This is one that I will have to mull over for a few days, coming back to this post and editing it again and again as I discover new things about it (especially after I, hopefully one day, and soon, see it projected instead of a camcorder recording of the film). One thing I did know as soon as it ended though (probably before it ended) is that it is spectacular, and I am jealous of Michael Snow for creating it. Watching the “version” of it that I did, I cannot tell what aspects of it are part of the film or part of the bad presentation. I did not know certain “plot points” until I read a synopsis after it was finished, and even now I am unsure of how these elements of a story fit into the structural elements of the film.
Also, when I was trying to locate a bootlegged copy of Wavelength, I found out that he released a DVD of it a few years ago, but it is only 1/3 of its 45 minute length (he similarly truncated the title to WVLNT (Wavelength For Those Who Don’t Have The Time)) and I can’t help but ask myself Why? Unless he is making fun of the people who would buy such a thing, I can’t see any reason for putting labor into abbreviating a work like Wavelength. Another thing is, I think that anyone who would take the time to watch 15 minutes of a slow zoom into a photograph would be willing to go for the whole nine yards and watch the whole thing. One time I watched the Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite section of 2001: A Space Odyssey with a friend out of context (just put the DVD in and skipped to that part of the film and watched it until the film ended) and I haven’t enjoyed it nearly as much as I used to since. I’m sure that a similar thing would happen for me if I ever watch WVLNT (Thinking about it, Wavelength does sort of remind me of Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite, (both were made between 1966 and 68, a coincidence?)). So I will not watch it, and don’t think anyone else should, either.