Experimental film, etc.

Lutz Mommartz

(MOVING IMAGES) – Over 60 short works by this veteran German experimental filmmaker. Many of the films are without dialogue, but even those with non-subtitled German conversation can be appreciated for their poetic visuals and use of sound. New works are being added.
Samples:

San Francisco Cinematheque Program Notes

(TEXT) – The SF Cinematheque is a longstanding organization devoted to exhibiting experimental film. Here are their collected program notes, from 1984 – 2000, as part of the Prelinger text collection. The programs originally took the form of photocopied pages handed to patrons as they entered the screening room at the SF Art Institute. The programs offer commentary on the works of leading experimental filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, Ken Jacobs, and others. Some of the notes are by the filmmakers themselves and some are handwritten.
Sample: 1984 Program Notes

Miscellany:

Found footage filmmaker Craig Baldwin

James Broughton – 60th birthday audio interview, from Other Minds

Bruce Conner – music composition (1st track, 30:30)

Alexander Hammid (Maya Deren partner) – several shorts, in the Prelinger collection

George Kuchar – the making of one of his films

Michel Laclos – Le Fantastique Au Cinema (shown) – beautiful 1958 book on the history of phantasmagoric cinema, filled with black & white photos of many obscure films from the 1930s through the 1950s. Text in French.

Paul Malcolm’s ‘Notes Towards a Project on Citizen Kane’

Rick Prelinger – ‘Panorama Ephemera’ (2004) – the American subconscious, as seen through the residue of commerce and institutions

Facts about Film – 1948
Facts about Projection – 70s instructional film on 16mm projection

Harry Smith audio files from the Naropa Poetics collection:

Subcollections

Many short film gems can be found in Archive’s Moving Images subcollections:

Adam Curtis

(MOVING IMAGES) – BBC filmmaker Adam Curtis is noted for a career of ongoing 3-part 3-hour essay films that all argue about the influence of ideas and beliefs upon the shaping of history. A few of his films can be found on Archive. Using mostly archive footage and his own voice-over narration, Curtis’ style is dense, sometimes playful.

The Power of Nightmares – examines the rise of the American Neo-Conservative movement and the radical Islamist movement.

The Trip – What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom – how notions of human behavior and freedom developed during the Cold War contributed to the formation of today’s atomized consumer subject. Probably one of the better films of 2007.

Slavoj Žižek

(MOVING IMAGES) – Philosopher and cultural critic.

Democracy Now! May 12, 2008 – Žižek speaks for most of the program, paraphrasing from his book “In Defense of Lost Causes,” which analyzes problems within different streams of today’s Leftist political thought.

Liebe Dein Symptom wie Dich selbst
(Love Thy Symptom As Thyself; 1997, 52 min., by Claudia Willke and Katharina Höcker, German and English) – The filmmakers follow Zizek in Slovenia, at a lecture in New York, a television debate and a punk concert. Not to be confused with the 2005 film/DVD “Žižek!”

Jordon Zorker

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