Chance of history timing determined which experimental film became canonical

Evidence

Had Star Spangled to Death appeared by 1962 or 1963 it would be understood as the quintessential film of the period—predating Pull My Daisy or even the Beat Generation. It was finally finished, in digital form, in 2004. The movie was meant to be endless. Jacobs later said that he “wanted there always to be a question as to whether the film would last, would it die, would it at any moment fall off the projector.” — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1859

Categorization

• QUESTION: A Whiggish-history point: our canon of period films is an artifact of completion dates, not aesthetic priority — worth chasing how many ‘quintessential’ works were finished late.
• XREF: Speaks to the reader’s test case that avant-garde status is contingent on material/chronological conditions, not genius or quality. — connects to: Interpretation of experiments depends on the history of their implementation — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1956