Category Archives: Experimental Film

Joseph Cornell – Worlds in a Box: 1991 Documentary

by Cimaxion

Cornell

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart.

In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

 

1964 Bell Labs Film About How to Make Films with a Computer

by Cimaxion

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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.’

 

Science Friction: 1959 Experimental Film by Stan Vanderbeek

by Cimaxion

Vanderbeek

This is an amazing and beautiful film by pioneering American experimental filmmaker Stan Vanderbeek. His work encompassed collage animations, live events, and early experiments with computer graphics.

The technological explosion of this last half-century, and the implied future are overwhelming, man is running the machines of his own invention… while the machine that is man… runs the risk of running wild. Technological research, development, and involvement of the world community has almost completely out-distanced the emotional-sociological (socio-“logical”) comprehension of this technology. The “technique-power” and “culture-over-reach” that is just beginning to explode in many parts of the earth, is happening so quickly that it has put the logical fulcrum of man’s intelligence so far outside himself that he cannot judge or estimate the results of his acts before he commits them…

Stan Vanderbeek

 

Jeff Keen’s Dreams of the Archduke Sketchbook

by Cimaxion

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This is a short film made for a gallery showing of works by the late great British artist and filmmaker, Jeff Keen. It’s a soundless page turn through a series of brilliant and inspiring pages in a sketchbook. If you are at all familiar with his amazing film work, you will see how directly connected to that work these pages really are.

 

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If you are unfamiliar with Keen’s incredible and very influential film work, here is a treat for you. It’s his ‘Marvo Movie’ from 1967.

 

Experimental Film Great Stan Brakhage Interviewed in 1973

by Cimaxion

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This is a fascinating 1973 television interview of the great American experimental filmmaker, Stan Brakhage. He made a fantastic career utilizing mostly the technique of painting, scratching, and inking directly on the surface of the celluloid. His films are mysterious, mesmerizing and absolutely gorgeous. They are also profound works of art. Here, Brakhage talks to documentary filmmaker Robert Gardner about his filmmaking philosophy and techniques. Several of his films are shown as he makes comments about them. This is essential viewing if you are interested in experimental film.

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