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DVD Underground: Avant-Garde 3: Experimental Cinema 1922 — 1954

DVD cover to Avant-Garde 3 Experimental Cinema 1922 1954

Official Description: From The Collection of The George Eastman House and from the Raymond Rohauer Collection.

From the little theaters of the 1920s to the ad hoc film societies of the ’50s, avant-garde cinema knew no established form and held no predictable position. The boundaries of its history are still hotly debated, but its rough sensibilities informed and permeated the city symphonies of Alberto Cavalcanti, the visual music of Mary Ellen Bute and John Whitney, the classroom films of Sidney Peterson, the confessional film poems of Willard Maas and John E. Schmitz, the Lettrist cinema of Marc’O, and even marginal exploitation films and home movies.

Drawn from the rich collections of Raymond Rohauer and the George Eastman House, Kino’s third volume of experimental films continues to illuminate the degree to which cinema’s evolution has been influenced by those filmmakers who occupy its periphery.

Distributor: Kino International

Availability: Amazon

Contents:

Disc 1:

  1. Danse Macabre
    US 1922 Color Tinted 6 Min.
    Dir: Dudley Murphy
  2. Rien Que Les Heures (Nothing But Time)
    US 1926 B&W 46 Min.
    Dir: Alberto Cavalcanti
    Music by Larry Marotta
  3. The Tell-Tale Heart
    US 1928 B&W 20 Min.
    Dir: Charles F. Klein
    Music by Sue Harshe
  4. Tarantella
    US 1940 Color 4 Min.
    Dir: Mary Ellen Bute, Ted Nemeth
  5. Tomatos Another Day
    US 1930 B&W 7 Min.
    Dir: James Sibley Watson
  6. The Uncomfortable Man
    US 1948 B&W 23 Min.
    Intentionally silent
    Dir: Kent Munson, Theodore Huff
  7. The Petrified Dog
    US 1948 B&W 18 Min.
    Dir: Sidney Peterson
  8. The Lead Shoes
    US 1949 B&W 16 Min.
    Dir: Sidney Peterson
  9. Four in the Afternoon
    US 1951 B&W 14 Min.
    Dir: James Broughton

Disc 2:

  1. Plague Summer
    US 1951 B&W 15 Min.
    Dir: Chester Kessler
  2. La mort du cerf (The Death of a Stag)
    France 1951 B&W 12 Min.
    Dir: Dimitri Kirsanoff
  3. Image in the Snow
    US 1952 B&W 26 Min.
    Dir: Willard Maas
  4. Celery Stalks at Midnight
    France 1952 Color 3 Min.
    Dir: John Whitney
  5. The Voices
    US 1953 B&W 14 Min.
    Dir: John E. Schmitz
  6. Closed Vision
    US 1954 B&W 65 Min.
    Dir: Marc’O

Bonus Films:

  1. Tomatos Another Day (outtakes)
    US 1930 B&W 5 Min.
    Dir: James Sibley Watson
  2. Episodes in the Life of a Gin Bottle
    US 1925 B&W 11 Min.
    Dir: Bela von Block
    Music by Paul Mercer, Bruce Bennett and Davis Petterson
  3. Schichlegruber Doing the Lambeth Walk
    UK 1941 B&W 2 Min.
    Dir: Charles A. Ridley
  4. Dementia (excerpt)
    US 1955 B&W 5 Min.
    Dir: John Parker
  5. Falling Pink
    US circa late 1950s Color 9 Min.
    Dir: Robert H. Spring
    Music by Paul Mercer and Bruce Bennett

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