The film is all gnarled and fuzzy and stained. It looks like something shot in the twenties and dug up in a basement somewhere. Right around the 8:15 mark there’s a sequence of images that are just simply stunning. The actress, Jenovia Tretiak, is frenzied and beautifully insane. The original score by Patric Caird is perfect and hair-raising.
This film was shot in 1950 by Jerome Hill. It was then edited by underground film pioneer Jonas Mekas in 1991. It shows Carl Jung talking and stone carving at his home by a lake. He’s working at things he liked to do and he’s describing something rather elusive. I think Jung’s great contribution was in not fearing the deep subconscious, but rather enjoying it and opening the door to let it in.
Here’s my own take on how you open the door just like Jung did… sort of.
Seattle avant-garde filmmaker Jon Behrens made this gorgeous piece in 2008 with 16mm film, latex paint and inks applied directly to the film surface. It creates a mysterious space travel and exploratory sensation that has some connection – at least in my mind – to Kubrick’s 2001. There’s a big pile of magnificent work waiting for you to enjoy from this filmmaker. Visit his Vimeo page and personal website for more information.
You can rent Behrens’ films for 16mm projection from Canyon Cinema. He also has a DVD of collected works.
A film by Fred. L’Epée.
A short film that’s mostly puppetry by one of the wild insane men of American twentieth century art, Joseph Cornell.
Filmed in the dullest imaginable environment of shops along a major Los Angeles street at night when the shops were closed.
My Christmas film.
The music is a public domain recording of Artie Shaw and his orchestra playing ‘There’s Something in the Air’ in 1936. The singer is Peg LaCentra. I found it at the Internet Archive.
Czechoslovakian animator Karel Zeman made The Fabulous World of Jules Verne in 1958 and it is, without exception, the finest example of Verne on film that I have ever seen. It is an adaptation of Verne’s novel, Facing the Flag. The combination of live action and Mysti-Mation (sets and animation painted to look like illustrations) not only evokes the atmosphere of old book illustrations, but it evokes the visual act of imagination that happens when I read a Jules Verne book. This film is perfection. I’m somewhat distrustful of the ‘steampunk’ movement but I would certainly imagine that this film must be one of its holy grail objects of worship. It should be for sure. Disney could never come close to this, then or now, because they are focused solely upon happiness.
Parts 2 through 8 after the jump!
Anders Weberg is an artist in Sweden who uses cell phone cameras to make his fluid, multi-layered works that are like quiet explosions of color.
Mike Everleth at Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film, has posted this fascinating documentary about legendary filmmakers George and Mike Kuchar. They’ve been making films separately and together for over 50 years. Don’t be misled by the term underground. These are simply wonderful and exuberant filmmakers who work in their own way and make films exactly the way they want to make them. Their enthusiasm for film, from totally independent low-budget to full-blown Hollywood spectacular, is infectious and should inspire any young filmmaker to follow his or her own muse and make what they really, deeply, necessarily want to make. You can find out a lot more by reading the Bad Lit article about the documentary.
By the way, Bad Lit is in fact the most infectiously enthralling film site you will read for a long time. Go there!
This silent film, with assorted words of Walt Whitman, was photographed by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler.
He reminds me a little of Keith Richards. He’s made some of the most beautiful films you may ever see with director Wong Kar Wai in Hong Kong. He seems to like wandering the colorful streets. Always talking about the light and color. Last night I took my new camera out along Ventura Boulevard very late. I was making a film by moving very slowly from window to window, shooting in an odd off-kilter way with closeups through glass and lights moving in and out of focus. It took me several hours to move three blocks up the boulevard. I haven’t seen the footage yet but the night was loaded with possibilities. Do you have any idea how many things you can come up with when you look inside a store’s display window? You can break it down almost infinitely and create images that have very little to do with the store. I find it a natural and obvious way to make a film. The sets are all there waiting for me to show up with my camera. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know what the film will be. It exists already and will make itself apparent when I start staring at my footage.
You’re going to love this!
Part 2 has some footage of silent movies being shot.
This is an old silent film produced by Ford that shows Los Angeles in the twenties. You’d be amazed by how much of old LA you can still find. I’m working on a new film that’s going to be in large part about LA and the way a person perceives the city and self through images that are borrowed and may in fact have very little to do with the actual firm existing place. Finding this little film is part of my digging through material about the real and the fanciful Los Angeles.
Filmmaker Evan Mather made this beautiful animation about the life and visions of St. Clare of Assisi. I had no idea that television was divinely protected.
Makes me miss that old cathode ray.
Evan Mather produces films for his Hand Crafted Films company.
This is a very sly and clever filmmaker who seems to enjoy thinking about what makes certain film genres tick. He works with language as easily as he works with images. There’s lots more to post from him but you can go and explore his work on his Vimeo page.