<---> (Back and Forth)

“… his sternest film, titled with a sign for back and forth motion. A specially rigged camera swings right-left, left-right, before a homely, sterile classroom wall, then accelerates into an unbearable blur (the same frenzied scramble, as though the whole creative process was going berserk, that occurs three quarters of the way through ‘Abbey Road’)… In such a hard, drilling work, the wooden clap sounds are a terrific invention and, as much as any single element, created the sculpture. Seeming to thrust the image off the screen, these clap effects are timed like a metronome, sometimes occurring with torrential frequency.” – Manny Farber, Art Forum “Not only did ‘Back and Forth’ expand the possibilities of cinematic framing as postulated in ‘Wavelength’; it actually expanded the parameters of movie narrative as we’d previously recognized them, expanded them even beyond Godard’s bold effects in such films as ‘Weekend.’ For in ‘Back and Forth,’ Snow was able to completely suffuse form with content, while not relinquishing the traditional elements of characterization and acting. The relentless back and forth pan stresses similar concepts which Snow had engaged in his sculptures and carries still further the experiments with perception and illusion which began in ‘Wavelength.’” – Gene Youngblood, L.A. Free Press