In a time and place where the gracious mother Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom, weaves her tapestry from illustrations of William Blake and Arthur Rackham with assorted ephemera of men, animals and the flora of the world; where balloons sail to the moon goddess and the ancient world protrudes; where the...

ANCESTORS relates spiritual forefathers and foremothers in a purely fanciful sense. These are classical figures, anatomical figures, fairy tale figures and romantic figures all thrown in together, all from Lawrence Jordan's creative root-sources, in a kind of playful tribute. Like the second part...

Poet Joanna McClure requested a film with the collages of Max Ernst and Lawrence Jordan decided to make a tribute to the two men who most influenced his film-work at the beginning: Max Ernst (collage) and Luis Buñuel (surrealism in cinema). A few years earlier, from late-2011 until October 2013, ...

Writer / director Lawrence Jordan's intention was to follow the idea of James Agee to present "an imaginary story against a background of reality." The imaginary story in this instance is of Paul Rose and his past incarnation in classical Greek times. Jordan collaborated with George Kuchar (who c...

In a timeless world of surreal possibilities, the conjunctions and strange meetings of humans, animals and improbable objects coalesce, linger and move on to the truly timeless and ethereal music of John Davis.

There are no hidden meanings in these conjunctions except those that form in the mind...

Where all is static motion, where music and light become one, where change and motion become one and where the end is the beginning. Black-and-white cut-out animation with touches of color. Ladies of the past encounter science and natural phenomena.

An "in-camera" document or journalistic writing on film with no subsequent deletions or re-ordering. The first partly-pixilated "diary film" of which the filmmaker is aware.

As with RODIA-ESTUDIANTINA, only one shot (which probably was the result of lapse in concentration), deleted from the orig...

THE BLACK OUD represents a subtle new direction in documentary. Lawrence Jordan used the term "bio-documentary" to describe the slight, though essential, differences between this film and the majority of personal or experimental documentaries made in the decade prior. Of course, the prefix "bio" ...

Combining the mambo and Tibetan sound-effects with cut-out animation and assorted clips of silent film stars, starring (in order of appearance) Eric von Stroheim, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Conrad Nagel, Lon Chaney, Alice Terry, Joan Crawford, Lilian Gish, Renée Adorée, May Murray,...

Animation of a new order within the series of short works of that period. Mostly on black space, the figures in blue perform a very compact and jewel-like opera in surreal form, once again to the piano music of Erik Satie. Ideally, the film should be projected on a 30"-wide white card sitting on ...

The scene is set in front of a French chateau. The camera chases improbable incidents across the screen. Many are constructed out of one of Lawrence Jordan's favorite engravings-illustrators: Louis Poyet. Duels occur on a tight rope. Heavier-then-air machines fly by (and sometimes crash). Below, ...

At the close of the first decade of the 2000s, Lawrence Jordan wove together a vast river of image and sound from unused film material piled-up in his studio since 1952. In essence, this is his visual autobiography, including clips from strange and unusual appropriated footage, outtakes from many...

At the close of the first decade of the 2000s, Lawrence Jordan wove together a vast river of image and sound from unused film material piled-up in his studio since 1952. In essence, this is his visual autobiography, including clips from strange and unusual appropriated footage, outtakes from many...

At the close of the first decade of the 2000s, Lawrence Jordan wove together a vast river of image and sound from unused film material piled-up in his studio since 1952. In essence, this is his visual autobiography, including clips from strange and unusual appropriated footage, outtakes from many...

At the close of the first decade of the 2000s, Lawrence Jordan wove together a vast river of image and sound from unused film material piled-up in his studio since 1952. In essence, this is his visual autobiography, including clips from strange and unusual appropriated footage, outtakes from many...

At the close of the first decade of the 2000s, Lawrence Jordan wove together a vast river of image and sound from unused film material piled-up in his studio since 1952. In essence, this is his visual autobiography, including clips from strange and unusual appropriated footage, outtakes from many...

At the close of the first decade of the 2000s, Lawrence Jordan wove together a vast river of image and sound from unused film material piled-up in his studio since 1952. In essence, this is his visual autobiography, including clips from strange and unusual appropriated footage, outtakes from many...

At the close of the first decade of the 2000s, Lawrence Jordan wove together a vast river of image and sound from unused film material piled-up in his studio since 1952. In essence, this is his visual autobiography, including clips from strange and unusual appropriated footage, outtakes from many...

At the close of the first decade of the 2000s, Lawrence Jordan wove together a vast river of image and sound from unused film material piled-up in his studio since 1952. In essence, this is his visual autobiography, including clips from strange and unusual appropriated footage, outtakes from many...

In 1965, Lawrence Jordan worked as an assistant to Joseph Cornell on his boxes and films. Jordan filmed his work extensively and as much as he could of the artist (and it is the only film-footage that exists of Cornell). Jordan edited the film in 1978 when he determined that it would be a kind of...

On ancient star maps of magnificent color quality, Lawrence Jordan takes the viewer out of this world into the realm of cosmic imagination. COSMIC ALCHEMY is thematically and visually consistent with his earlier shorts and yet, set to an evocative score by John Davis, Jordan has crossed into an u...

There is a hint of an underwater circus since many of the performers are acrobats. The sea water—if that is what it is—is yellowish brown. A full-faced sun rises from the Sun King's cradle while a moon of Saturn circles the planet. The cut-out animation moves airily through a time-distorted world...

A dance of eclectic objects. A play of demented dolls, wheels and geriatric clocks. Cut-out and stop-motion animation at its formative stage, Jordan-wise.

A "found-footage" film with the original materials too shrunk to print on 16mm. The film was one of four made for the GRAVITY SPELLS project, an album of film and new music by John Davis. The title derives from text in the footage—"These Driving Demons Start Young"—and proceeds to show soap box d...