Avant-garde
see all genres ›The "front line" in the arts, the avant-garde defied (and continues to defy) the market and the masses. Cinema's early avant-garde movements (impressionism, expressionism and others) spoke to film's intrinsic artistic properties. Often the creation of a single person or small group working on a shoestring budget, films of the avant-garde may not be straightforward "stories" as much as reflections on/refractions of the medium itself.
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Genres / Avant-garde
SUB-GENRES · City Symphony · Surrealistic · Culture Jamming · Nonobjective · Structural · Silent
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The Double Life of Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid, perhaps most famous for his roles in CASABLANCA and NOW, VOYAGER became a star at Warner Brothers during World War II, as the exotic lead with the European accent. After the war, his contract was cancelled and he was left to his own devices. He continued acting...Watch Movie
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Tribulation 99
Upon its release in 1991, TRIBULATION 99 became an instant counter-culture classic. Craig Baldwin’s “pseudo-pseudodocumentary” presents a factual chronicle of U.S. intervention in Latin America in the form of the ultimate far-right conspiracy theory, combining covert action, environmental...Watch Movie
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Take Off
Freaky and not a little transcendent, TAKE OFF takes the strip tease well past its usual climax. By sprinkling a little Georges Melies magic over the peep show motif, Gunvor Nelson simultaneously revels in cinema's earliest forms while exploding the medium's customary reliance on (and...Watch Movie
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Human Remains
HUMAN REMAINS is a haunting documentary which illustrates the banality of evil by creating intimate portraits of five of the 20th century's most reviled dictators. The film unveils the personal lives of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco and Mao Tse Tung. We learn the...Watch Movie
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Sergei / Sir Gay
As a teenager, Eisenstein signed his drawings with 'Sir Gay'. Roguish essayist Rappaport sees clear signs of his sexual preferences throughout the Russian’s film oeuvre. Numerous asides illustrate how Hollywood productions likewise frequently played with nods and winks and...Watch Movie
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The Voyagers
In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Together and alone, they will travel until the end of the universe. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth....Watch Movie
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Night Light
This is a classic Jordan animation, primarily in B/W, with touches of color. Actually, the engraved art work was filmed on color negative, so that subtle variations in tone are recorded. The mood—enhanced by John Davis' original music—is dream–like. It is both lyric and crackling, producing a...Watch Movie
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Williamsburg
A pocket-sized city symphony, WILLIAMSBURG collects some of the first images Jonas Mekas shot with a film camera in 1950 (along with footage from 1972 when he was returning to his old neighborhood as a visitor). Bygone Brooklyn is richly evoked in the everyday life of the street: the elevated...Watch Movie
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Even Dwarfs Started Small
One of the most bizarre films ever made (and certainly the most bizarre made by Werner Herzog), EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL is an allegory in which the diminutive cast portrays the residents of an apparent asylum who rebel against authority and stage their own revolution. Full...Watch Movie
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Meshes of the Afternoon
One of the most important films in the history of American avant-garde cinema, Maya Deren's MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON is captivating and dream-like, filled with tinges of psychodrama, murder mystery, and film noir. In a seemingly ordinary Los Angeles home, the film's...Watch Movie
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Fata Morgana
Possibly Werner Herzog's most experimental work, FATA MORGANA defies categorization. Is it a narrative feature? A documentary? A metaphysical essay on film? As the director himself has noted, it regards Earth and its creatures as if from the curious, alienated viewpoint of interplanetary...Watch Movie
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The Place Between Our Bodies
The hedonistic yet spiritually-questing spirit of San Francisco life at the height of the "Gay Liberation" movement is captured in Michael Wallin's poetical, highly personal film. As we watch city denizens cruise each other in the free-for-all atmosphere of a mid-1970s erotic...Watch Movie
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Mock Up on Mu
Notorious Bay Area kino-renegade Craig Baldwin tops his earlier found-footage operas SPECTRES OF THE SPECTRUM and SONIC OUTLAWS with the rapid-fire pulp serial-cum-political-tract piss-take on California's major industrial complexes: military, entertainment and religious. Hitting upon everything...Watch Movie
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
I wanted to depict the complete [Samuel Taylor Coleridge] poem via [Gustave] Doré illustrations, yet infuse with dream-irrelevancies that would carry the film at least one step out of the realm of the merely filmic illustrations of a poem. I tried to infiltrate the world of...Watch Movie
