All Films

Metamorphosis

1974 • 8 min • United States of America

“Schwartz’ METAMORPHOSIS is a complex study of evolving lines, planes, and circles, all moving at different speeds, and resulting in subtle color changes. The only computer-generated work on the program, it transcends what many of us have come to expect of such film with its subtle variations and significant use of color.” – Catherine Egan

The Cafeteria

1974 • 54 min

An eccentric Jewish writer is drawn into the world of an apparantly delusional young woman and her invalid father

Eleanor

1974 • 60 min

Eleanor seems normal enough to her parents and teachers. Why then has she disappeared?

Lucifer Rising

1974 • 29 min • Germany, United States of America, United Kingdom

Egyptian gods summon the angel Lucifer, in order to usher in a new occult age.

The Year Without a Santa Claus

1974 • 51 min • United States of America

Feeling forgotten by the children of the world, old St. Nick decides to skip his gift-giving journey and take a vacation. Mrs. Claus and two spunky little elves, Jingle and Jangle, set out to see to where all the season's cheer has disappeared. Aided by a magical snowfall, they reawaken the spirit of Christmas in children's hearts and put Santa back in action.

Floor

1974 • 4 min

"For 'Floor' I was interested in the limits of the frame and the idea of what was “in” and what was “out” and working all the way to the edge. So I set up a particular frame that would allow for a play between flatness and depth, between representations of a partial body and a full body. Douglas’s task was to do the same sequence of movement both forward and backwards in time." - Charles Atlas

Mesa Trouble

1974 • 6 min • United States of America

Big Red is coming to Cactus Goat to give revenge on Hoot Kloot for sending him to the river. Hoot tried to get help from townsfolk, but everybody refuses, because they're afraid of Big Red.

Freddie King In Concert Dallas, Texas

1973 • 58 min

On January 20, 1973, Freddie King and a tight quartet performed at a TV studio in Dallas, Texas. "It was humming in there," recalls director Jim Rowley. "Absolutely cooking." King was 38 and enjoying what he called "the Fillmore circuit" in America as well as the adulation of throngs (including adoring rock stars) in Europe, especially England. This was the second time King had the brass ring firmly in hand, the first being during the early 1960s "dance party" era and his success with Hide Away. It all ended too soon with King's 1976 death but he left us a vibrant musical legacy which includes concert performances like this, a stunning example of a blues master coming to triumphant terms with 1970s African-American grooves and "playing funky."

High Kukus

1973 • 3 min

In this homage to Zen poet Basho, the subtle changes of a pond are chronicled on film over a period of time. Broughton recites his cuckoo haikus in the background.

Sewing Machine

1973 • 1 min • United Kingdom

While a mother busies herself with sewing, a clock counts down the last minute of her daughter’s life as we hear a chilling voiceover reminding us to keep watch over our children when they're near traffic.

Venusville

1973 • 10 min

No montage, no human subjects, minimal visual content, and the artists basically pissing on the fourth wall by calling attention in every way possible to the artifice of what they’re doing. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

Plamuz

1973 • 10 min • Poland

Plamuz animates a cool jazz ensemble's jam session, splitting the screen into pulsing shards of color that dance to different instruments from one moment to the next.

Miss Jesus Fries on Grill

1973 • 12 min

"MISS JESUS FRIES ON GRILL is a mysterious striking evocation of pain and the short-circuiting sensations of living in this predicament of death. It is a short film and again the color is fine and sharp as a good paring knife. "Beginning with a newspaper clipping, written in a remarkably detailed manner of a bizarre accident in which a Miss Jesus was killed when a car smashed into the cafe where she was eating. The impact threw her on the grill, heated to 500 degrees.

Female Sensibility

1973 • 13 min

As two heavily made-up women take turns directing each other and submitting to each other's kisses and caresses, it becomes increasingly obvious that the camera is their main point of focus. Read against feminist film theory of the "male gaze", the action becomes a highly charged statement of the sexual politics of viewing and role-playing; and, as such, is a crucial text in the development of early feminist video.

The Heart Cycle

1973 • 13 min

Work on The Heart Cycle commenced as a series of experiments with a roll of 16mm ‘found footage’ film and a newly acquired CCTV system (sited at the college of art in which I worked). A film projector and several studio cameras connected through a simple vision mixer to monitors and a video tape deck, recorded a series of procedures and adjustments made to the system during experiments and ‘rehearsals’. The new media of analogue video delivered motion pictures that displayed in ‘real time’, the state of a system in synthesis. These peaked as a final performance, the extent unedited, 'single-take' recording of The Heart Cycle.

Yyaa

1973 • 5 min • Poland

Yyaa shows film's capacity to manipulate the represented reality through montage. The artist filmed himself screaming "Yyaa!" in the same room, but lit in various ways. Then, he edited these takes into a single scream - impossibly long and impossible in reality.

Windmill II

1973 • 9 min • United Kingdom

Windmill II is one of a series of films (Wind Vane, Anemometer, Tree, Park, Estuary etc.) which uses an element present within the frame as a feedback device to control an aspect of the recording process. In this case it is the wind moving the leaves on the trees within the frame which also causes the windmill to rotate like a secondary shutter in front of the camera. This rotation of the mirrored windmill blades causes the image on the screen to alternate between the space in front of the camera, seen intermittently through the blades, and the space behind the camera, reflected in the blades. When the windmill reaches a particular speed, a third space is also created as the deep space of the picture plane fragments and becomes a two dimensional abstract surface of colour and light.

L'invitation au voyage

1973 • 10 min • France

"L'invitation au voyage” is articulated around the combining of images of memories. On a technical level, this is obtained by using fading photographs followed by solarised landscapes produced using the universal special effects device developed by the research department of the ORTF (the French national radio and TV broadcasting corporation) and a scene filmed in slow motion using a high-speed camera operating at 200 frames per second.

Antepartum

1973 • 1 min

A single close-up shot records the artist stroking her abdomen, at full term, as the unborn baby moves.

Frames

1973 • 8 min • United Kingdom

"The original was standard 8mm material that I'd shot in a village in Italy. The material had gone through a process of deterioration. I'd used it in performing and taken it through an old Russian slide projector. I took the lens out of this projector so I could pull the film strip through it, and that meant the image could be focused on different surfaces. Instead of the image falling onto a screen, I could direct it around the room with the lens in my hand. In the process it got very torn and scratched, and it was that material I eventually put in the contact printer and made into the 16mm film Frames." – Annabel Nicolson

I Met You

1973 • 16 min • Soviet Union

A musical cartoon based on Russian romances.

Schoolhouse Rock Multiplication

1973 • 30 min • United States of America

Join the Schoolhouse Rock team as they explore math and multiplication with their unique style of irresistible melodies. This Classroom Edition DVD includes favorites such as Three is a Magic Number and My Hero Zero. Includes a bonus interactive assessment activity to reinforce key learnings, Public Performance Rights, and a printable educator's guide

Parachute

1973 • 7 min

Captures students at Henry Sabin Elementary School in Iowa City holding a circular parachute and pulling down to catch the air's resistance.

Spain!

1973 • 43 min • Germany

Filmed in Spain, Finland, Sweden, and West Germany, 'Spanien!' investigates ideas of internationalism and solidarity, using personal testimonies from former members of the International Brigades who joined the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War and from members of the Workers’ Commissions ('Comisiones Obreras').