Surreal
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- DirectorHans RichterStarsWerner GraeffWalter GronostayPaul HindemithHans Richter, noted for his abstract shorts, has everyday objects rebelling against their daily routine.
- DirectorMan RayStarsKiki of MontparnasseJacques RigautA long series of unrelated images, revolving, often distorted: lights, flowers, nails. A lightboard appears from time to time carrying the news of the day. Then, an eye. A woman in a car drives along country roads. Farm animals. She descends from the car, again and again. Images: dancing legs, seashore, swimming fish, geometric shapes, cut glass. A man removes his starched collar. It rotates. A girl has garishly painted eyes. No, she's only fooling. Those were her eyelids.
- DirectorMarcel DuchampA spiral design spins dizzily. It's replaced by a spinning disk. These two continue in perfect alternation until the end: a spiral design, a disk. Each disk is labelled and can be read as it rotates. The messages, in French, feature puns and whimsical rhymes and alliteration. The final message comments on the spiral motif itself.
- DirectorWalter RuttmannWalter Ruttmann's (Metropolis 1927) fourth abstract animated short in the series. In this the last film he has found a cohesion between the music and the action. The synergy between the music and the on screen action can be felt.
- DirectorViking EggelingA tilted figure, consisting largely of right angles at the beginning, grows by accretion, with the addition of short straight lines and curves which sprout from the existing design. The figure vanishes and the process begins again with a new pattern, each cycle lasting one or two seconds. The complete figures are drawn in a vaguely Art Deco style and could be said to resemble any number of things, an ear, a harp, panpipes, a grand piano with trombones, and so on, only highly stylized. The tone is playful and hypnotic.
- DirectorFernand LégerDudley MurphyStarsKiki of MontparnasseFernand LégerDudley MurphyA pulsing, kaleidoscope of images set to an energetic soundtrack. A young women swings in a garden; a woman's face smiles. The rest is spinning cylinders, pistons, gears and turbines, kitchen objects in concentric circles or rows - pots, pan lids, and funnels, cars passing overhead, a spinning carnival ride. Over and over, a heavy-set woman climbs stairs carrying a large bag on her shoulder. An Art Deco cartoon figure appears, dancing. This is a world in motion, dominated by mechanical and repetitive images, with a few moments of solitude in a garden.
- DirectorHans RichterBlack and white rectangular images fade in and out of the screen. Their movement make them sometimes look like they're panning from side to side. Their movement also make the black and white individually change from foreground to background and visa versa.
- DirectorRené ClairStarsJean BörlinInge FrïssFrancis PicabiaAn absolute dada movie. Somebody gets killed, his coffin gets out of control and after a chase it stops. The person gets out of it and let everybody who followed the coffin dissapear.
- DirectorMan RayStarsKiki of MontparnasseExperimental film, white specks and shapes gyrating over a black background, a light-striped torso, a gyrating eggcrate. One of the first Dadaist films.
- DirectorWalter RuttmannAgainst a dark background, several bright, curved or rounded shapes pulse towards the center of the screen, one at a time. They are followed by many other shapes, some irregular, some pointed, others rounded. The abstract shapes move into or across the screen in harmony with the musical score.
- DirectorWalter RuttmannThird instalment in a series of short, abstract animations, featuring bright shapes moving against a dark background. The shapes move across the screen in harmony with the music.
- DirectorHans RichterRhythm 23 (Rhythmus 23, 1923) is an extension of the same film but with more angles and overlays added, and adding lines rather than adhering to the squares of the original. It looks so similar that the academic argument that both "21" and "23" were made in 1923 looks rather likely. Richter himself at some exhibitions showed these two together as a single film called Un film de Hans Richter. The hand-colored Rhythm 25 (Rhythmus 25, 1925) was the final "chapter," but it does not survive."
- DirectorRobert FloreyStarsJoseph MarievskyTamara ShavrovaAnielka ElterWhile playing his trombone one Sunday, the enthusiastic Zero sees Beatrix and falls in love. He returns the next week to express his feelings, and it's mutual. Over the next few months, they spoon, kiss, and find happiness. Then, she receives a letter from Kabul, demanding that she return to the palace of the grand vizier. The lovers part, heartbroken. Zero tries expressing himself to a woman on the street. He meets derision. Then, news of Beatrix. Does this romance end in smiles or tears?
- DirectorRobert FloreySlavko VorkapichStarsJules RaucourtVoya GeorgeRobert FloreyA wannabe movie star experiences the surreal horrors of dehumanization at the bottom of Hollywood's social ladder as his hopes for success vanish and his identity is reduced to a number.
- DirectorJames Sibley WatsonMelville WebberStarsHerbert SternHildegarde WatsonMelville WebberAn avant-garde take on Poe's classic story of a traveller taking shelter at a household under a mysterious curse.
- DirectorGermaine DulacStarsAlex AllinLucien BatailleGenica AthanasiouObsessed with a general's woman, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.
- DirectorMan RayStarsKiki of MontparnasseAndré de la RivièreRobert DesnosTwo people stand on a road, out of focus. Seen distorted through a glass, they retire upstairs to a bedroom where she undresses. He says, "Adieu." Images: the beautiful girl, a starfish in a jar, city scenes, newspapers, tugboats. More images: starfish, the girl. "How beautiful she is." Repeatedly. He advances up the stair, knife in hand, starfish on the step. Three people stand on a road, out of focus. "How beautiful she was." "How beautiful she is." "Beautiful."
- DirectorGermaine DulacIn this avant garde short subject, the director gives us her visual impressions from listening to two pieces by Chopin: the 4tn and 6tn preludes.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsPierre BatcheffSimone MareuilLuis BuñuelLuis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.
- DirectorHans RichterAn abstract short film from Hans Richter in which a series of unrelated images are edited together.
- DirectorHans RichterStarsSergei EisensteinMichael HankinsonBasil WrightAn abstract look at daily life in London.
- DirectorLuis BuñuelStarsGaston ModotLya LysCaridad de LaberdesqueA surrealist tale of a man and a woman who are passionately in love with each other, but their attempts to consummate that passion are constantly thwarted by their families, the Church, and bourgeois society.
- DirectorSlavko Vorkapich
- DirectorDouglass CrockwellAn experimental animated short from Douglass Crockwell which derives its subject matter from his home Glens Falls.
- DirectorMary Ellen ButeNorman McLarenTed NemethIt's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks appear, then two ghosts. They move to the music's rhythm. Against the black night, they are blue and yellow. Bats appear as does a xylophone of bones. Mist rises, spooks swirl. A bell tolls. The sky turns light blue, the ghosts' dance slows. Then black night returns bringing intimations of frenzy. Bones play snare drums; spooks peek out of square graves. Scary faces appear. Frenetic movement takes over. A rooster crows and all return to earth as the sun's light appears.