Morning(2020)

Begone Dull Care(en)

In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.

A Colour Box(en)

Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film.

Why(ja)

A boxing ring turns into a stage for abstract animation where the punches thrown in the match and the halftone dots in reprographics gradually become indistinguishable. Tanaami shot a boxing match on a Motordrive camera, made two thousand offset prints, and rephotographed each of them. He explains his inspiration for the work being the experience of watching a boxing match on television but finding the newspaper print the next morning better capturing the exhilaration of the sport.

The Dante Quartet(en)

A visual representation, in four parts, of one man's internalization of "The Divine Comedy." Hell is a series of multicolored brush strokes against a white background; the speed of the changing images varies. "Hell Spit Flexion," or springing out of Hell, is on smaller film stock, taking the center of the frame. Montages of color move rapidly with a star and the edge of a lighted moon briefly visible. Purgation is back to full frame; blurs of color occasionally slow down then freeze. From time to time, an image, such as a window or a face, is distinguishable for a moment. In "existence is song," colors swirl then flash in and out of view. Behind the vivid colors are momentary glimpses of volcanic activity.

Rainbow Dance(en)

Rainbow Dance is a 1936 British animated film released by the GPO Film Unit. This is Lye's second film. It uses the Gasparcolor process.

Fire in Castilla (Tactilvision from the Moor of the Fright)(es)

A short, experimental documentary featuring sculptures by Alonso de Berruguete and Juan de Juni. Shot within the Valladolid National Museum, the film is an excercise in what Val de Omar called "Tactile vision".

Cat's Cradle(en)

Images of two women, two men, and a gray cat form a montage of rapid bits of movement. A woman is in a bedroom, another wears an apron: they work with their hands, occasionally looking up. A man enters a room, a woman smiles. He sits, another man sits and smokes. The cat stretches. There are close-ups of each. The light is dim; a filter accentuates red. A bare foot stands on a satin sheet. A woman disrobes. She pets the cat. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2006.

Mothlight(en)

Seemingly at random, the wings and other bits of moths and insects move rapidly across the screen. Most are brown or sepia; up close, we can see patterns within wings, similar to the veins in a leaf. Sometimes the images look like paper cutouts, like Matisse. Green objects occasionally appear. Most wings are translucent. The technique makes them appear to be stuck directly to the film.

Eye Myth(en)

After the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid change in the images. Two figures emerge from this jungle of color: the first, a shirtless man, appears twice, coming into focus, then disappearing behind the bursts and patterns of color, then reappearing; the second figure appears later, in the right foreground. This figure suggests someone older, someone of substance. The myth? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

GOOD-BY ELVIS and USA(ja)

A trippy pop-art collage of phallic objects, naked women and American icons, most notably Elvis Presley.

The Adventures of *(en)

Life drums the playfulness out of a boy as he grows up.

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story(en)

The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.

The Tragedy of Man(hu)

Jankovics's adaptation of the eponymous play is divided into multiple parts, and depicts the creation and fall of Man throughout history.

A Fugue(en)

A space occupies it, awaiting to be unlocked by a freeing action or notion. What lies ahead is its determination.

Atman(ja)

ĀTMAN is a visual tour-de-force based on the idea of the subject at the centre of the circle created by camera positions (480 such positions). Shooting frame-by-frame the filmmaker set up an increasingly rapid circular motion. ĀTMAN is an early Buddhist deity often connected with destruction; the Japanese aspect is stressed by the devil mask of Hangan, from the Noh, and by using both Noh music and the general principle of acceleration often associated with Noh drama.

The Birth of the Robot(en)

This experiment was a “prestige advertisement” for Shell Motor Oil. As conventional animation became dominated by Walt Disney, many European filmmakers turned to puppets as an alternative, and Lye enlisted the help of avant-garde friends such as Humphrey Jennings and John Banting to make the amusing puppets. Exploring the still-complex color process, which involved the combination of three separate images, Lye creates such a vivid storm scene that reviewers hailed it as “proof that the color film has entered a new stage.” The music is Holst’s The Planets. - Harvard Film Archive

1923(en)

One of two animation loops directed by Max Hattler, inspired by the work of French outsider artist Augustin Lesage (1876-1954). Based on Lesage's painting A Symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World from 1923.

Street Musique(en)

Animator Ryan Larkin does a visual improvisation to music performed by a popular group presented as sidewalk entertainers. His take-off point is the music, but his own beat is more boisterous than that of the musicians. The illustrations range from convoluted abstractions to caricatures of familiar rituals. Without words.

Fantaisie érotique(cs)

La Maison en Petits Cubes(ja)

La Maison en Petits Cubes tells the story of a grandfather's memories as he adds more blocks to his house to stem the flooding waters.