When Hollis Frampton died, in March of 1984, he left a massive body of work, including hundreds of films, a series of remarkable essays and a history as a photographer which goes back to the late ’50s. The films have received by far the most attention: many of them have become landmarks of contemporary independent cinema, including the rarely screened Manual of Arms, 1966, a series of portraits of artists Frampton knew; Surface Tension, 1968, the first of Frampton’s inventive explorations of the uses of printed text in film, Palindrome, 1969, a beautiful abstract work made by chemically manipulating