Cinematic Era: 1974 Vintage

Mexican feature film

Mexican feature film

Shot at New York University, Horn’s wordless, mindblowing student film CHROMA might be the missing link between the avant-garde cinema of the 1970s and Horn’s later dance films to follow. The silhouettes of three dancers (red, green and blue) are played off one another while the grids and ladders of the modern metropolis – one feature that’s recognizable across almost every film made by Horn – crossfade and overtake the screen. CHROMA received a special award of merit from the Academy of Motion Picture arts and Sciences; on his CV, Horn described the film like this: “real images are manipulated through special effects and printing to create an artificial dreamscape.”

“Using the traditional Annunciation story and symbolism so fascinating to early Renaissance painters, Barrie announces the coming of a womanʼs vision. A plastic angel in the window heralds the coming of the ʻLightʼ to a young woman: Barrie herself, who is both character and filmmaker. Since we see Barrieʼs vision through her eyes, we find ourselves, like Barrie, in the role of the Virgin at the moment of New Dispensation is announced and begun. Here, however, the result of the Dispensation is not a son conceived non-sexually by a male god, but a woman conceived by a female creator. While Christ is Godʼs spirit made flesh, Barrieʼs film image of herself is flesh made spirit: she transforms herself into a being of light.” -Scott MacDonald

A vividly colorful film in which weird beings emerge from the screen to cavort.

Camping in Down East, Maine with artist friends evolved into a spurt-framed portrait of artist Donn Moulton. Footage of Moulton in Maine, his studio in Cambridge, and installation of his fiberglass apple paintings at Kornblee Gallery, NYC, is intercut with edited-in-camera expressionistic sequences from our camping trip.

This film is about the changes in the countryside happening in Romania around 1945, when am agrarian reform happens.

The destruction of cinematic imagery and sound, which allows for the release of subliminal thought.

The passionate final documentary from Lionel Rogosin, in which Palestinian poet Rashed Hussein and Israeli writer Amos Kenan seek dialogue toward a possible solution to the never-ending conflict. Never before have both sides discussed a mutual problem so frankly, and so willingly. Rogosin provides an open forum for two formidable intellects to discuss the fates of their nations, and the ever-receding possibility of peace.

Work in a supermarket of the Paris region, in particular that of the cashiers, revealing the mechanisms of trade and class relationships.

Löffler, a young teacher, strives to deal with his 6th form pupils as partners and in an anti-authorian manner. The film discovers a person who - without the least fear of making mistakes - distrusts the prevalent way.

‘Castagnoli is the auteur of Valentino Moon, a little Italian gem (is it Rome, is it Venice?) : streets, people, a market, all very quickly and every three seconds (yes it’s Rome and it’s a baroque film by Bernini), a dancing ‘Pierrot’. Pachelbel’s Canon adds to the jubilation. Jouhandeau could have whispered a title to Castagnoli : ‘Life should be a celebration.’ D. Noguez.

A bitter, miserable man runs a chaotic secondhand store, mistreating both his assistant and his customers. One day, a young brother and sister enter his shop, hoping to sell a cherished golden watch. Their arrival disrupts the owner's stingy routines, plunging the children into a surreal, unpredictable world managed by eccentric adults. Frans Buyens’ mid-length feature is a whimsical, satirical fable exploring the clash between childhood innocence and adult greed.

Short film by Narcisa Hirsch

Comical Cowboys set off on a perilous journey, climaxing in a three-way gun duel

Experimental trial of urban intervention in Rio de Janeiro, using moments when the country was transported, via satellite, to the World Cup, in Germany.

Images of Christmas lights at night, a group of baton-twirlers in the street, postal carriers, kids walking down the street, etc. Exact date of production unknown.

The camera was placed on the flexible branch of a tree in a strong wind. The composition included both stationary and moving trees (a wooded landscape). The relationship of this landscape to the vertical and horizontal plane was maintained as much as possible. The camera ran continuously until all the film was exposed. The world is seen from the point of view of a tree as its branches sway to the rhythm of the wind.

The fifth and last episode of the "Who threw that, gentlemen?" series. The series is the continuation of the previous "bear" series "Hey, Mister, let's play?". This time the bears decide to grow carrots and turnips. While working they come across a billy-goat who wants to relieve them of their crop. The bears force him to return the carrots and turnips and to carry all the crops back to their home.

Popular manifestation in extinction, presented with its local musicians and their handmade instruments.

A woman stands up in front of a bay window, walks, turns her back to us, smokes a cigarette, lingers overlooking the view of trees ... She uses a reflection in the window to create a mnemonic trace. The figure weaves the embryo of a story, between surrender to ennui and waiting (for someone who does not arrive?), but the actual aim seems to capture the viewer's interest to the point where the window's mirroring effect can perform its function: here she's beyond the reach of the camera's gaze, but even there she's inaccessible yet present. Sonnet evokes sound, only to deny it. Its literary title sets the tone for a formal appraisal of the work. The expectation of regularity, of density and form that produces meaning is maintained to the extreme brevity of the work combined with its slow pace.

"A brief film from 1974 - really an experiment - which uses eight layers of superimposition to create a work of such density that no one image dominates for more than a few seconds." - Wheeler Winston Dixon

1: SUN 2: not cap: GOLD - used in alchemy 3: the sun-god of the ancient Romans; but then also, as I understand it, a French word for earth, wherefrom we get our "sail"; and then (puns always intended, as I hear them): soul .... This also, then, a tone poem film.

Astronaut Mulligan sets out to find a mysterious planet.

"When I was 15, I came home from school to find my mother dead. This tape describes the day of her death. Until I did this tape, I had never completely recounted this experience. The tape is an attempt to remember as accurately as possible one day in my life - to let memory become the present tense." L.S.

Archeological evidence from pre-Columbian South America is compared to artifacts from the Mediterranean region as well as passages from the Book of Mormon

Quneytra 74 begins with shots of people on the edge of the blasted city of Kuneitra. A woman breaks away from the crowd, makes her way towards the city, speeds up the step, as if to escape from the camera. Filmed on behalf of Syrian TV, the accuracy of Malas' light, shadow, silence and soundscape as essential elements of his cinematic language is evidenced here, as well as his interest in the issues of civil war, territorial war and identity destruction.

Neumann made this film as a young lecturer with some students in the visual communication department at the Hamburg Art University. A film about the areas of application of the various microphones.

The Greek myth retold with film animation, accompanied by music for flute. Music, drawing, colour and movement here follow a moving, classic restraint. Daedalus, inventor of many things, provides the wings to escape from Crete, but Icarus, his son, impetuously flies too close to the sun. In this film, artist and composer share equal pleasure in the telling, with a feeling the audience will share. A film without words.

United States 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 1 min

In the harsh northern region it is so cold that even words cannot be spoken. But the people here live in harmony: they do everything together with songs and jokes. Songs freeze in the cold and turn into wondrous lace. A foreigner once saw this and wanted to take such a miracle with him. Based on the northern tales of B. Shergin.

Relatives of the Texan fiddler Archie "Prince" Albert Hunt tell stories of his life and untimely death.

A Hong Kong production blending the breathtaking highlights of 1973's Asian-African-Latin American Table Tennis Friendship Invitation Tournament in Peking with the accompanying cultural explosion of songs, music and dances.

Short educational film by Mitchell Block (1974)

back streets

Park Young is an architect student who persistently dangles about a college girl Oh Kyeong-A who he met on a bus and finally they come to love each other. However they meets opposition from Kyeong-A's parents who want to make her marry on purpose. So the two lovers begin to runaway trip.

For his 'Splitting' project, Matta-Clark found a house in Englewood, NJ (322 Humphrey Street to be precise) set for demolition, and bisected it neatly down the middle. Half-documentation, half-exploration: Splitting shows the laborious process and heady result- a house split completely in two.

1974 Bas Jan Ader video work

Not just a colorful record of the making of a mural in Chicago's Pilsen community led by Ray Patlán, this film traces the mural movement of the mid-1970's back to murals in Mexico. Different people view the mural and reflect on its meaning for themselves as Latinos.

As the word "syntax" implies, this film deals with the way in which images and sounds come together. Its main concern, however, goes deeper, and resides within a more personalised syntax: a process of retaining a narration. Syntax is a small gem, exhibiting...a kind of joyful, competent wit and strength. Haslanger prowls her camera through several rooms in an ordinary middle class house while her voice-over describes what we are about to see or have seen, never what is actually on the screen, wringing the changes of the relationship of the spoken word, image and the printed word. It is a wonderfully self-contained and seductive film.

Directed by Mohammad Hosain Mahini Hasanabadi.

Produced at the Motovun Video Meeting in Croatia, 1989. Screened in retrospective at Alternative Film/Video Belgrade Festival 2014.

To disband the male chauvinists.

Student from Belgrade is shooting amateur melodramatic movie about unfortunate love in Serbian village.

Deals with filmic reality and conformity in East and West. Won acclaim at 1976 Edinburgh Festival.

A found-footage film made entirely from Academy leader, which is normally used to cue the start of films. The film was hand-printed on a home-made contact printer. It was rolled back and re-printed several times over, to create a complex layering of both image and sound.

Bollywood 1974

Bollywood 1974