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A list of avant-garde and experimental films made before 1930. Though some had dedicated music scores written for them, or were synchronized to records, nearly all of these films were silent. Several of them involve color, through tinting, hand-painting or even photographic color.
Title | Director | Cast | Country | Subgenre/Notes | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1900 | ||||||
A Nymph of the Waves | Frederick S. Armitage | Cathrina Barto | United States | Early use of optical printing [1] | ||
1901 | ||||||
The Ghost Train | Frederick S. Armitage | United States | Use of overprinting; section shown in negative [2] [3] | |||
Star Theatre | Frederick S. Armitage | United States | a.k.a. "Building Up and Demolishing the Star Theatre." Single-frame, time-lapse subject [4] [5] | |||
1903 | ||||||
The Infernal Cake Walk | Georges Méliès | France | Ghostly, in-camera superimpositions [6] [7] | |||
Down the Hudson | Frederick S. Armitage, A.E. Weed | United States | Single-frame, time-lapse travel actually "up" the Hudson River [8] [9] | |||
1905 | ||||||
Interior NY Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street | Billy Bitzer | United States | Shot from front of subway car, largely abstract [10] | |||
1906 | ||||||
The '?' Motorist | Walter R. Booth | United Kingdom | Exceptional trick film in the style of Georges Méliés. Produced by R. W. Paul. [11] | |||
1907 | ||||||
Les Kiriki - Acrobates Japonaises | Segundo de Chomón | France | Exceptional trick film, shot from the ceiling facing downward [12] | |||
1908 | ||||||
Fantasmagorie | Émile Cohl | France | Early animation, reflective of the pre-modernist movement of the Incoherents [ citation needed ] | |||
1910 | ||||||
The Hasher's Delerium | Émile Cohl | France | Early animation; representation of a hallucination [13] | |||
1911 | ||||||
The Automatic Moving Company | Romeo Bosetti and/or Émile Cohl | France | Often attributed to Émile Cohl; recent scholarship points toward Bosetti. [14] | |||
A Chord of Color | Bruno Corra, Arnaldo Ginna | Italy | Abstract animation, Lost film [15] | |||
Study on the Effects of Four Colors | Bruno Corra, Arnaldo Ginna | Italy | Abstract animation, Lost film [15] | |||
Translation of Mallarmé's poem "Flowers" into Colors | Bruno Corra, Arnaldo Ginna | Italy | Abstract animation, Lost film [15] | |||
Translation of Mendelssohn's Spring Song | Bruno Corra, Arnaldo Ginna | Italy | Abstract animation, Lost film [15] | |||
1912 | ||||||
The Dance | Bruno Corra, Arnaldo Ginna | Italy | Abstract animation, Lost film [15] [16] | |||
The Rainbow | Bruno Corra, Arnaldo Ginna | Italy | Abstract animation, Lost film [15] [16] | |||
1913 | ||||||
Rythmes colorés (Coloured Rhythm) | Léopold Survage | France | Abstract animation; ca. 105 drawings made but not filmed [17] [18] [19] | |||
Suspense | Phillips Smalley, Lois Weber | Valentine Paul, Lois Weber | United States | Contains early examples of split-screen and a car chase. | ||
1914 | ||||||
Drama in the Futurist's Cabinet No. 13 | Vladimir Kasyanov | Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, David Burliuk | Russia | Lost film [20] [21] | ||
1915 | ||||||
La Folie du Docteur Tube | Abel Gance | Albert Dieudonné | France | Archaic trick film, shot through Anamorphic lens [22] | ||
The Hypocrites | Lois Weber | Courtenay Foote, Myrtle Stedman | United States | Allegorical and highly symbolic religious picture; nude principal character[ citation needed ] | ||
The Picture of Dorian Gray | Vsevolod Meyerhold, Mikhail Doronin | Vavara Yanova, Vsevolod Meyerhold | Russia | Adaptation of Oscar Wilde story by symbolist theater director; Lost film [21] | ||
1916 | ||||||
Diana the Huntress | Charles W. Allen, Francis Trevelyan Miller | Lionel Braham, Percy Richards | United States | Highly stylized mythic film; fragment only [23] | ||
Intolerance | D.W. Griffith | Lillian Gish, Robert Harron | United States | Influential film which attempts to tell four stories at once; extensive use of montage[ citation needed ] | ||
The Strong Man | Vsevolod Meyerhold | Mikhail Doronin, Vsevolod Meyerhold | Russia | Adaptation of Stanisław Przybyszewski play by symbolist theater director; Lost film [21] | ||
1917 | ||||||
Thaïs | Anton Giulio Bragaglia | Thaïs Galizsky | Italy | Italian Futurist film; incomplete print extant. [24] | ||
Vita futurista | Arnaldo Ginna | Filippo Marinetti, Giacomo Balla | Italy | Italian futurist film; Lost film [25] | ||
1918 | ||||||
Âmes des fous | Germaine Dulac | Sylvio de Pedrelli, Ève Francis | France | Serial which incorporated avant-garde techniques; lost film. [26] [27] | ||
The Blue Bird | Maurice Tourneur | Tula Belle, Robin Macdougall | United States | Stylized, almost surrealistic, fantasy film[ citation needed ] | ||
Nye dlya deneg radivshisya (Born Not for the Money) | Nikandr Turkin | Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burliuk | Soviet Union | Russian futurist adaptation of Jack London story[ citation needed ] Lost film [28] | ||
Il Perfido Incanto | Anton Giulio Bragaglia | Renée Avril, Thaïs Galizsky | Italy | Lost Italian Futurist film. [22] | ||
Prunella | Maurice Tourneur | Isabel Berwin, Jules Raucourt | United States | Stylized, almost surrealistic, fantasy film; only a 30-minute fragment extant [29] [30] | ||
The Young Lady and the Hooligan | Vladimir Mayakovsky, Yevgeni Slavinsky | Fyodor Dunayev, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Aleksandra Rebikova | Soviet Union | The only surviving film appearance by arch-Russian futurist Vladimir Mayakovsky [28] | ||
1919 | ||||||
The Fall of Babylon | D.W. Griffith | Constance Talmadge, Alfred Paget | United States | Edited from Intolerance, widely influential in Europe; introduced 'Russian montage' to Russia[ citation needed ] | ||
Rose-France | Marcel L'Herbier | Claude-France Aïssé, Jacque Catelain | France | Symbolic romance[ citation needed ] | ||
1920 | ||||||
Anywhere Out of the World | Dudley Murphy | Chase Harringdine | United States | Dance film, Lost film [31] | ||
Aphrodite | Dudley Murphy | Katharine Hawley | United States | Dance film, Lost film [32] [33] | ||
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari | Robert Wiene | Conrad Veidt, Lil Dagover | Weimar Republic | Expressionist horror film, greatly influential on avant-garde filmmakers, particularly in the United States[ citation needed ] | ||
La Fête espagnole | Germaine Dulac | Ève Francis, Gaston Modot | France | First film written by Louis Delluc [34] [22] | ||
From Morn to Midnight | Karlheinz Martin | Ernst Deutsch | Weimar Republic | Adaptation of Expressionist play, only film made by theatre director Martin; barred from German cinemas at the time [35] | ||
Genuine | Robert Wiene | Fern Andra, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski | Weimar Republic | Particularly extreme example of Expressionism[ citation needed ] | ||
Nude Woman by Waterfall | Claude Friese-Greene | United Kingdom | Dance film. [36] | |||
Le silence | Louis Delluc | Ève Francis, Gabriel Signoret | France | Naturalist, experimental short[ citation needed ] | ||
The Soul of the Cypress | Dudley Murphy | Chase Harringdine | United States | Dance film [38] | ||
1921 | ||||||
El Dorado | Marcel L'Herbier | Ève Francis, Jacque Catelain | France | Melodrama, highly stylized sets and use of montage[ citation needed ] | ||
Fièvre | Louis Delluc | Ève Francis, Gaston Modot | France | Naturalist melodrama [22] | ||
Manhatta | Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler | United States | First City film [39] | |||
Opus 1 | Walter Ruttmann | Weimar Republic | Abstract Animation[ citation needed ] | |||
Opus 2 | Walter Ruttmann | Weimar Republic | Abstract Animation[ citation needed ] | |||
Rhythmus 21 | Hans Richter | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation. Backdated by Richter, not actually completed or screened in 1921. [40] | |||
1922 | ||||||
Danse macabre | Dudley Murphy | Adolph Bolm, Ruth Page | United States | Dance film [3] | ||
The Enchanted City | Warren Newcombe | United States | Art heavy futurist short [41] | |||
La femme de nulle part | Louis Delluc | Ève Francis, Gine Avril | France | Naturalist melodrama [22] | ||
Der Sieger | Walter Ruttmann | Weimar Republic | Semi-abstract advertising film[ citation needed ] | |||
1923 | ||||||
Cœur fidèle | Jean Epstein | Léon Mathot, Gina Manès | France | Naturalist melodrama, experimental sequence; cited in Curtis [22] | ||
Dnevnik Glumova (Glumov's Diary) | Sergei Eisenstein | Grigori Alexandrov, Sergei Eisenstein | Soviet Union | Filmed inserts for The Wise Man, a production of the Moscow Proletkult Central Theater; issued as part of Kino Pravda No. 16 [42] [43] | ||
L'ironie du Destin | Dimitri Kirsanoff | Dimitri Kirsanoff, Nadia Sibirskaïa | France | Naturalist melodrama; Lost film [22] | ||
The Man Without Desire | Adrian Brunel | Ivor Novello | United Kingdom | Fantasy, cited by Rotha [44] | ||
La mort du soleil | Germaine Dulac | André Nox, Denis Lorys | France | Social drama, experimental techniques [45] | ||
Le Retour à la Raison | Man Ray | Alice Prin (Kiki de Montparnasse) | France | Insert film for a Dadist soirée [46] | ||
La Roue | Abel Gance | Séverin-Mars, Ivy Close | France | Lengthy melodrama utilizing extensive segments of "Russian montage" [22] | ||
La Souriante Madame Beudet | Germaine Dulac | Germaine Dermoz, Alexandre Arquillière | France | Social drama, experimental techniques. Considered one of the first feminist films. [47] Premiered 9 November 1923. [48] | ||
The Crazy Ray | René Clair | Henri Rollan, Charles Martinelli | France | Surrealist comedy with science-fiction angle [49] | ||
Rhythmus 23 | Hans Richter | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation. Several scholars have shown that Richter likely backdated his film; this was probably made at least several years later. [50] | |||
Salomé | Charles R. Bryant | Alla Nazimova, Mitchell Lewis | United States | Art Nouveau rendering of biblical story based on Aubrey Beardsley [51] | ||
Sea of Dreams | Warren Newcombe | Hazel Lindsley | United States | Futuristic fantasy; Lost film [52] | ||
1924 | ||||||
The Adventures of Oktyabrina | Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg | Zinaida Torkhovskaya, Yevgeni Kumeiko | Soviet Union | First production of FEKS; lost film [53] | ||
Aelita: Queen of Mars | Iakov Protazanov | Igor Ilyinsky, Mikhail Zharov | Soviet Union | Science-fiction film with Constructivist and Futurist sets. [54] | ||
Ballet Mécanique | Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy | Alice Prin | France | Cubist film, with music score by George Antheil [55] [18] | ||
Entr'acte | René Clair | Alice Prin, Francis Picabia, Erik Satie, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp | France | Dadaist insert film for Erik Satie's ballet Relâche [56] | ||
The Fugitive Futurist | Gaston Quiribet | United Kingdom | Comedy featuring "melting" wipe effect; futuristic projections on travel [57] | |||
L'Inhumaine | Marcel L'Herbier | Georgette Leblanc, Jacque Catelain | France | Highly stylized science fiction feature [58] | ||
Interplanetary Revolution | Nikolai Khodotaev, Zenon Komisarenko, Yuri Merkolov | Soviet Union | Satire of Protazanov's Aelita: Queen of Mars | |||
Kino-Eye | Dziga Vertov | Soviet Union | ||||
Opus III | Walter Ruttmann | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation[ citation needed ] | |||
Au secours! | Abel Gance | Max Linder, Jean Toulout | France | Horror-comedy, highly experimental in style [59] | ||
Symphonie Diagonale | Viking Eggeling | Sweden | Abstract animation; in production from 1921. | |||
Soviet Toys | Dziga Vertov | Soviet Union | Satirical animation and advertising [60] | |||
1925 | ||||||
Les aventures de Robert Macaire | Jean Epstein | Jean Angelo, Alex Allin | France | Fantasy serial, cited in Rotha[ citation needed ] | ||
Battleship Potemkin | Sergei Eisenstein | Aleksandr Antonov, Grigori Alexandrov | Soviet Union | "Odessa Steps" sequence is a textbook example of Russian montage[ citation needed ] | ||
La fille de l'eau | Jean Renoir | Catherine Hessling, Pierre Champagne | France | Naturalist drama, surrealist influenced [61] | ||
Jean Cocteau fait du cinéma | Jean Cocteau | Jean Cocteau | France | 16mm short, Lost film [62] | ||
KIPHO | Julius Pinschewer, Guido Seeber | Weimar Republic | Trailer for International Film Congress of Berlin, 1925 [63] | |||
Lebende Buddhas | Paul Wegener | Paul Wegener, Asta Nielsen | Weimar Republic | Fragment only; fragment is more experimental than Expressionist[ citation needed ] | ||
Opus IV | Walter Ruttmann | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation[ citation needed ] | |||
The Pottery Maker | Robert J. Flaherty | United States | Semi-documentary, experimental in style [64] | |||
A Quoi revent les jeunes films? | Henri Chomette, Man Ray | France | Lost film. Made as a collaboration between Chomette and Ray; later sub-divided into three different films. [65] | |||
Rebus Film Nr. 1 | Paul Leni | Weimar Republic | Semi-abstract filmed puzzle, part of a series of eight films [66] | |||
Rhythmus 25 | Hans Richter | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation; Lost film [67] | |||
Strike | Sergei Eisenstein | Soviet Union | ||||
Stromlinien | Oskar Fischinger | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation [68] | |||
The Way | Francis Brugière | Sebastian Droste, Rosalinde Fuller | United States | Unrealized project, dated by Rotha to 1923 and often dated to 1929; 1925 is correct [69] | ||
1926 | ||||||
Anémic cinéma | Marcel Duchamp | France | Dadaist semi-animated film [70] | |||
Cinq minutes de cinéma pur | Henri Chomette | France | Extract from A Quoi revent les jeunes films? [65] | |||
Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse | Henri Chomette | France | Extract from A Quoi revent les jeunes films?[ citation needed ] | |||
Ménilmontant | Dimitri Kirsanoff | France | Urban realist melodrama [71] | |||
Filmstudie | Hans Richter | Weimar Republic | Merger between abstract animation and photographic abstraction [72] | |||
Moonland | Neil McGuire, William A. O'Connor | Mickey McBan | United States | Fantasy short, surrealist sets & situations [73] | ||
Mother | Vsevolod Pudovkin | Vera Baranovskaya, Nikolai Batalov | Soviet Union | Gripping social realist drama, heavy use of montage[ citation needed ] | ||
A Page of Madness | Teinosuke Kinugasa | Masuo Inoue, Yoshie Nakagawa | Japan | Surreal, intense representation of insanity using highly advanced film techniques. [74] | ||
Raumlichtkunst series | Oskar Fischinger | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation; multiple projector performances. Reconstructed 2012 by CVM in HD as a three projector installation. [75] | |||
Rien que les heures | Alberto Cavalcanti | Blanche Bernis, Nina Chousvalowa | France | City film[ citation needed ] | ||
Secrets of a Soul | G. W. Pabst | Werner Krauss, Ruth Weyher | Weimar Republic | Co-written with psychoanalysts Karl Abraham and Hanns Sachs, with dream sequence and sets by Ernő Metzner. | ||
A Sixth Part of the World | Dziga Vertov | Soviet Union | ||||
Spirals | Oskar Fischinger | Weimar Republic | Abstract Animation; incorporates footage made several years earlier [76] | |||
Le voyage imaginaire | René Clair | Dolly Davis, Jean Bõrlin | France | Fantasy film with surrealist elements [77] | ||
Wax Experiments | Oskar Fischinger | Weimar Republic | Abstract Animation; incorporates footage going back to c. 1921 [76] | |||
1927 | ||||||
Bed and Sofa | Abram Room | Nikolai Batalov, Vladimir Fogel, Lyudmila Semyonova | Soviet Union | Written by Viktor Shklovsky | ||
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City | Walter Ruttmann | Weimar Republic | City film | |||
City Film | Ralph Steiner | United States | Amateur City film [78] | |||
Combat de Boxe | Charles Dekeukeleire | Belgium | Staging of boxing match, based on poem by Paul Werrie | |||
Emak-Bakia | Man Ray | Alice Prin | France | Extract from A Quoi revent les jeunes films?[ citation needed ] | ||
The End of St. Petersburg | Vsevolod Pudovkin, Mikhail Doller | Aleksandr Chistyakov, Vera Baranovskaya | Soviet Union | Historic epic[ citation needed ] | ||
La Glace à trois faces (The Three-Sided Mirror) | Jean Epstein | Raymond Guérin-Catelain, Jeanne Helbling | France | Avant-garde projection of a narrative romance. [79] | ||
Les Halles centrales | Boris Kaufman | France | City film [80] | |||
L'invitation au voyage | Germaine Dulac | Emma Gynt, Raymond Dubreuil | France | Impressionistic "Cinéma pur" [81] | ||
Die Landpartie | Alex Strasser | Weimar Republic | Animated "grotesque" [82] | |||
Loony Lens | Al Brick | United States | Anamorphic views; insert series to Fox Movietone newsreels, begun 1924, only 4 known, [73] [83] | |||
La marche des machines | Eugène Deslaw | France | Semi-abstract art film of machinery; filmed by Boris Kaufman [84] | |||
München-Berlin Wanderung | Oskar Fischinger | Weimar Republic | Photographic single-frame film. Not released until decades later. [85] | |||
Napoléon | Abel Gance | Albert Dieudonné, Antonin Artaud | France | Enormous historic epic, experimental techniques and multi-screen[ citation needed ] | ||
Magic Umbrella | Jerome Hill | United States | Genre parody, filmed in Rome; color and sound added in 1965 [86] | |||
Orgelstabe | Oskar Fischinger | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation; series of experiments made over several years. [76] | |||
La p'tite Lili | Alberto Cavalcanti | Catherine Hessling, Jean Renoir | France | Naturalist short, street film[ citation needed ] | ||
Prelude | Castleton Knight | United Kingdom | Experimental projection of Edgar Allan Poe's The Premature Burial, conventionally framed. [87] | |||
En rade | Alberto Cavalcanti | Pierre Batcheff, Blanche Bernis | France | Urban realist melodrama [71] | ||
Seelische Konstruktionen | Oskar Fischinger | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation. [85] | |||
Sur un air de Charleston | Jean Renoir | Catherine Hessling, Johnny Hudgins | France | Silly, surrealist dance short with sci-fi elements[ citation needed ] | ||
Le train sans yeux | Alberto Cavalcanti | Hans Mierendorff, Gina Manès | France | Written by Louis Delluc [ citation needed ] | ||
Vieux châteaux | Eugène Deslaw | Zet Molan | France | Artful semi-documentary [84] | ||
Wing Beat | Kenneth MacPherson | United Kingdom | ||||
Your Acquaintance | Lev Kuleshov | Pyotr Galadzhev, Aleksandra Khokhlova, Yuri Vasilchikov | Soviet Union | Art direction by Aleksandr Rodchenko. Only a fragment survives. | ||
1928 | ||||||
L'Argent | Marcel L'Herbier | Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel | France | Experimental, modernized treatment of Zola novel[ citation needed ] | ||
Blue Bottles | Ivor Montagu | Elsa Lanchester, Joe Beckett | United Kingdom | Hybrid of experimental style and slapstick comedy [88] | ||
De Brug (The Bridge) | Joris Ivens | Netherlands | ||||
Celles qui s'en font | Germaine Dulac | France | Visualization of music[ citation needed ] | |||
The Fall of the House of Usher | Jean Epstein | Jean Debucourt, Marguerite Gance | France | Horror, highly stylized[ citation needed ] | ||
Disque 957 | Germaine Dulac | France | Visualization of music [89] | |||
The Eleventh Year | Dziga Vertov | Soviet Union | ||||
L'Étoile de mer | Man Ray | Alice Prin | France | Surrealist film financed by Charles De Noailles; written by Robert Desnos | ||
Ghosts Before Breakfast | Hans Richter | Weimar Republic | Dadaist fantasy[ citation needed ] | |||
Grotesken im Schnee | Alex Strasser, Lotte Reiniger | Weimar Republic | Animated "grotesque" with sillouhettes [82] | |||
Hände | Stella Simon, Miklós Bandy | Weimar Republic | Stylized love story utilizing only hands; made in silent and sound versions [90] | |||
Inflation | Hans Richter | Weimar Republic | Montage made for the feature Der Dame mit der Maske (1928). [91] Visual abstraction on the subject of runaway inflation in Weimar-era Germany. | |||
Impatience | Charles Dekeukeleire | Yvonne Selma | Belgium | Photographic abstract film[ citation needed ] | ||
In the Shadow of the Machine | Albrecht Viktor Blum, Leo Lania | Weimar Republic | Montage made of footage shot by Dziga Vertov for A Sixth Part of the World | |||
Johann the Coffin Maker | Robert Florey | United States | Horror short, Lost film[ citation needed ] | |||
Jûjiro | Teinosuke Kinugasa | Akiko Chihaya, Junosuke Bando | Japan | Expressionistic treatment of Samurai story [92] | ||
The Last Moment | Paul Fejos | Otto Matieson, Lucille La Verne | United States | Independently-made, experimental feature; Lost film[ citation needed ] | ||
The Life and Death of 9413 - A Hollywood Extra | Robert Florey, Slavko Vorkapich | Jules Raucourt, George Voya | United States | Ultra low budget anti-Hollywood film [93] [94] | ||
The Love of Zero | Robert Florey | Anielka Elter, Captain Marco Elter | United States | [90] | ||
Les nuits électriques | Eugène Deslaw | France | Semi-abstract art film of neon signs [95] | |||
October, a.k.a. Ten Days That Shook the World | Sergei Eisenstein | Nikolay Popov, Vasily Nikandrov | Soviet Union | Contains Eisenstein's most radical uses of montage[ citation needed ] | ||
Le petite marchande d'alumettes | Jean Renoir, Jean Tedesco | Catherine Hessling, Eric Barclay | France | Fantasy short with surrealist elements [96] | ||
Praha v záři světel (Prague Shining in Lights) | Svatopluk Innemann | Czechoslovakia | City film [97] | |||
Rennsymphonie | Hans Richter | Weimar Republic | ||||
The Seashell and the Clergyman | Germaine Dulac | Alex Allin, Genica Athanasiou | France | Surrealist dream film written by Antonin Artaud. Often dated to 1927, but premiered in Paris, 9 February 1928. [98] | ||
The Tell-Tale Heart | Charles Klein | Charles Darvas, Hans Fuerberg | United States | Horror short [99] | ||
Thèmes et Variations | Germaine Dulac | France | Visualization of music [100] | |||
There It Is | Charles Bowers | Charles Bowers, Kathryn McGuire | United States | Two reel comedy, absurd in the extreme[ citation needed ] | ||
Twenty-Four Dollar Island | Robert J. Flaherty | United States | City film, variously dated to 1926, 1927. Premiered in NYC, 1 January 1928 [101] | |||
Überfall | Ernő Metzner | Weimar Republic | ||||
The Fall of the House of Usher | James Sibley Watson, Melville Webber | United States | Short film | |||
Koko's Earth Control | Dave Fleischer, Max Fleischer | Koko the Clown | United States | Animated cartoon with exceptional visual dynamism; flash frames[ citation needed ] | ||
Zvenigora | Oleksandr Dovzhenko | Mikola Nademsky, Semen Svashenko, Alexander Podorozhny | Soviet Union | Film poem with fantasy elements [102] | ||
1929 | ||||||
Alles dreht sich, alles bewegt sich (Everything Turns, Everything Revolves) | Hans Richter | Weimar Republic | Sound; music by Walter Gronostay. Only roughly half of this 15-minute experimental short still survives. [103] [104] | |||
Arsenal | Oleksandr Dovzhenko | Amvrosy Buchma, Georgiy Kharkiv, Semyon Svashenko | Soviet Union | |||
The Bridge | Charles Vidor | Nicholas Bela, Charles Darvas | United States | Experimental narrative film based on Ambrose Bierce story, also known as The Spy; sometimes dated 1930-31[ citation needed ] | ||
Brumes d'automne | Dimitri Kirsanoff | Nadia Sibirskaïa | France | Film poem, with synchronized music track [71] [105] | ||
Dr Turner's Mental Home | Dora Carrington, Beakus Penrose | United Kingdom | Short, experimental melodrama. Not publicly screened. | |||
Drifters | John Grierson | United Kingdom | Documentary with a distinctly modernist orientation [106] | |||
Étude cinégraphique sur une arabesque | Germaine Dulac | France | Visualization of music [107] | |||
Every Day | Hans Richter | Sergei Eisenstein, Basil Wright | United Kingdom | Artful semi-documentary about everyday life [108] | ||
H2O | Ralph Steiner | United States | ||||
Histoire de détective | Charles Dekeukeleire | Pierre Bourgeois | Belgium | Semi-abstract film; despite the title, not a detective story[ citation needed ] | ||
Images d'Ostende | Henri Storck | Belgium | ||||
Impressionen vom alten Marseiller Hafen (Vieux Port) | László Moholy-Nagy | Weimar Republic | City film[ citation needed ] | |||
Lullaby | Boris Deutsch | Riva Deutsch, Michael Visaroff | United States | Expressionist drama, likely incomplete; Horak dates it to 1925 [52] | ||
Man with a Movie Camera | Dziga Vertov | Soviet Union | ||||
Monkey's Moon | Kenneth MacPherson | |||||
Montparnasse | Eugène Deslaw | Luis Buñuel, Filippo Marinetti | France | City film, with synchronized sound [109] | ||
My Grandmother | Kote Mikaberidze | Aleksandr Takaishvili, Bella Chernova | Georgia | Eccentric combination of avant-garde and social comedy[ citation needed ] | ||
Les Mystères du Château de Dé | Man Ray | Man Ray, Georges Auric | France | Surrealist short funded by Charles De Noailles[ citation needed ] | ||
The New Babylon | Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg | David Gutman, Yelena Kuzmina | Soviet Union | Production of the Factory of the Eccentric Actor [110] | ||
La Perle | Henri D'Ursel | Georges Hugnet, Kissa Kouprine, Renee Savoye, Mary Stutz | Belgium | Experimental narrative film. [111] | ||
Pour vos beaux yeux | Henri Storck | Belgium | ||||
Rain | Joris Ivens, Mannus Franken | Netherlands | ||||
Skyscraper Symphony | Robert Florey | United States | City film [112] | |||
The Storming of La Sarraz | Hans Richter, Sergei Eisenstein, Ivor Montagu | Béla Balász, Léon Moussinac | Weimar Republic | Made during a film conference; Lost film[ citation needed ] | ||
Studie Nr. 1 | Oskar Fischinger | Weimar Republic | Abstract animation. [76] | |||
Tusalava | Len Lye | New Zealand | Abstract animation [113] | |||
Un Chien Andalou | Luis Buñuel | Pierre Batcheff, Simone Mareuil | France | Short surrealist film written by Buñuel and Salvador Dalí [ citation needed ] | ||
War Under the Sea | M.G. MacPherson, Jean Michelson | United States | Artkino [114] production; Lost film [78] | |||
The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra is a 1928 American silent experimental short film co-written and co-directed by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapić. Considered a landmark of American avant-garde cinema, it tells the story of a man who comes to Hollywood with dreams of becoming a star; he fails and becomes dehumanized, with studio executives reducing him to the role of an extra and writing the number "9413" on his forehead.
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Nicola Napoli, was the President of Artkino Pictures, Inc., the primary distributor of Soviet films in the United States, Canada, Central America and South America from 1940 to 1982. Napoli was a double agent Soviet Spy for the United States. In 1941, he became an informant for the secret information concerning formulas and products manufactured by Dupont Corporation of America. As part of his role he was a member of Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and is known to have passed classified Soviet intelligence information (NKVDUS) to US intelligence during World War II. He was the secretary for the Anti-Fascists movement in, New York.
Ralph Steiner was an American photographer, pioneer documentarian and a key figure among avant-garde filmmakers in the 1930s.
Walter Ruttmann was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker, along with Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling and Oskar Fischinger. He is best known for directing the semi-documentary 'city symphony' silent film, with orchestral score by Edmund Meisel, in 1927, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis. His audio montage Wochenende (Weekend) (1930) is considered a major contribution in the development of audio plays.
William Moritz, film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger. He also wrote extensively on other visual music artists who worked with motion pictures, including James and John Whitney and Jordan Belson; Moritz also published on German cinema, Visual Music, color organs, experimental animation, avant-garde film and the California School of Color Music.
James Sibley Watson Jr. was an American medical doctor, philanthropist, publisher, editor, photographer, and early experimenter in motion pictures.
Moods of the Sea (1941) is a non-narrative experimental film by Slavko Vorkapich and John Hoffman, set to the music of Felix Mendelssohn known as the Hebrides Overture.
Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer. He was often credited under the single name "Cavalcanti".
The Seashell and the Clergyman is a 1928 French experimental film directed by Germaine Dulac, from an original scenario by Antonin Artaud. It premiered in Paris on 9 February 1928. The film is associated with French Surrealism.
Together is a 1956 city symphony film about two deaf people in the East End of London, directed by Lorenza Mazzetti, in collaboration with Denis Horne, based on his short story, The Glass Marble.
Non-narrative film is an aesthetic of cinematic film that does not narrate, or relate "an event, whether real or imaginary". It is usually a form of art film or experimental film, not made for mass entertainment.
Riddles of the Sphinx is a 1977 British experimental drama film written, directed and produced by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen and starring Dinah Stabb, Merdelle Jordine and Riannon Tise.
Kino-Eye is a film technique developed in Soviet Union by Dziga Vertov. It was also the name of the movement and group that was defined by this technique. Kino-Eye was Vertov's means of capturing what he believed to be "inaccessible to the human eye"; that is, Kino-Eye films would not attempt to imitate how the human eye saw things. Rather, by assembling film fragments and editing them together in a form of montage, Kino-Eye hoped to activate a new type of perception by creating "a new filmic, i.e., media shaped, reality and a message or an illusion of a message - a semantic field." Distinct from narrative entertainment cinema forms or otherwise "acted" films, Kino-Eye sought to capture "life unawares" and edit it together in such a way that it would form a new, previously unseen truth.
Mechanical Principles is a 1930 experimental short film directed by Ralph Steiner.
Danse Macabre is a 1922 American short film directed by Dudley Murphy and conceived by ballet dancer Adolph Bolm, who also stars in the film. Set to Danse macabre, a symphonic poem for orchestra by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, the film depicts Youth (Bolm) and Love attempting to evade the grasp of Death in Spain during the Black Plague. The film is one of a series of twelve "visual symphonies" set to classical music by Murphy, and was advertised as the first dance film to be synchronized with a sound score.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)Unrelated to the U.S. distributor of Soviet films, Artkino was the name chosen by two amateur movie enthusiasts, Jean D. Michelson and M.G. McPherson, from Burbank, California. In the late 1920s and early 1930s they completed several fiction shorts, which they shot in 35mm, including "War Under the Sea" (1929), "The Trap" (1930), and "Oil" (1930-33). —JAN-CHRISTOPHER HORAK