Cinematic Era: 1965 Vintage

A film by Robert Nelson

A film by Robert Nelson

First experimentation with in-camera multiple exposure as a technique of self-expression.

Emotions is an episodic film compiled from the theatrical short films of four first-time directors. Directed by Kalevi Korte, Liukastelua tells the story of a young man who helps a woman who has slipped on the street. The accident marks the beginning of a romance. Confiteor, based on a screenplay by Jyrki Lappi-Seppälä and directed by Jaakko Talaskivi, is a story about the friendship between two men that ends with the death of one of them. Leena Salokangas' Toivo, rakkaus (Hope, Love) is the story of a young married woman's one-night stand with a stranger. The final episode is Kristiina, directed by Asko Tolonen. Kristiina Halkola, who plays the title character, suspects she is pregnant.

Still photographer Arnold Gassan made this sensitive portrait of Stan Brakhage not long after the avant-garde icon completed his seminal DOG STAR MAN cycle. The film finds Brakhage mellowed but still busy in rural Colorado, working on films in an open family house. Brakhage holds forth on his particular conception of documentary, the ritualistic nature of Hollywood movies and the tyranny of Renaissance perspective. The film also shows the master at work, poring over images on a flatbed editor and taking to the woods to practice his camera movements. Devotees will be delighted at some of the details Gassan chose to preserve (including a camera tour of Brakhage’s bookshelf).

When was Canada populated by Native Americans from the West? This film relates the discovery of the New World from the time of the Vikings, around 880, to Jacques Cartier.

Memories of the First World War.

"Back in the 60s my friend Duff Decker and I would swap sound tapes that we made at home from scraps of TV, radio, records, along with our own noises. Sometimes these would center on a theme but often they were simply pure sound structures. The track here is of the latter sort, a tape sent to me by Duff. It stirred me to consider setting images to it as a playful and irreverant bagatelle. I had found some commercial travel movies that were being thrown out, and I also had numerous 'outs' from my own film work. These are what I used. The sounds and pictures criss cross over one another. Duff’s sound track tape is made of oppositions and shifts that seem to have no logical sequence and my images largely do the same. Yet I tried to feel my way toward something that might achieve a meaning out of meaninglessness. An abstract flow of cohesive irrationality. A movie! Well, I’m happy with the outcome, but if you’re not, you can blame Duff. He started it." –Abbott Meader

1960's short educational film on ten pin bowling.

A very young Marco Melani is divided between reading cinema magazines and watching car racing on TV.

Film 2 of 6 in the Cine-Songs Program.

Interviews with and performance footage of conductor Sir John Barbirolli.

This film is one of the first Greek commercial documentaries on industry infrastructure. Shot by Roussos Koundouros, the film stands out for its original take on the subject, mainly due to its avant-garde editing and the use of music and soundtrack to underline the visual narration. The film presents the procedures and stages of constructing the aluminum factory infrastructure as well as the steps of production, from extracting bauxite to producing aluminum.

A film about young girls from the villages that go to the monastery and break any connection with the outside world. The portrayal of a ritual in which girls turn from world to sanctuary, and become nuns.

Experimental film by Jim Davis.

This is Rick Patton’s first film, made when he was a student at Antioch college. The stylistic premise was that the film would be a self-portrait, like a still photograph, that changed and grew through time. It is not a story, but it does revolve around a love affair gone wrong and a broken heart. Patton did not show this film for 40 years. He found it embarrassing. Now in his 60s, he is OK with it. All filmmakers have a first film.

An impressionistic portrait of America's diversity

A all-type-of-music show from YLE Finland.

A 1965 film by André S. Labarthe.

A 1965 film by Hubert Knapp.

Opening with the camera slowly moving over what appears to be the surface of the moon, it suddenly falls back to reveal instead the texture of a sculpture. The film is one of constant motion, resulting from the vertiginous movements of West's camera, or the movement built into the sculptures themselves. The music, played by Bertoia, utilizing various objects alternately hammering or caressing his sculptures, is reminiscent of the work of Xenakis.

A visit into the home and studio of the artist-poet Leonard Baskin, describing the life and mind of the man.

The meeting of two young people on the streets at night.

A short film by underground filmmaker Barbara Rubin.

In 1944, at Himmler's command, a film was shot in Terezín, meant to give the impression that the rumors of extermination camps were enemy propaganda. In the film titled "The Führer Gives a City to the Jews", Terezín was depicted as a town handed over into free Jewish self-administration.

In making this film about the Vietnam War, the Australian Commonwealth Film Unit did not look for battles and heroes. This was to be the story of the young Australians who were carrying on the standards of service begun by their grandfathers during the First World War. The emphasis was on people, both Australian and Vietnamese. The intention was to show what war really feels like.

"Lågsniff" is only screened once on Swedish television in 1965, and then creating such a stir that the film immediately was put into the dark vaults of SVT, where it has been hidden since. Now the amazing visual recording of the event has been made available on DVD, 37 years after. This experimental stageplay is a masterpiece in the use of live voices, (by fellow leading avant-gardists of the time, Bengt-Emil Johnson, Leif Nylén a.o.) black and white cut ups and an innovative use of the camera.

A machine that creates poetry causes problems.

Andy Warhol’s two-reel portrait of the dancer once billed as “the most beautiful man in the world.” In 1965, Swan was eighty-two years old and still performing his aesthetic dance routines in weekly salons attended by the likes of Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder.

From the work of Spain’s famed graphic humorist José Maria González Castrillo (Chumy Chúmez), an allegory of working-class life under the Franco regime.

Short film featured in the 1965 New York Film Festival.

Documentary about some of the most popular songs of this famous Puerto Rican musical trio.

Wols is the pseudonym for a German artist active in the early 20th century, Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, and Jonouchi meticulously filmed nearly fifty of his paintings to construct this cine-collage. The result is reminiscent of Alain Resnais’ rendition of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, as both filmed interpretations refuse to provide the viewer with a full picture of the paintings, instead fragmenting and splintering the frame.

In 1960s America, a man is compelled to stalk and kill beautiful women in various stages of undress. But his final victim may prove his undoing...

Part of BFI collection "Worth the Risk?"

Part two in a series of five films covering the construction of the London Underground's new 'Victoria' Line. This was to be BTF's largest single project in terms of quantity of footage that was shot. These reports examine in depth the work involved in this great engineering project. As they are of a technical nature, they were only available for showing to suitable audiences. This particular film explains modern techniques of tunnelling and shows tunnels being dug.

Part of BFI's "National Coal Board Collection".

11/65 Bild Helga Philipp is an optical abstraction of an optical abstraction: Kren has simply intercut filmed movements and sections from an Op painting by Helga Philipp - the result is motion opticals.

A short documentary directed by Karl Deschauer.

Third in a 22 part series of montages by german artist Peter Roehr

Second in a 22 part series of montages by german artist Peter Roehr

The swingest go-go show ever! Ever!!

Film essay about the slums of 1960's Amsterdam.

Pierre Molinier used in this rare film the moving image, in continuation of his photographic work. The multiplication of fragments of his transvestite body, eroticized, produces a phantasmagoria of disturbing and fascinating creatures.

This is the last Boobie Baboon cartoon.

The film consists of many maxims appearing on the screen and after each there is an almost completely irrelevant clip to supposedly illustrate the point.

Bollywood 1965

Film starring Azad, Indira Bansal and Chitra

An abstract film using the director's own screenprints and collages from which they were derived.

1965 film starring Dara Singh, Parveen Choudhary and Jayant

Film directed by Dinkar D. Patil

Alfred Leslie's Birth of a Nation 1965 consisted of separate plays drawing upon the words of O'Hara and the writing of the Marquis de Sade.

This travelogue tells the story of Turkey from 200BC, including the attack by the Greeks, Romans, the origination of the first seven religions, the Crusades, the creation of the Turkish State and the modern tourist industry. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

Black atmosphere, with depth-enhancing points of light, broken into shades of dim silhouettes by the ephemeral cloud-glow of lightning.

An overview of industrial bovine insemination in Socialist Romania.

Produced by Esso for the documentary series Tempus, Peru of yesterday and today.

An animated experiment in which the events and shapes follow the changes in the music.