Director: Storm de Hirsch

Starring: Not Applicable

Year: 1965

Runtime: 9 mins.

Synopsis: A further exploration into the color of ritual, the color of thought; a journey through the underworld of sensory derangement. “A very beautiful work! The abstractions drawn directly on film are like the paintings of Miró moving at full speed to the rhythm of an African beat.” — D. Noguez, La Nouvelle Revue Francaise “Among my favorites … beauty and excitement.” — Jonas Mekas, The Village Voice. (from Film-Makers’ Cooperative)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Underground Film Timeline: 1960 — 1969

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)
DINCA (Andrew Rosinski)

Video: None

Director: Ken Jacobs

Starring: Jack Smith, Jerry Sims

Year: 1959 –63

Runtime: 15 mins.

Synopsis: Featuring Jack Smith. Material was cut in as it came out of the camera, embarrassing moments intact. 100′ rolls timed well with music on old 78s. I was interested in immediacy, a sense of ease, and an art where suffering was acknowledged but not trivialized with dramatics. Whimsy was our achievement, as well as breaking out of step. (from Film-Makers’ Cooperative)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Underground Film Timeline: 1960 — 1969

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Director: Owen Land

Starring: Art Gower, Gunner Piotter, Tanny Young

Year: 1976

Runtime: 10 mins.

Synopsis: A reworking of an earlier film, Institutional Quality, in which the same test was given. In the earlier film, the person taking the test was not seen, and the film viewer in effect became the test taker. The newer version concerns itself with the effects of the test on the test taker. An attempt is made to escape from the oppressive environment of the test — a test containing meaningless, contradictory, and impossible-to-follow directions — by entering into the imagination. (from Canyon Cinema)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Director: Bruce Baillie

Starring: Not Applicable

Year: 1962

Runtime: 10 mins.

Synopsis: Here I Am is a sensitive, low-key portrait of the East Bay Activity Center, a school in Oakland, California, started in the 1950s to help emotionally disturbed children. The atmospheric documentary opens with hilly East Bay streets shrouded in fog. The mist lifts as the film moves to children at play. Often shown in unobtrusive close-up, the youngsters appear as thinking individuals, enjoying the swings, puzzling out problems, or interacting with their teacher in the classroom. (from Treasures IV DVD)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Director: Chick Strand

Starring: Not Applicable

Year: 1986

Runtime: 22 mins.

Synopsis: Intimate documentary about young women who make papier mache fruit and vegetables in a small factory in Mexico. They have a gringo boss, but the factory is owned by his Mexican wife. The focus of the film is on the color, music and movement involved, and the gossip which goes on constantly, revealing what the young women think about men. (from Canyon Cinema)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Director: Hollis Frampton

Starring: Michael Snow (voice)

Year: 1971

Runtime: 36 mins.

Synopsis: In 13 sequences, a photograph lies on top of a burner on an electric stove. As the picture slowly burns and turns to ash, a narrator reminisces about the next photo in the next sequence, i.e. as we watch one photo be destroyed, we hear about the next photo we’ll see. Although not identified in the film, the narrator is structuralist filmmaker Michael Snow, yet the photos and the stories that go along with them both belong to the director, Hollis Frampton.

(nostalgia) is also the first film in Frampton’s seven-part Hapax Legomena series.

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: Hollis Frampton site

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Director: George Kuchar

Starring: Barbara Lapsley, George Kuchar

Year: 1977

Runtime: 9 mins.

Synopsis: This film was shot in ten minutes with four or five students of mine at the San Francisco Art Institute. It was to be a screen-test for a girl in the class. She wanted something to show producers of theatrical productions, as the girl was interested in an acting career. By the time all the heavy equipment was set up the class was just about over; all we had was ten minutes. Since 400 feet of film takes ten minutes to run through the camera … that was the answer: Just start it and don’t stop till it runs out. I had to get into the act to speed things up so, in a way, this film gives an insight into my directing techniques while under pressure. (from Canyon Cinema)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986

Official Website: None

Reviews: Moving Image Source (Ed Halter)

Video: None

Director: Ron Rice

Starring: Jack Smith, Mario Montez, Barbara Rubin, Guy Henson, Joel Markman, Zelda Nelson, Francis Francine, Beverly Grant, Francis Stillman, Barry Titus

Year: 1964

Runtime: 23 mins.

Synopsis: Polymorphously exotic, Chumlum conjures a vision from the Arabian Nights. As the actors pose in harem costumes and bizarre makeup, Rice explores the allure of indolent women, diaphanous hangings, and swaying hammocks — stretching out the experience through colorful in-camera superimpositions. The psychedelic montage moves at a languorous pace far removed from the rush of modern life. Questions of motivation and plot are beside the point. (from Treasures IV DVD booklet)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986

Official Website: None

Reviews: All Movie Guide (Nicole Gagne)
Bright Lights Film Journal (C. Jerry Kutner)

Underground Film Timeline: 1960 — 1969

Video: None

Director: Barbara Hammer

Starring: Not Applicable

Year: 1974

Runtime: 4 mins.

Synopsis: A popular lesbian “commercial,” 110 images of sensual touching montages in A, B, C, D rolls of “kinaesthetic” editing.

“The images are varied and very quickly presented in the early part of the film, introducing the characters, if you will. The second half of the film slows down measurably and all of a sudden I found myself holding my breath as I watched the images of love-making sensually and artistically captured.” – Elizabeth Lay, Plexus (from Canyon Cinema)

DVD: 1974-78 Dyketactics and Other Films of the 1970’s

Official Website: None

Reviews: None

Video: Clip

Director: Tom Palazzolo

Starring: Not Applicable

Year: 1976

Runtime: 15 mins.

Synopsis: We traveled to Indiana back roads to see and shoot the annual Miss Nude Universe Contest held at a “notorious” nudist camp. They wanted $15 a head at the gate so we parked down the road and crawled through the brush. Once in, we encountered truckers and hundreds of Sunday photographers straining for a shot at the contestants. Afterward we joined the quest for stray women willing to pose. After a quick success we headed home with our catch in the can. (This film also contains shots of the Mr. Nude Trucker Contest.) (from Canyon Cinema)

DVD: Xperimental Eros (DVD compilation of experimental erotic films)

Official Website: None

Reviews: Bad Lit (Mike Everleth)
Pulp Movies (Paul Pritchard)

Video: None