Bartlett's OFFON

OFFON
Directed by Scott Bartlett, U.S.A., 1968, 9 minutes
Source: Treasures From American Film Archives - Program 1, DVD
1793 pt. 1

OFFON has no story whatsoever. Rather, it is a series of constantly changing images, colors, and optical effects. The images interplay with one another and are often superimposed upon one another, creating dazzling optical symbioses and transformations. The mis-en-scéne of the film is in constant flux, and it is this state of constant flux which defines the character of this unique experimental film. In terms of production background, the film, according to its brochure, is the “first to fully merge video with film.”

The film begins with an extreme close-up of a human eye, with the frame drenced in a light blue hue. As we zoom into the pupil of the eye, flourescent pink blotches rapidly appear and disappear in different places in and around the eye. The blue lighting around the eye darkens, and we begin to see a pattern emerging within the pupil of the eye: a flourescent pink vortex, accompanied by a violent pulsing of the soundtrack. The next optical motif is a Rorschach-like pink circular formation which replaces the eye in the frame. It recedes and advances into view several times. A neon green shape emerges, superimposed against the Rorschach shape. It soon becomes evident that the neon green shape is the outline of two female figures in motion. The two figures stand back-to-back, arms stretched upward as they perform an elegant bowing motion, stretching down, then up again, repeatedly. The two figures are shown in outline, and appear as if joined at the hip; their movements are identical, but in opposite directions, defined by a principle of bilateral symmetry (a “twinning,” mirror, effect, of what is in reality a single figure). These female forms reminded me somewhat of the female figures shown in silhouette during the opening credits of James Bond movies. At one point, the “inside” of the conjoined female figures flashes with TV static. Later, the outline of a soaring bird appears within the “inside” of the figures, followed by the outline of other birds in flight, who change in color from aqua green to flourescent pink. We next shift to the cartoonish outline of a female figure (screen size: medium long shot) with both arms outstretched above her head as if casting a spell. This is followed by the outline of a male figure with arms outstretched, whose outline is “twinned” around him in something of a “shadowing” effect as the background rapidly flashes in different colors. At this point, a film clip of a man riding a bicycle is superimposed into the background of the male figure with his arms outstretched. Next, there are several visual motifs involving human faces moving in a bilaterally symmetrical fashion. Two male faces “bounce” off one another. Then two female faces move “into” and “through” one another, emerging on the other side before returning to their original positions. Another female face, outlined in stark black and white, appears to “split in half” repeatedly (see picture above) as playful blips play on the soundtrack. These faces are replaced by rapidly-morphing, pretzel-like, shapes, which blink and transform rapidly amidst a high-pitched, feverish pulsing of the soundtrack. There is a “countdown”-like feel as the background flashes blue, red, and pink. Finally, the soundtrack fades and the screen goes to black, marking the end of the film.

The way I would pitch this film is as an acid trip for non substance-abusers, because this is what I imagine an acid trip would be like. The film is extremely abstract and psychedelic, to say the least. There is an “alien” feel to the viewing experience, which is only amplified by the fact that there is no narrative point of reference for the optical smorgasbord taking place. Unlike an optically radical experience like The Wall, whose abstract, experimental animated sequences are tied into the themes and events of a larger, more normative, narrative, OFFON exists in a sort of limbo, in and of itself. The film speaks its own language, and doesn’t provide “subtitles,” so to speak, for the viewer. The soundtrack, consisting of humming, grinding, pulsing, and blipping noises, only adds to film’s “alien” feel. One senses (or at least I did) that the role of the viewer is not to interpret what is presented; that the images on display are not cryptic symbols with hidden meanings begging to be unlocked. Rather, this is a light parade of avant-garde spectacle, with the varied optical motifs serving as the “floats” in the parade. That the parade takes place on another “planet” (figuratively speaking) is never in doubt. The role of the viewer is thus to be dazzled, puzzled, and more or less hypnotized by the viewing experience: drawn into the visual vittles of a strange atmosphere, yet held at a distance by the sheer degree of alienness—a reception perhaps typical for experimental shorts. If the film is “about” anything, it is the gift of visual perception and the metamorphic nature of all that we see, whether in the world around us, in our own mind’s eye, or in the projection, as here, of someone else’s creative vision—a vision only possible through decidedly experimental film.

Guy Maddin's "Eye Like a Strange Balloon"

EYE LIKE A STRANGE BALLOON (ODILON REDON)

Directed by Guy Maddin, Canada/UK, 1995, 5 minutes

Source: Track 18_Short 2 - Dreams (DVD 19)
So experimental is a film that either resists or rejects a story. It took me quite a while to understand this experimental film but I believe that this film resists a story. It IS difficult to understand what the story is, but I will say what it is in it. There is a train, some sea shells, a keyboard, a father, a son, a girl, some teeth brushing sounds, a guy from zepplin on fire, some teeth plucking, a cactus man, some eye stabbing, a boy's head dangling on a plant like fruit, a decapitate, and a giant eye floating like a balloon.............confused yet?

The story that I seem to got off of this crazy B/W short film was that there was this train engineer who has been riding with his son since the son was a kid. But years on, they witness a train-on-train collision and the only survivor was a little girl. The father and son bring the child in as part of the family. But once the girl "became of age", the father and son tried to vie for he love. But instead she goes off and marries someone who seems to be from Zepplin or a Zepplin pilot. The father tries to take the girl away or what it seems like kidnapping her but his bad deed goes punished when he puts on the train brake and has his eyes stabbed. The boy seemed to have been punished as well by being decapitated and putting his head and teeth on a platter and sending on the eye-balloon. In the end both the father and son are crippled with their punishment.

Yes this film sounds VERY confusing but there is something that impressed me in this film. First off, this film was actually being inspired. Guy Maddin was given the opportunity to make a film based on a favorite painting. Guy chose the charcoal drawing "The Eye Like A Strange Balloon Mounts Towards Infinity" by Odilon Redon which is the second title of this film. Guy used other paintings of Odilon Redon in his film like "Cactus Man" using a man with a cactus costume. Or the seashell painting which is used in mostly the beginning of Guy's film. This film was mostly used as a form of a dream since it seemed like this whole film was taken place underwater.

Second off, there was a lot of analysis that was literally displayed in the film. Dark dream imagery is the key in this film. Like for example, when the girl (and the boy) had their legs encased in a shell and one day the shell opened up and releasing them, it is the same as maturing, like the phrase, "coming out of his/her shell". Also the scene where the girl has her jaw chattering closer to the father's beard, it is the same as saying the desire for the girl is about to get the best of the father. Also when the boy played with the keyboard the first time, the scene jumped cut to a scene that looked liked a row of teeth and one is pressed down when the note is played, then when the father had his eyes stabbed from a stop of the train, one key/tooth flew out as a sign of physical damage. These portrayal of art are what makes this film difficult to figure out, heck even my interpretations are not definite and true, anyone can interpret the visual scene differently. But with enough time and effort, it is a pretty good film to get lost in....like in a dream.

Jane Lloyd, Experimental

Jane Lloyd
Directed by Happy, UK, 2005, 6 min
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A7226282

This experimental film, which took first place in the TCM Classic Shorts competition 2005, follows the life of a girl named Jane Lloyd. The first image we see is a blurred shot of an infant followed by a clear close-up of the baby. The camera then focuses on the baby’s hospital name bracelet: Jane Lloyd. There is a slow piano playing over an echo of some other faint technoish sound. The camera starts to zoom in on a birth announcement, but just as the text becomes clear, it blurs and fades back into a shot of the baby. We see quick cuts of Jane’s childhood: Jane writes her name in big print and finger paint. Jane poses with birthday cakes. Jane runs around outside. Jane stands against the wall and her mom marks her growth, writing her name and age.
Jane grows into an average-looking adolescent with blond hair and glasses. We see her handwriting evolve into a more sophisticated script. Her name appears on the back of her field hockey jersey, her university application, her diploma and her passport. The film has the feel of flipping through a family photo album: the grainy images, the shakey camera and the relatively simple piano playing (over a more electric sound) give it the feel of home video splicing. Meanwhile, the pulse of the music quickens as Jane ages, and more sounds start to enter, possibly reflecting the increasing complexity of her life.

Suddenly there is a shot of the familiar Hollywood Hills sign, and the music seems to climax in a happy, hopeful way. We see shots of the now mature, attractive, ecstatic Jane (who reminds me of a soft Tonya Harding), but suspicions of a good girl-gone-wild emerge as we see Jane getting her name tattooed across her upper arm, the close-up of her Hooter’s nametag, and her name across the bottom of a screen test video. The music gets faster during these parts. Jane gets married. Jane appears in some questionable videos. Jane’s name is all over the magazine covers. Jane sits on a director's chair with her mostly bare back to the camera, her name splashed across the chair. Jane closes a dressing room door with her name on it.

Jane is a star. An "adult movie" star?

Jane signs a check. Jane picks up some medication. The music changes at this point, sounding almost like an interrupted heartbeat set against a weird echo. The music speeds up again as the images cut to quick shots of her downward spiral (at E! True Hollywod Story speed): Jane's name on divorce papers, on a billboard above a picture of her in lingerie and on a credit card sweeping cocaine. Jane swallows pills when driving. Jane’s face appears on an “Entertainment Tonight” type show. Jane is pulled over. Jane is fingerprinted. Jane is in prison. Jane’s name now appears on her prison jumpsuit. The film's pace is very quick here and flashes back to repeated images of Jane with different men, the cocaine, needles, etc. Finally, there is a long pause as Jane tugs a piece of rubber with her teeth (presumably tied around her arm so she can shoot up). The usually blurry images are interrupted with this clear close-up of her teeth sinking into the rubber. The juxtaposition of the quick cuts with this relatively long pause, highlights the madness leading up the moment of desperation. Jane leaves jail and is soon swigging some alcohol while driving. The screen goes black for a second and the music almost stops. We then see an arm with a name tage as the camera traces her body in a hospital gown and we hear an unsettling grating sound as the image is interrupted a few times (perhaps reflecting the body fighting death, flashbacks of life, etc.) before focusing on the nearby monitor. We then both hear the warning sound and see it flat-line. There is a close up of the flat line, Jane's death, that blurs into an image of her grave and finally a roadside shrine, with her name above a framed picture and flowers. The last shot is a blurred image of Jane as a baby.

I had watched several experimental films on different websites, but chose this one because it wasn’t explicitly experimental and also because I learned that David Gray adapted this film into a music video for his song “Alibi.” (The video and lyrics can be found at
http://www.davidgray.com/music.php). I thought it would be interesting to view both since we’ve been discussing music videos as more commercial, lucrative and familiar shorts.

Although the film doesn’t resist narrative as much some other experimentals, and even though the basic story arc seems clear, if not cliched, (ordinary girl leaves for Hollywood, becomes star aka tabloid fodder, crumbles under pressures of fame and digs herself an early grave with drugs and alcohol), I still found that these quick cuts in both the original film and the music video throughout her life, buoyed by an alternately hopeful and haunting background music, elicited an emotional response at the end. At times it felt like I was watching one of those drunk driving commercials where they show clips of home videos. In other moments it felt like watching an E! True Hollywood Story commercial without the narrative. This combination of homey and sensational rolled into one captures the humanity in both realms.

The repetition of images such as name bracelets (at birth and death), height markings on the wall (in childhood home and later, prison), Jane’s name (homework, marriage certificate, divorce papers), closing doors (childhood bedroom, dorm room, dressing room, prison), and birthday cakes both echoed her childhood and marked the different transitions in her life. Though there was an implied narrative to hang on to, the film did resist a straightforward approach. For instance, almost all of the image cuts are quick, and usually blurry. In most of the shots, the only clear tangible image is that of the name "Jane Lloyd" that flashes incessantly throughout the film. At the end I wondered if the entire film was supposed to be a light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel flashback she is experiencing in the hospital. I think this film can also be classified as experimental because for all the things we can infer, there is still a great deal of ambiguity at work. We don’t know anything about Jane’s family life, where she grows up, why she moves to California, who her husband is, what she actually dies from (car accident, mixing drinks and drugs, suicide, a combination?)…and yet I felt like I knew her on some simultaneously sincere and artificial level. The use of the truly familiar (home videos, etc.) and the familiarity of celebrity downfall (flashes of Hollywood) worked together well.

Though I thought the music video adaptation, which is about a minute shorter, worked pretty well, I liked the original film better. A minute of cut time seems like alot, but it seemed like most of the cuts were from some of the images of older Jane with men, etc. “Alibi” sets a more ominous tone early on; I knew something bad was going to happen to Jane from the first few seconds (granted, I had watched the original many times already). The lyrics certainly work well with the latter part of the video (“ I will eat the lie/Find the word/ Could break any spell that binds you… How I long to/ Bite every hand that feeds you more/Where d’it all go wrong/My friday night enfant/Where d’it all go wrong fit in with the drug addiction especially well), but they didn’t seem to fit at the beginning. Also, the tempo was relatively consistent throughout the music video and therefore the scene with Jane biting into the rubber fell really flat. Whereas there was the dramatic pause and the nice break from so many quick cuts in the film, for me, this scene of desperation didn’t work as well in the video. One other noticeable change is that the death scene is much quicker, and we do not hear the monitor. It also did not have the same impact as it did in the film. Finally, the last shot is of the grave, and does not return to the baby image. I was happy to see that the music video doesn't offer any easy distractions of David Gray at the piano.

I don't know if Happy was involved with the music video adaptation, but I suspect he/ she is content with the video since it preserves most of the film's elements and will now reach a larger audience.

Experimental 1

EXPERIMENTAL 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASjnSk3n9TQ
Directed by NoExistance,
I found this short on YouTube and I couldn't find the director info or the country or year! All I can say is I hope this guy doesn't live in my apartment complex...

This film is about a guy who goes digging in the woods and ends up losing his eyes. I think it's supposed to be a warning to children.

I actually don't know what the film is about, as we were warned might happen. The main (and only) character is digging with a shovel in the woods until he finds some small wormy thing that I have yet to identify. (help??) We get several shots of the guys digging and of the wormy thing until we finally see the guy running out of the woods with a bandage around his eyes. In the last section, the guys is tied up at an unrecognizable location with eyeballs on his hands.

I was actually very impressed by the emotional impact of this very short film. It seems very non-linear and certainly non-narrative, but it stills gave me a feeling of desperation and urgency. The man's digging is enhanced by a whistling noise like a tea kettle that gets louder and louder (and consequently more and more annoying.) At one part when you think your head is going to explode from the unbearable screech of the whistle, we get a strange close up of the man's head that is pulsing and lumpy and appears to be ready to explode itself. I had a viceral response to both the visual and audio aspects of the film--I found myself getting very anxious and ants while watching it. This may be in part attributed to the quick flashes and jumping scenes.

I also liked how this film is so open to interpretation, the fact that the man loses is vision and then seems to have lost his way. Fairy tales and myths often involve both children and adults who become lost in the woods and experience a loss of reality; this man has literally lost his sense of direction as well as figuratively lost the direction of his life. (I may be projecting a bit on that last one. It's just all that digging for some unidentified wormy thing seems like this man has gone off the deep end....)

All in all, I thought this short was just plain creepy which isn't easy to do in 4 minutes. Marilyn Manson should hire this guy for his next video....

Stick

STICK
Unknown director, USA, 2006, >1 minute.
Source: FedEx.com

This is a commercial first introduced at the Super Bowl 2006, It showed a caveman throwing a bone (presumably the mail). A flying dinosaur picks it off simulating unseen circumstances. The frustrated caveman reports to his boss who is not sympathetic. The despairing employee kicks a small dinosaur immediately before being stomped upon by a larger one.

This short film is actually a commercial, but I thought it was so effective because it was memorable. When the first frame shows a caveman, it plants the thought in the minds of women, which is half the audience, that men, especially men watching football, are like caveman. Women also have sympathy for him with the unforeseen circumstances and the boss’ insensitive response. I think his response resonates more strongly with women than men. However, unreasonable bosses have a mainstay of humor for everyone for decades, or millions of years.

By the employer asking his underling the reason for not using FedEx despite the fact that it didn’t exist highlighted this scenario of the impossible managers in every person’s experience. The illusion that the boss recognizes the importance of Fedex millions of years ago congratulates his forethought thus massaging his ego making the commercial memorable in his mind.

I thought this short does its job effectively. The employee can identify with the character, the employer is congratulated and those people not interested in the game are entertained. The proof for a commercialis its longetivity. When I asked friends about the caveman ad, they knew it was for Fedex. Success!

(submitted by Debbie Zukas)

First Date by Gary Huggins

FIRST DATE
Directed by Gary Huggins, USA, 2006, 20minutes
Source: First Date on Sundance

The black void of the film screen is interrupted with the all too familiar sound of an AOL instant message. The unique lexicon of the Internet rises onto the screen one line at a time.

kcmuscle: asl?
LuvOlder: 16 m KCK
Kcmuscle: cool
Kcmuscle: me 38yo 5’9” 160 7.5 uncut

Fade In. As the voiceless dialogue continues to flood the screen, the audience is made aware that we have entered in the middle of a sexual proposition between an older man, kcmuscle, and an underage boy. As the online discussion continues, the audience is privy to the distinction between kcmuscle’s reality and the one he weaves online. He claims to be at his office job, busy with paper work, yet through an overlapping montage we find him wandering aimlessly through the streets and playing arcade games. More important to the plot, kcmuscle claims to have a car that will surprise his young admirer, yet the next 15 minutes of the film finds kcmuscle desperately seeking, through any means possible, a vehicle to pick up his young conquest. Eventually, desperation drives kcmuscle to steal a car after his pleas to borrow a car from friends does not work.

Once he meets LuvOlder, the second and more impressive storyline of the short begins. Unlike the first half, which is overacted and overwritten, the second half delves into psychological realism as we understand what drives this predator, identify with his sexual identity crisis, and discover his troubled past. However, at the same time his actions, his lying, and his misguided reasoning repulse us. This, along with LuvOlder’s slow realization of what he has gotten himself into, is what is interesting to me.

The best scenes of the film are not the action packed sequences, but the subtle moments where kcmuscle’s authentic, disturbing character shines through and we are allowed to see the truth even when he does not. A great example of this is the awkward car ride when kcmuscle and LuvOlder meet in person. Through an extended close up of kcmuscle as he talks and drives, we somehow get into his psyche. The longer he talks, the more the audience is able to see through his lies and deceptions. Further, through LuvOlder’s quiet responses, we witness how the absence of dialogue and what is not said is just as crucial to our understanding of character’s inner thoughts. Again, this is echoed near the end of the piece when kcmuscle escorts LuvOlder back to his front steps yet neither mentions the cop beating. Instead, kcmuscle reiterates he’ll call, they’ll get together again soon, and he knows where LuvOlder lives now. These lines are delivered with an ambiguous tone that displays heartache, longing, and yet is still threatening. As LuvOlder awkwardly scuffles inside, avoiding eye contact with his lover, he delivers few lines of dialogue, yet his thoughts and feelings are apparent.

This movie climaxes with kcmuscle beating a policeman unconscious after the cop discovers him having sex in the stolen car with the kidnapped boy. Gary Huggins then treats his audience to an unexpected and subdued ending that is as intriguing as the novelty of the online banter at the onset of the film. This is a truly fascinating film, and a very timely one as well during an era of television news magazines’ intense focus on online predators.

Hess's "Peluca"

Name of film: PELUCA
Director/Writer: Jared Hess & Jerusha Hess
Country: USA
Year of production: 2002
Length: 9 minutes
Source: NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (DVD Special Features)

This short film is about Seth on one of his better days. Beleaguered Seth offers his high school bullies a lot of ammunition, all owing to an unawareness that endears him to the film’s audience. Errant hair, ungainly glasses, a slack jaw and sleepy eyes compound Seth’s lack of fashion and his interest in the nerdier aspects of teenage life, like numchucks.

Seth’s reputation precedes him, giving the viewer a greater sense of sympathy and interest in Seth and the day-to-day life of a misfit. The film opens onto grainy Idaho flatland and Seth, looming over a low-angle shot, waiting for a rural school bus to make its stop. He takes the rear-most seat next to two primary school boys who ask him what he’s going to do today. “Whatever I want to, gosh!” is Seth’s reply, made famous in the cult-hit NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, which is based on PELUCA. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE takes more than the idea of telling a rural misfit’s story from the short. Along with the premise it takes Seth, with a name change, elements of the plot, and even the director/writer, Jared Hess, and a couple of actors from the short, including Jon Heder, who lived next door to me our sophomore year at BYU. (There it is, only one degree from Kevin Bacon.) Both the short and the feature were shot on location in Preston Idaho using local actors (cashier, high schoolers), props (the same manikin) and locations (the same thrift shop).

But not the same budget. After seeing the student film PELUCA at the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah, Fox Searchlight Pictures retained Jared Hess to make the feature film, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. That in itself was one moment to celebrate for the writer/producer, who made the short for a college class on a $500 budget in two days. The second celebratory moment can be tallied in dollar signs after the feature grossed millions in ticket and DVD sales (not to mention sales of action figures, t-shirts—“Vote for Pedro”—and other paraphernalia). If all of this were not enough, the Idaho State legislature drafted and accepted a resolution “to recognize and commend Jared and Jerusha Hess for their cinematic talents by which they have increased the nation’s awareness of Idaho.”

They should also receive praise for increasing the nation’s awareness in general of the geek in all of us. After seeing this film for the first time I kept my date waiting in the lobby as I screened myself for chinks in my exterior that might betray the chinks of my interior. I wrote above that Seth’s vulnerability to bullying derived from a nascent unawareness of what’s cool, and that our sympathy originates from that very unselfconscious carriage, but I amend that statement to suggest that it’s not Seth’s unawareness that makes him interesting to us as a character but rather the kind of hyperconsciousness that kept my date waiting in the lobby while I struggled to make the thin line between cool and uncool darker, thicker, impervious.

The Most Beautiful Man in the World

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN IN THE WORLD
Directed by Alicia Duffy, UK, 2002, 6 minutes.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/A6000490

With her loyal dog at her side, a young girl struggles against the pains of boredom. She yawns. She stares. She lies on the ground and seems barely awake. In short (pun intended) nothing much is going on. After a series of quick glimpses into her extremely boring life, we get a longer shot of the girl riding her bike in bored circles outside the house. Her dog watches on. Finally, the girl drifts into a field of tall brown grass in pursuit of said dog and happens upon a shirtless and sweaty man who is petting her wandering pooch. "That's my dog," she tells the man, which is consequently her only line in the short. The man spots a beetle crawling beneath the strap of the girl's thin tank top and carefully removes it with his fingers, presenting it to her in his cupped hands. Enter evil mother, who stands forbiddingly in the doorway of the house. The girl runs back, leaving the most beautiful man in the world behind. The short ends with a last glimpse of the young girl hypnotised by the blue glow of the television.

With almost no dialogue and very few sounds (only a few ambient noises) this short appealed to me because of the emotion that comes from the sparseness. The initial set up is quick to deliver a series of strange camera shots-- extreme closes ups as well as shots from high above and directly below. These angles give a clear perspective of the girl's looming boredom. The lack of sounds create a frustrating silence--noise would at least provide something to listen to, but alas, this girl doesn't even have the luxury of arguing neighbors.

What's truly intriguing about the film is the sensual meeting between a girl who can't be older than 10 and a man who isn't any younger than 30. She is immediately enamored with his glistening body. It's almost a set up for a trashy romance novel, except the age difference sent chills up my spine. The situation was both sexy and completely inappropriate at the same time. Does the man feel a physical attraction to the girl? Is he a pervert? Some kind of child molester?? Probably not. He's probably just a nice guy picking a bug off of a little girl. But the scene begs to differ and every movement is soft and loving.

The Most Beautiful Man on the World represents how a film can use perspective to skew what's actually going on in the scene. A close up on a girl's shirt strap and the touch of an older man goes from helpful to sexual. The sensual nature of this film is entirely wrapped up in its direction. Had the scene been filled with music and wide camera angles, it would have represented just another boring episode in the girl's boring day.

Enrico's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE
Directed by Robert Enrico, U.S.A., 1962, 24 minutes
Source: Treasures of the Twilight Zone: A Collection of Special Episodes and Rare Footage, VHS 1806

Enrico's short film is adapted from the 1891 short story of the same name by Ambrose Bierce. I had originally viewed this short film years ago in an undergrad course. I found it presently as part of a collection of Twilight Zone segments, since it had originally aired as an episode in 1964. The film’s original premiere was at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the short film Palm D’Or in 1962. It also won the 1963 Academy Award for best short film.

The premise of the film is that a Southern aristocrat during the Civil War is about to be hanged by a group of Union soldiers on a bridge called Owl Creek Bridge. We watch the prisoner being tediously prepared by the soldiers for the execution. But something unexpected happens when the prisoner is pushed off the bridge to hang: the rope around his neck snaps, sending him splashing into the water below. He is able to free his bound hands and legs underwater, and rises to break the water’s surface, only to find the entire group of soldiers firing down on him. As he swims away, they continue to fire their rifles at him, in addition to firing a large cannon. Miraculously, he avoids getting hit, and eventually reaches a nearby shore. There, he regroups and rejoices, before a distant cannon report compels him to run again. He runs through a forest and eventually reaches the gate of his estate. His wife descends the porch of their house to welcome him, and they move toward one another. But at the moment of their embrace, the man suddenly lets out a scream and grabs his neck. The next shot is of the man dangling by the noose over Owl Creek Bridge. The rope had never snapped after all, making all that had transpired after the man was pushed off the bridge nothing more than a desperate fantasy.

The shocker ending is extremely clever, as is the technical execution of the film throughout. The film begins with slow, quiet tracking shots, showing the bridge and the soldiers from a distance. After our first shot of the protagonist—a close-up revealing his fear—we get several first-person perspective shots that establish his predicament, as he surveys his surroundings: a view to the left and right, respectively, showing soldiers guarding either side of the bridge; a view toward an elevated ridge, showing another soldier standing watch above; and, most memorably, a view below, showing the tips of his boots extended over the plank supporting him on the bridge, with the water rushing below. In an extension of this first-person “boot tips” perspective, the protagonist’s fall into the water is depicted in such a way, proving a high-velocity, harrowing shot. Then, as the protagonist hits the water, the camera follows him under water as he frees himself from his ropes and ascends toward the surface of the water. I found this all-terrain filming approach very impressive. The camera continues to follow the protagonist as he descends a waterfall and, later, makes a high-speed run through the forest (in a sequence reminiscent of some of the forest tracking shots in Rashomon). The camera is kinetic and extremely innovative in this short.

The most remarkable technical achievement of the film, though, is the way it infuses subtle elements of distortion into the “fantasy” sequence in order to paint these narrative events (the escape, the homecoming) in an askew light. This is something better appreciated on second viewing (once one knows what is real and what is fantasy). But even a first-time viewer may be able to detect from the technical cues of this sequence that there is something “off” about it, something that puts its events into question. When the protagonist emerges from the water after freeing his ropes, we launch into a highly lyrical sequence, wherein time seems to stand still, as the protagonist observes the world around him in the most minute of detail. We get a series of first person-perspective, extreme close-up shots of leaves, a worm, the dew on the grass, and a spider in his web, as a semi-corny, acoustic guitar-driven song entitled “A Living Man” (sample lyric: “I see each tree . . . I read each vein”), plays on the soundtrack. This sequence is then interrupted by the pronounced vocal distortion of the captain’s voice, which is slowed down drastically to sound monstrous, as he commands his men, “He must be hanged.” The accompanying shots of the soldiers, who are scrambling to take aim at the protagonist, are shown in slow motion, creating a trippy, warped scene. The most pronounced sequence of distortion, though, happens as the protagonist reunites with his wife. He is shown in long shot, running toward the camera with his arms outstretched. This is followed by a shot of his wife, emerging from their house (toward the camera) to greet him. These exact two shots are repeated four times, with the man and his wife never actually making progress toward one another; the respective starting points of their individual advances “reset” with each new cut. Here, just before the film’s “reveal,” is where it becomes most obvious that there is something fantastical about these narrative events.

As an adaptation, the film is extremely faithful to its source. It is probably one of the most literal adaptations of source material out there. The bridge and its surroundings are exactly as they are described in Bierce’s story. Specific shots in the film can even be traced to specific sentences in the text. For instance, the previously described first-person shot where the protagonist looks down at the water finds its correlary in the following sentence: “He looked a moment at his ‘unsteadfast footing,’ then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet.” The only significant difference between the two texts is that the short story gives more background on the protagonist, in terms of the circumstances that had led to his hanging. But the short story has the same shocker of an ending, conveyed in a single, final sentence ("Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge"), in the same manner the film’s shocker “reveal” is conveyed in a single, final (long) shot of the protagonist dangling from the noose (pictured above). All in all, this is a fascinating study in short film as adaptation, in addition to being a fascinating study in short film as technical achievement.

Svankmajer's The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher
Directed by Jan Svankmajer, Czechoslovakia, 1980, 15 minutes
Source: The Kimstim Collection, The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer, Vol. 1
DVD 899

The film, in black and white, beings with creepy music and a series of close-ups that cut between a raven, some stones and ominous storm clouds. The nameless narrator begins Poe’s narrative in Czech. We do not see him; the camera instead focuses on the House of Usher, a mansion in the dark, blurry distance. His childhood friend, Roderick Usher, has written to him, beckoning him to visit. The camera moves through the house’s empty rooms and squeaking doors before settling on a lone chair, just as the narrator describes his initial encounter with the depressed Roderick. At this point we realize a curious fact: there will be no actors in this film. As the narrator describes Roderick’s sickly appearance, the camera traces the chair’s frame. The narrator learns that Roderick’s sister, Lady Madeline, is sick and the camera immediately cuts to a close-up of a single stone falling from the house into water and then focuses on animated gray matter stirring.

Roderick reveals his preoccupation with the house and death. Coincidentally, Madeline soon dies. A black coffin enters the scene, and then interestingly moves itself from the house, to a road outside, before sliding into a tomb. An unsettling “hammer” noise echoes in the background before the tomb door slams shut and locks itself. Roderick becomes even more depressed and agitated, and the camera repeatedly focuses on a table with trembling nails, a hammer and a key, much like the one that locked the tomb entrance..hmmm. A few days later there is a thunderstorm and the narrator decides to read “Mad Tryst” by Sir Lancelot Canning and distract Roderick. As the narrator reads, the camera cuts to the table with the nails, which are now moving, and then to the coffin, which explodes into splintered wood, mirroring the frame story’s parallel plot. Again, some gray clay shifts, the name “Madeline” flashes, and soon the entire coffin crumbles as lightening flashes and Roderick “the chair” begins to stir uneasily. The camera focuses on tearing walls, growing cracks, and creates a dizzying effect. Roderick admits he has been haunted by noises from Madeline’s tomb all week and is certain that she is on the other side of the door. The door opens and Roderick’s chair crumbles. The furniture, a wardrobe and other chairs, begins “running” from the shaking house, leaping out of windows and sinking into the muddied water below. The final image is that of the initial raven, who also crumbles into a pile of feathers at the end.

I thought this would be an interesting film to watch since we are reading about short stories in relation to short films. I was impressed by how this adaptation combines both elements of the familiar and unfamiliar to recreate the Poe’s unsettling story, while contributing some engaging new twists. Reading along with the English subtitles serves as a necessary revisit to the actual text (for those of us who haven’t read it in years), and listening to the Czech adds a literal foreign element that made me feel as though I, too, was moving into the unknown. I was most impressed with how Svankmajer really brings the house to life with these animate objects; they certainly aren’t the singing, accommodating furniture pieces of Beauty and the Beast. The house is truly a character alive with madness. The physical decay and the rush of flashes of animation clay and earth really captured the underlying human emotion of frenzied fear.

D.W. Griffith's Enoch Arden

ENOCH ARDEN
Directed by D.W. Griffith, USA, 1911, 33 minutes
Source: D.W. Griffith's Biograph Shorts Special Edition (DVD 644)

Based on the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Two kind men, Enoch Arden and Phillip Ray vie for the love of Annie Lee. Enoch is the lucky man and the two get married and have kids. But money is short for the family so Enoch signs up to go on a voyage to China. Annie stands by the shores waiting for Enoch to return. Enoch is then shipwrecked and stranded on an island. Many years go by, the children have grown and Annie keeps looking out to sea for Enoch as Phillip Ray humbly looks after her children and continues to vie for Annie's love. Annie resisted for years until she gradually grows fond of Phillip. Old and gray, Enoch is finally rescued and quickly tries to find his family, but when he peeks into the window to see that Annie and his children are happy with Phillip, he decides that he will not let Annie know he is alive. Enoch leaves the happy family and goes to an inn where he dies.

I myself never read the long poem but a story like this one should be a prime example for a narrative short film. The story really gave a powerful emotion even at the time it was made. The melodrama started out as a genre of romance when in the end it felt more like a tragedy, Enoch keeping Annie happy by not informing her of his sudden existence. This story did what a narrative film is supposed to do, make you wonder what happens next. The story made me really hope that Enoch would finally see Annie again. With Phillip Ray being a very kind man however, I was more than understanding that Annie and her children would be fine with Phillip.

What really captured me was the music. The modern piano playing made me feel like this was a modern melodramatic film. And it just may be because of this music that I wanted to watch this film many times more. D.W. Griffith's use of parallel editing showed the expressions of both Annie and Enoch to heighten the melodrama, a feat like this is something I have never seen before in movies at this time period. This was considered the first feature film because it was presented in two reels. And while this is still considered, at least in this class, a short film, the film sure gives the emotion and technique of a narrative feature today.

Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life

FRANZ KAFKA’S IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Directed by Peter Capaldi, United Kingdom, 1994, 22 minutes.
Source: International Release 3 [DVD 1977]

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic…”

It’s Christmas and poor Franz Kafka sits alone in his room, an artist on the cusp of greatness, if only he can figure out the end of the line above. (Even if you don't know The Metamorphosis, we are given the full line at the very beginning of the film.) Constantly interrupted by the most normal of folks – a knife sharpener who has lost a little friend, a lovely woman downstairs whose party is making a bit too much noise, the proprietress of a joke shop who has misdelivered a package – Samsa finds himself utterly uninspired by everything around him. (A gigantic…what? Banana? Kangaroo??) After many (many) drafts, Kafka looks down to find a hideous cockroach on his page – which he splats, before realizing that it is his inspiration. But he has taken a life! What is an existential thinker to do? And has he killed the friend of the man with the very sharp knives? Is all lost? Or – like one George Bailey – will his friends come through in the end?

Deservedly winning (or at least sharing) the 1995 Academy Award, this short hysterically evokes both the tone of the tone of style of German Expressionism and the lighthearted romantics of the Frank Capra film referenced in the title. For me, this is an ideal story for a short: the narrative is a wisp of an idea that, if dragged out further, would crumble and lose all its humor. Instead, the film remains fresh throughout. The beginning of the film literally looks like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – but the tone brightens immediately once we see Gregor Samsa wake up as a giant banana and, although the dark colors and chiaroscuro lighting continue, Kafka (played by Richard E. Grant) becomes this comedic persona. (“As Gregor Samsa… blah blah blah…transformed…”)

The ending is also quite interesting. After the expected gathering around Kafka (just like Jimmy Stewart!), we dissolve to a slow dolly into the face of Samsa-insect, who is smiling broadly and singing a song called “Sweet Mystery of Life.” It’s a beautiful tune – and also betrays the filmmaker’s origin as a Scot, not just a Brit. It’s a fascinating touch for a film which otherwise does not indicate a sense of “nationality.”