GYMNOPEDIES
LAWRENCE JORDAN • 5m 40s
Animation. The theme is weightlessness. Objects and characters are cut loose from habitual meanings as well as tensions and gravitational limitations. A lyric Erik Satie track accompanies the film. Such a portrait seems necessary from time to time to remind us that equilibrium and harmony are possible and that we will not dissolve into a jelly if we allow ourselves to relax into them: a horseman rides through the landscape, through the town, but never arrives anywhere in particular. An acrobat swings on a rope above a canal in Venice and is content just to swing there. Nothing threatens to disturb them. This film is a total contrast to the Kafka-like oddities of Eastern European animation.
"It is impossible not to hallucinate on your own while watching it." - Lita Eliseu, East Village Other
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MOONLIGHT SONATA
Animated to the rhythms of the fifth "Gnossienne" by Erik Satie. The moon and moonlight are the guiding lights of this visual interpretation and Lawrence Jordan kept the backgrounds in soft greens and blues accordingly. Only the cosmic tumbler, whose enigma is emphasized by his red color, breaks ...
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OUR LADY OF THE SPHERE
Animation. The mystical Lady with the orbital head moves through the carnival of life in a surreal adventure. A classic. Show it to anyone who likes movies.
"A beauty... a genuinely mystical exercise." - Howard Thompson, New York Times
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VISIONS OF A CITY
Originally photographed in 1957 but edited in 1978. The protagonist, poet Michael McClure, emerges from the all-reflection imagery of glass shop and car windows, bottles, mirrors and so forth, in scenes which are also accurate portraits of both McClure and the city of San Francisco of the late-19...
