John Smith on Peter Gidal

“Thank you for depriving me of so much”

John Smith reflects on his experiences as a student of Peter Gidal at the Royal College of Art in an article on the LUX website. Read the complete text here.

“I learnt through our often heated and invariably politicised discussions that you didn’t have to like a film to get something from it, and that arguments can be stimulating and enjoyable. I realised that what you actually film is secondary to how you control its representation, that a film’s ‘drama’ can as easily be created by its material construction as its subject matter, and that meaning in film (and life) is infinitely malleable. Perhaps most importantly for my own work, I realised that filmic construction can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and that the most intense and engaging experiences can be generated by films that withhold or ration information and allow their viewers to imagine.”