music first version of the film won a major award at the International Experimental Film Festival held in Brussels in 1958 in association with the World's Fair. Stan Brakhage described the film as "an almost unbelievably immense masterpiece".