This is a beautiful 1968 Soviet adaptation of ‘The Little Mermaid,’ by Hans Christian Andersen. It was produced by the great Soyuzmultfilm studio. There are no subtitles. Just enjoy it as a brilliantly animated musical approach to a great tale.
The film begins with a busload of tourists sightseeing in Copenhagen. Then it moves to sea and our story begins…
This fascinating film was produced at AT&T’s Bell Labs in 1964. It was made by Ken Knowlton to describe the use of computers to make animated films. The film itself was created entirely on a computer. This is a glimpse into the groundbreaking work that led to the computer graphics we all enjoy so frequently today. Knowlton was both an artist and a computer graphics programmer who developed several programming languages for producing bitmap animations.
Interestingly, Ken Knowlton worked closely with pioneering experimental filmmaker Stan Vanderbeek at the Bell Labs on many early computer animations. Vanderbeek is the subject of my prior post about his short film, ‘Science Friction.’
Here’s a 1961 corporate film from AT&T that tries to predict the wonderful digital world of the future, including online shopping!
This is a 1968 television documentary about the Italian film phenomenon known as the Spaghetti Western. These bold, violent, colorful movies took a dark and sometimes comic look at the western genre. In many cases, I think these films surpassed the American westerns they emulated by playing more loosely with the violence and morality that often made for a kind of stiffness in the American films. If you aren’t familiar with the full scope of the Spaghetti Western, it’s really amazing how many full length versions are available on YouTube.
Did they really try so hard to show stupid people in commercials during the sixties? Here’s a television gem that features a cast of uniformly stupid and unpleasant people doing stupid things and making really bad coffee.
Godard was asked to make a short piece on Vietnam as part of an omnibus film called ‘Far From Vietnam’ that was being edited by the great experimental filmmaker Chris Marker. He was unable to actually go there so he used film clips and shot himself looking through a 35mm camera. His voiceover connects the war in Vietnam to his own life and to social struggles going on in Paris. He makes a fascinating attempt to express the futility of making a film about the war without any real understanding of it.