A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

The activities of rampaging, indiscriminate serial killer Ben are recorded by a willingly complicit documentary team, who eventually become his accomplices and active participants. Ben provides casual commentary on the nature of his work and arbitrary musings on topics of interest to him, such as music or the conditions of low-income housing, and even goes so far as to introduce the documentary crew to his family. But their reckless indulgences soon get the better of them.

In L’operatore perforato (1979) that plump sprocket hole comes into its own. It multiplies like a virus, riding serenely on the surface, nearly obliterating the images trembling underneath it. Near the close of the film, we watch another cameraman, perhaps shooting a Fatty Arbuckle imitator, cope with the invasion of perforations, not only from the top and center but from the edge. By now, when we can hardly tell the difference between frame and perforations, cinema’s two round-cornered rectangles, the image can be anything—a picture, or a zone of blank white.