SHORT FILMS II

Monday, September 20, 2010


Block, Mitchell: No Lies (USA 1972, B&W, 16 Minutes). It looks like a documentary, as the director crudely presses a raped woman for an account of her misfortune, but it’s all acted and for a purpose.

Bunuel, Luis: Un Chien Andalou/The Andalusian Dog (France, 1928, B&W, 20 Minutes). A surrealist experiment in shocking imagery, undertaken with Salvador Dali that avoids any linear story logic.

Davidson, Alan: The Lunch Date (USA, 1990, B&W, 12 Minutes). A deceptive encounter over a salad between a woman and a homeless man at Grand Central Station.

Deren, Maya and Alexander Hammid: Meshes of the Afternoon (USA, 1943, B&W, 13 Minutes). Seminal work in which the mother of American experimental cinema plays a woman who dreams of being driven to suicide by loneliness and adversity.

Enrico Robert: An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge/ La Rivière du Hibou (France, 1962, B&W, 27 Minutes). A soldier in the American Civil War makes a miraculous escape from hanging—or does he? A fine film and a veritable catalogue of judiciously used sound and picture techniques. From a tale by Amrose Bierce.

Godard, Jean-Luc: Tous les Garçons s’Apellent Patrick/All the Boys Are Called Patrick (France, 1957, B&W, 21 Minutes). Two girls find they are dating the same man.

Lamorisse, Albert: Le Balon Rouge/The Red Baloon (France, 1956, Color, 34 Minutes) A lonely boy in Paris makes friends with a balloon, which begins to reciprocate his attentions. No words.

Marker, Chris: La Jetée/The Jetty/The Pier (France, 1962, B&W, 29 Minutes). A film almost entirely in stills about a survivor of World War III, whose childhood memories allow him to move around at will in time. One shot has motion, and Georges Sadoul rightly says “the screen disarmingly bursts into sensuous life.”

Metzner, Ernö: Überfall/Accident/Police Report/Assault (Germany, 1928, B&W, 21 Minutes). A man wins some cash in a beer hall, but it brings him nothing but bad luck. Almost a catalogue of camera techniques.

Polanski, Roman and Jean-Pierre Rousseau: The Fat and the Lean/Gruby i Chudy (France, 1962, B&W, 15 Minutes). This allegory about a fat and thin man explores the relationship and dependency between master and servant, and what  stops the servant from escaping.

Polanski, Roman: Two Men and a Wardrobe/Dwaj Ludzie z Szafa (Poland, 1957, B&W, 15 Minutes). Another allegory in which two men appear out of the sea, struggling with a bulky wardrobe, avoiding humanity and unable to solve their problems.

Renoir, Jean: Un Partie de Campagne/A Day in the Country (France,1936,B&W,37 Minutes ). A Paris shopkeeper takes his family for a day in the country, and his daughter— who already has a fiancé—falls in love with another man. Sadly, the relationship has no future. From a tale by Guy de Maupassant.


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