Cremaster 1, Trailer (1995, 34MB, 3:23 min.)
Trailer for Cremaster1 of Matthew Barney‘s Cremaster cycle –
a self-enclosed aesthetic system consisting of five films that
explore processes of creation.
Category Archives: cinema
Imitations of Life – Mike Hoolboom
Imitations of Life (excerpt) (2003, 35MB, 4 min.)
Imitations of Life is a ten-part video that strains childhood through a history
of reproduction, culling pictures from the Lumières to
the present day in order to find the future in our past.
by experimental filmmaker Mike Hoolboom.
Man With a Movie Camera – Perry Bard
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.
Woody Allen/Nathaniel Stern
at interval (1977/2006, 24.3MB, 13:22 min)
Early work from the redoubtable Nathaniel Stern where he reworked,
in the most curious of ways, Woody Allen’s Annie Hall.
Interesting that although the working method here seems
almost diametrically opposed to the hands on, performative
approach found in his odys series here too is that same
sense of the fragility & vulnerability of human beings and their
bodies & psyches & of the unreliability of the language we use
to try & make what we want to happen & to relate or lie about what did .
Hal Hartley – Henry Fool
Henry Fool -trailer (1997, 5.2MB, 2:05 min.)
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.
Comme un Chat Noir au Fond d’un Sac
comme un chat noir au fond d’un sac (2006, 18.4MB, 4:47 min)
A beautiful excerpt from Stephane Elmadjian’s feature film found
on composer Daniel Wohl’s website.
Starting off a bit intense it winds itself down and into some breathtaking stuff.
Sigur Ròs : Heima Trailer
heima trailer (2007, 46.7 MB, 3:53 min.)
An exquisite trailer for the promising first film from Iceland’s Sigur Ròs.
Watch, and then tell me you did not add Iceland to your top 5 places
to see before you die.
Santiago Sierra – NO, Global Tour
NO, Global Tour trailer (2010, 21 MB, 3:11 min)
Team Gallery, Lisson Gallery , Galería Helga de Alvear & Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani,
in association with Artprojx Cinema, present the UK premiere of NO, Global Tour,
2010 by Santiago Sierra.
The 120 minute film consists of the manufacture and transportation of two monumental sculptures
in the form of the word “NO”, travelling through different territories on a flatbed truck.
The NO, GLOBAL TOUR has resulted in a feature film that documents the passage of this
large NO through various world cities.
A monumental sculpture – unchanged both in its form and immediate meaning – that gradually
assumes a complex semantic load during a journey full of eventualities, accidents, and unexpected events.
A Broad Way
A Broad Way, Trailer (2007, 60.89 MB, 5:17 min)
Saul Goode worked with 400 filmmakers to
document every corner of New York’s most
famous street, Broadway.
By Mica
Hanns Eisler – ‘Composing for the Films’
‘White Flood’ – clip 1 (1940-2, 1.1 MB, 30 sec.)
‘A Child Went Forth’ – clip (1940-2, 1.4 MB, 30 sec.)
‘White Flood’ – clip 2 (1940-2, 661 KB, 29 sec.)
Easily the most interesting of all Brecht’s composer collaborators
& in flat contradiction to the current myth spread by those
who dislike his politics, by far the better composer than the rather
dull Weill, Hanns Eisler’s keen intellect turned to questions of film in his
exile in the USA in the early forties.
Under the auspices of the New School & funded by the Rockefeller foundation
Eisler conducted an intensive investigation of the relationship between
film & music , often involving him writing new music to already existing footage.
You can see some of this footage here – but what you really need to do is to listen.
There is no-one who could not learn something from the amazing way Eisler
deploys music here.
After the project, Eisler went on to write, with Theodore Adorno,
himself no slouch intellectually (& also a practicing composer),
one of the key books on music & the movies –‘Composing for the Films’
These clips come from the website for a new edition of the book
released with a companion DVD documenting much of the Rockefeller experimentation.
Indispensable.
Lumière – La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière à Lyon
La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière à Lyon (1895, 2MB, 46 sec.)
The year is 1895. The “Hangar” was the first set in the history of Cinematography and
can be seen here in “La Sortie de l’usine Lumière”, Lumière’s first film.
from the fantastic site – Institut Lumière.
Buffies – First Season
Buffies – First Season (2002, 5.4MB, 1 min.)
Winsome bit of conceptual candyfloss from Chuck Jones in 2002.
One of his isolation studies, this piece comprises
‘Every utterance of the word ‘Buffy’ made during
the first season of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’,
totaling nearly one minute.’
Cutting Edge Cinema
A Tough Dance (1902, 7.1MB, 47 sec.)
Bicycle Trick Riding (1899, 5.5MB, 37 sec.)
Three Acrobats (1899, 5.4MB, 36 sec.)
Three exhilarating chunks of early movie making from the
Library of Congress online collection of variety stage motion pictures.
I particularly love the deeply strange A ‘Tough’ Dance.
There’s also a great early animation collection on the LOC site.
The Cinema Effect: Realisms at Caixa Forum Madrid, Spain
The Cinema Effect (2011, 44 MB, 5:28 min)
An exhibition that reflects on the influence and impact of cinema in constructing
our visual culture, highlighting how cinematographic language has taken on various
artistic forms including video and installation art. The show features work by Julian Rosefeldt,
Isaac Julien, Runa Islam, Kerry Tribe, Paul Chan, Omer Fast, Mungo Thomson and Ian Charlesworth.
The show has been curated by Kerry Brougher, Anne Ellegood, Kelly Gordon, and Kristen Hileman.
from VernissageTV.
‘Un Chien Andalou’ – Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
Un chien andalou (1929, 156MB, 15:40 min.)
This is just the source.
Can you imagine Cocteau, Deren, later Hitchcock & Cronenberg
without this?
Oh..more:- the whole of cinema would have a great gaping bloody gap
in it & what was left would be dull dull dull & Black Francis wouldn’t have been
able to write ‘Debaser’.
It simply prised open the language.
Afterwards, Bunuel went on to make some of the sharpest, most provocative
& disturbing films of the 20th century & Dali went on to
…well… be Dali.
Ladislas Starewitch – Le Lion Devenu Vieux
Le Lion Devenu Vieux (1932, 3.5MB, 1:04 sec.)
Ladislas Starewitch is often credited with inventing stop motion animation
as we know it, though so are several other people. It depends on what fits
into your definition of stop motion.
Certainly he was probably the first to actually make little figures and move
them frame by frame in an attempt to duplicate lifelike movement of actual
living things. it was because he was filming beetles and found that the hot
lights made them lethargic, so he made his own little beetles asrealistically
as possible and animated them instead.
This gave birth to further projects with very lifelike but sometimes partially
anthropomorphic (human-like) animals.
from – Darkstrider.
By Mica. (thanks Adam)
PIRATE – Annika Larsson
PIRATE (2006, 45 MB, 8:25 min)
By Annika Larsson.
Music by Tobias Bernstrup & Annika Larsson.
RUBBER – Quentin Dupieux
RUBBER (2011, 35 MB, 2:21 min)
Trailer for RUBBER, the story of Robert, an inanimate tire that has been
abandoned in the desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life.
RUBBER is a ‘smart, funny and wholly original tribute to the cinematic
concept of “no reason” ‘.
Director: Quentin Dupieux
“Next To Heaven” Returns for a Second Season
DuPont (2011, 25 MB, 2:42 min.)
Smokey (2011, 25 MB, 2:45 min.)
A couple of previews from Rob Parrish
Film by Samuel Beckett with Buster Keaton
Samuel Beckett‘s only venture into the medium of cinema, Film was written
in 1963 and filmed in New York in the summer of 1964, directed by
Alan Schneider and featuring Buster Keaton. For the shooting Mr.
Beckett made his only trip to America. The film, which has no dialogue,
takes its basis Berkeley’s notion esse est percepti that is, to be is to be perceived.
Curt Cloninger –TOM#2
Touch Me (2011, 562KB , 2:00 min)
Hear Me (2011, 12MB, 1:11 min)
Second two parts of TOM (an instrumental rock opera remix in four parts)
by Curt Cloninger, of which we posted the first two last week.
Curt Cloninger –TOM
Feel Me (2011, 11MB, 1:03 min)
Two parts of a rather good new work –
TOM (an instrumental rock opera remix in four parts)
by Curt Cloninger, of whom we are fans.
He remixes the 1975 film of the Who’s rock opera Tommy to striking effect.
I can’t imagine crossing the road to see the original, even for free, but
here Curt’s sense of beauty, drama and balance – which have served him
well in a number of works and projects involving remix/appropriation, notably
his fantastic playdamage project –
redeem banality to something genuinely affecting.
More next week.
Alice in Wonderland, 1903.
Alice in Wonderland (1903, 136MB, 9:32)
Enthralling first ever screen version of Alice in Wonderland
from 1903, lovingly restored by the folks at the BFI.
There’s no-one –no-one – who could not learn
something about film-making from this gem.
Nine minutes of sheer, grinning-with-joy delight.
Simon Mclennan – The Mouse Escapes
The Mouse Escapes [Trailer] (2010, 4MB, 37 secs)
Difficult to gauge from the trailer what the full 12 minute piece
might be like but it will clearly be interesting & atmospheric and guided
by an acute visual sense.
The music, written by director Mclennan, is also rather good.
Website, with lots of details, here.
Lev Manovich – Little Movies #3
Lev Manovich – Little Movies #2
Lev Manovich – Little Movies #1
Binary Code (1994-98, 2MB, 52 secs)
On the Ephemeral Nature of Little Movies (1994-98, 3MB, 1:05 min)
I mentioned the Manovich Little Movies in the post I did the
other week on Eryk Salvaggio’s ‘Unfinished Mpeg Haiku’.
In the course of writing that I went to Manovich’s site to look at them
& was surprised to find that their page was in some disarray
and the movies themselves had been removed.
Nor could I find them either in the version archived on the Rhizome Artbase.
It seems a shame for them not to be available -they’re historical
(and in many ways amazingly presecient) documents at the least,
although I find them – especially the last one – gripping and touching too.
Then I remembered the wonderful Wayback Machine and I found them
there, all snug and safe and sound.
We’ll post them here in twos in the next week or so,
in the order in which they appeared in Manovich’s
original presentation of them.
Although the image linking to it has been removed from the site
Manovich’s very interesting statement remains.
(I guess if that goes too you’ll still be able to Wayback it)
“Eternal Return” by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Eternal Return (2006, 4 MB, 1:54 min.)
“Eternal Return” installed at the exhibition Stop Motion at the Edith Russ Haus,
is a remake of a scene from the musical movie The Gay Divorcee.
The piece was reworked to allow a large video projection for the exhibition.”
by – Jennifer and Kevin McCoy.
‘ZOOMER’ by Sam Huntley
Zoomer (trailer) (2010, 26MB, 2:24 min.)
ZOOMER is a feature-length documentary about the life of Mary
DeBoutez Zellmer-Fenoglio, an eccentric and charismatic owner
of ‘Zoomer’s Treasures’ in Kansas, USA.
ZOOMER is Sam Huntley‘s first feature-length film and was entirely self-funded.
