Maxwell's Demon (1968) User Reviews

Men in tights

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 13 May 2016]

The good thing about the 1968 4-minute movie "Maxwell's Demon" is that it is not among American filmmaker Hollis Frampton's worst works. The bad thing is that it is still pretty bad. We see black-and-white scenes with men in white tights doing sports and this is only interrupted by bright colors with annoying sound effects. Once again, as so many other times, this is a movie that every somewhat mediocre filmmaker with a good camera could have made and the creative impact in here is minimal. It may not be as bad as filming a fruit or vegetable for minutes, but it is still pretty annoying and uninteresting. Frampton is very overrated in my opinion and this is another example. I do not recommend the watch.

Strange and Oddly Good

[framptonhollis · 7/10 · 7 September 2015]

"Maxwell's Demon" is a film from the great experimental filmmaker Hollis Frampton, whose made some of the most hypnotic and great experimental films of all time, and this film impressed me quite a bit. What happens in it? Well, the premise is quite simple. There is a man doing multiple exercises, in between images of colorful waves. That is pretty much it, and a premise like that sounds horrible! But, trust me, it is a great film.

Obviously, "Maxwell's Demon" is not going to please everybody, not even most moviegoers! But, it is a treat for experimental film fans. Of course, even some experimental film fans might think that that description of the film sounds terrible, but, trust me, if you're a huge fan of experimental cinema, you'll probably really like, or even love, this short film!

It is very strange, but also very hypnotic. For some reason, it had me looking at the screen with wonder and fascination.

Overall, "Maxwell's Demon" is a great short from a great filmmaker, that not everyone will enjoy, but I certainly did!

Meditation through Simple Forms

[DrMulholland · 10/10 · 17 November 2006]

This is an truly incredible short film! I was watching this film online and being really interested. It's a really avant-garde-piece only cutting between a man in a room and some waves in different colors - and the sound being just this one tune turned on and off all the time. But somehow this repeated theme caught my attention in some strange way.

But that's not just it. Somehow I felt like leaving my own body. Like the film hypnotized me. The routine must have given me such great trust in the film, that I almost forgot I was watching a film! Because nothing happened and still it made me feel weird inside. It was a really creepy experience but meanwhile also extremely fascinating.

This simple film somehow got me into a state of deep meditation without me even noticing. A truly incredible experience!

Maxwell's Theory in Exercises

[Tornado_Sam · 14 July 2019]

Compared to his enormous structuralist masterpiece "Zorns Lemma" (1970), the simple structure of Hollis Frampton's "Maxwell's Demon" is very basic. For four minutes, the viewer is treated to watching a man exercising in a very blank and background-less room, interrupted constantly by colors and waves of (colored) static to weird noises. Other than these sounds, the film is entirely silent like many of Frampton's earliest works and goes through this repetitive cycle for the entire run-time. Not repetitive as in boring, just as in the entire film's sequence is very much so in visual aspect.

For some reason, the summary on IMDb states that the exercises the man performs are demonstrations of James Clerk Maxwell's theory of gas molecules. This makes little or no sense to me, since the exercises are very athletic at times (for instance the push-ups) and none of it really seems to be referencing science in particular. The title does imply it, so I'm probably mistaken to some level but on the outside there certainly isn't any indication of this.

Other reviewers have stated that this short was very hypnotic to them, one in particular saying the experience fascinated him and that he felt as though he was "leaving his body". I don't doubt his account at all, but I have to say that whatever affected the other reviewers in this short certainly didn't affect me. Don't get this wrong, I am an experimental film fan, and have found interest even in what some would consider Frampton's worst and most boring work, such as "States" (1967). (That one is only made up of three images for seventeen minutes, so this says a lot). "Maxwell's Demon" remains an interesting short film, but not exceptionally brilliant to me in particular because it did not strike me so boldly as it has to previous viewers. If you are a fan of experimental cinema you may find more in this than I have, or you may feel the same way--in either case, it is an interesting work regardless.