ADEBAR Production: Austria, 1957 Director: Peter Kubelka Category: Experimental From 1956 onwards, film-maker Kubelka developed what he termed “metric cinema”, a rigid format where films were constructed using incredibly precise regulations. At one minute long, Adebar is the first of these metric films, using predetermined shot-lengths of 13, 26 and Continue Reading
Experimental
STAR SPANGLED TO DEATH
STAR SPANGLED TO DEATH Production: USA, 1958-60 Director: Ken Jacobs Category: Experimental At 120 minutes in its first incarnation, Star Spangled To Death remains underground director Jacobs’ key work. It stars fellow film-maker Jack Smith alongside Jerry Sims, and was shot in various New York locations, including the roof of a West Side Continue Reading
STADT IN FLAMMEN
STADT IN FLAMMEN (“City In Flames”) Production: Germany, 1984 Director: Jochen Müller, Jochen Lempert & Jürgen Reble Category: Experimental A 5 minute-film by the German Schmelzdahin group, who were dedicated to the exploration of the effect on found sequences of Super-8 film by exposure to bacteria, chemical treatment, burying the Continue Reading
LA SOCIÉTÉ DU SPECTACLE
LA SOCIÉTÉ DU SPECTACLE Production: France, 1973 Director: Guy Debord Category: Experimental A Situationist détournement comprised of clips from Hollywood films, Soviet propaganda, softcore porn, and archive footage of historical events, and based on Debord’s own seminal tract of 1967. Culture is revealed as the spectacle which distracts from the realities of Continue Reading
JEROVI
JEROVI Production: USA, 1965 Director: José Rodriguez-Soltero Category: Underground/Queer From the 1960s New York underground, a 10-minute queer movie showing a young man disrobing and masturbating while clutching a red rose. Rodriguez-Soltero also made the camp mess Lupe (1967), starring Mario Montez as Lupe Velez, the Hollywood star who committed Continue Reading
MARAT/SADE
MARAT/SADEProduction: UK, 1966Director: Peter BrookCategory: ExperimentalThe first substantial screen portrayal of the Marquis de Sade, by Patrick Magee, is the centrepiece of Peter Brook’s Marat/Sade, a film of a play and a play within a film, showing the inmates of Charenton asylum performing a theatrical piece written for them by Continue Reading
JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES
JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES Production: Belgium, 1975 Director: Chantal Akerman Category: Experimental Fictional verité-style document, lasting over three hours and with long sections shot in real time, of the daily routine of a woman (played by Delphine Seyrig) living in Brussels with her teenage son. In order Continue Reading
THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE
THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE Production: USA, 1971 Director: Leland Auslender Category: Experimental A 12-minute experimental film evocation of the myth of Aphrodite, using multiple superimposed liquid images filmed with distorting mirrors and electronic soundtracking with subliminal vocal sounds. Aphrodite’s birth is paralleled with the creation of life itself, emerging from the matrix of Continue Reading
BODYBUILDING
BODYBUILDING Production: Austria, 1965 Director: Ernst Schmidt Jr. Category: Performance Art A 9-minute film-capture of one of the seminal 1960s performance-art pieces by Vienna Aktionist Otto Muehl. Using both colour and sound, Schmidt adds solarization effects to match the intensity of Muehl’s Materialaktion, which included mummification by bandages and daubing Continue Reading
LA FÉE SANGUINAIRE
LA FÉE SANGUINAIRE (“The Bloodthirsty Fairy”) Production: Belgium, 1968 Director: Roland Lethem Category: Experimental Horror One of the most startling arthouse films of the 60s, in which a voluptuous nude creature launches violent assaults on religion and society; the film opens with a swastika before we see the avenging fairy/angel sexually abusing Continue Reading