Wheeler Winston Dixon – Serial Metaphysics

Serial Metaphysics
Serial Metaphysics #1 (1984-86, clip, 6.4MB, 1:08 min)

Serial Metaphysics
Serial Metaphysics #2 (1984-86, clip, 5.9MB, 1:08 min)

Wheeler Winston Dixon is now a professor of film studies
at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Before he did that he made
a lot of (on the evidence of these clips & others) really great short movies.
In particular these two clips from Serial Metaphysics, apparently almost
entirely constructed from TV ads, whet the appetite for a viewing
of the whole twenty minutes.
Dixon conjures fever dream magic from commercial banality.
Check in particular the end sequence of clip one:
David Lynch eat your heart out.

Man With a Movie Camera – Perry Bard

man_camera
Man With a Movie Camera (Trailer) (1929-2007, 6MB, 2:17 min.)

“Man With a Movie Camera is a participatory video shot by people around the world
who are invited to record video according to the original script of Vertov’s Man With
A Movie Camera and submit it to a website which will archive, sequence and deliver
it. When the work streams your contribution becomes part of a worldwide montage,
in Vertov’s terms the ‘decoding of life as it is’.
Project by Perry Bard.

Hal Hartley – Henry Fool

Henry Fool trailer
Henry Fool -trailer (1997, 5.2MB, 2:05 min.)

Henry Fool clip
Henry Fool -clip (1997, 3.3MB, 57 secs)

In a rationally ordered universe Hal Hartley would be feted
as one of the most thoughtful, bold & innovative filmakers
of the last 20 years.
We showed the trailer for Fay Grim, his sequel to 1997’s Henry Fool
here awhile back.
Here’s ’s the trailer from Henry Fool & also a short clip.

While we wait for the next one ( this month, if you’re lucky
enough to be in New York) there’re a couple of good
Hartley things available from the indispensable
microcinema international.

Glimpse of the Garden


Marie Menken – Glimpse of the Garden (1957, 36.2MB, 5:04)

Marie Menken, avant-garde filmmaker of the 1940s, 50s,
and 60s – in addition to being the inspiration for
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and a Warhol
superstar – made inspirational work from a time we seem
to overlook too much today. The garden here belongs
to one of her husband’s former male lovers, and while
Menken was often criticized for being quaint in her displays,
her style is an obviously feminine one that hides much
deeper meaning in ordinary but stunning visuals.

Recreation, Re-Creation, or, We Like OLD Stuff – Bitsy Knox

Recreation, Re-Creation
Recreation, Re-Creation (2006, 9.6 MB, 4:27 min.)

“This video juxtaposes original 16 mm footage acquired from my Grandfather
with interview footage taken of my Mother and Grandparents. All but the
past-tenses of their speaking are left intact, while the film footage has been
aggressively manipulated.
The project seeks to question the language of constructing one’s identity through
negotiation with familial history, where the past has been constructed and reconstructed
in order to corroborate certain facades of culture which are wished to be left intact.”

Bitsy Knox from 312.

1905 at 2 a.m. in the subway

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2 a.m. in the subway (1905, 8 MB, 56 sec.)

A subway platform, a policeman and a conductor, a well-dressed man
with a cigar and two women dressed in long skirts and jackets.
One of the women causes a sensation by raising her skirt and
revealing her stocking. Artificial legs are displayed out the subway car window.
Hilarious.
From – The Open Video Project.