Genres: experimental

  • Poet’s Dream

    The Poet dreams a maiden’s bubbles thru edifices of forest and eclectic contagion.

  • Visions of a City

    The protagonist, poet Michael McClure, emerges from the all-reflection imagery of glass shop and car windows, bottles, mirrors etc in scenes which are also accurate portraits of both McClure and the City of San Francisco in 1957. At the same time it is a lyrical and mystical film, building to a crescendo of rhythmically intercut shots of McClure’s face, seemingly trapped on the glazed surface of the city. Music by William Moraldo. I don’t think of this as an ‘early film’ anymore, since it never came together until ’78. Now it’s tight. (LJ)

  • Masquerade

    For the first time I am animating hand-painted engraved cut-outs on a full colour background. The film is mood-filled: A duel scene in a snowy forest, obviously the morning after a masquerade ball. Harlequin lies dying, while red indian walks away with the wings of victory. The woman between them appears, cat masked. The mask dissolves away. Her spirit passes into the face of the sun upon the sun flower. But Harlequin cannot escape death. The blue world engulfs him. (LJ)

  • Enid’s Idyll

    Jordan has used 46 engraved Dore illustrations to Idylls of the King as settings for his extravagantly romantix saga. As Enid, the protagonist, is seen in a vast array of scenes from deep forests to castle keeps, her champion is sometimes with her, sometimes away fighting archetypal foes. She dies and through the magic of Gustav Mahler’s resurrection symphony lives again.

  • Ancestors

    “Ancestors” is a film about spiritual forefathers and mothers in a purely fanciful sense. These are classical figures, anatomical figures, fairy tale figures and romantic figures all thrown in together – all my creative root-sources, in a kind of playful tribute. Like part 2 of “Duo Concertantes,” it’s a moving single picture, now doubled. (LJ)

  • Dream Merchant, The

    A dance of eclectic objects. A play of demented dolls, wheels and geriatric clocks.

  • Carabosse

    Animation, also of a new order in the recent series of short works. Mostly on black space, the figures in blue perform a very compact and jewel-like opera in surreal form, again to Satie’s piano music. Ideally, the film should be projected on a 30″ wide white card sitting on a music stand, center stage of a large auditorium or music hall, with sound from the projector piped into the big speaker system. The film is most effective this way, but can be shown normal-size also.

  • Trumpit

    Stan Brakhage stars as the constricted love in this spoof of pseudo-erotic card play.

  • I Just Wanted To Be Somebody

    What do the religious right and the gay liberation movement have in common? Both were fortified by the efforts of one woman – Anita Bryant. Part document and part poem, “I Just Wanted To Be Somebody” brings us back to the late 1970s and reflects on Bryant’s life and the impact she had. The film is comprised of news footage, commercials and Bryant’s own home movies.

  • Hymn in Praise of the Sun

    A celebration of the filmmaker’s daughter’s birth. The blazing garden as a metaphor for the cycle of life.