Director: Storm de Hirsch

Starring: Not Applicable

Year: 1965

Runtime: 9 mins.

Synopsis: A further exploration into the color of ritual, the color of thought; a journey through the underworld of sensory derangement. “A very beautiful work! The abstractions drawn directly on film are like the paintings of Miró moving at full speed to the rhythm of an African beat.” — D. Noguez, La Nouvelle Revue Francaise “Among my favorites … beauty and excitement.” — Jonas Mekas, The Village Voice. (from Film-Makers’ Cooperative)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Underground Film Timeline: 1960 — 1969

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)
DINCA (Andrew Rosinski}

Video: None

Birth:
1922 (not verified)

Death:
2000

Official Website:
None

Major Works:
Geometrics of the Kabbalah (1975)
Lace of Summer (1973)
River-Ghost. Hudson River Diary Book: IV (1973)
Wintergarden. Hudson River Diary Book: III (1973)
September Express (1973)
An Experiment in Meditation (1971)
The Tattooed Man (1969)
Trap Dance (1968)
Third Eye Butterfly (1968)
Cayuga Run. Hudson River Diary: Book I (1967)
Shaman, a Tapestry for Sorcerers (1967)
Sing Lotus (1966)
Peyote Queen (1965)
Aristotle (1965)
Deep in the Mirror Imbedded (1965)
Charlotte Moorman’s Avant-Garde Festival #9 (1965)
Malevich at the Guggenheim (1965)
Ives House-Woodstock (1965)
The Recurring Dream (1965)
Divinations (1964)
Newsreel: Jonas in the Brig (1964)
The Color of Ritual, the Color of Thought (1964-1967)
Goodbye in the Mirror (1964)
Journey Around a Zero (1963)
A Reticule of Love (1963)

Years Working:
1964 — 1965

Notes:
Was a poet before she became a filmmaker. Some of her published books of poetry are Alleh Lulleh Cockatoo and Twilight Massacre.

In 2000, her 1964 film Divinations was the recipient of the New York Women in Film & Television‘s Women’s Film Preservation Fund. The grant was awarded to the Anthology Film Archives.

The birth date listed above was taken from the Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 DVD liner notes. However, they question their own year and neither further verification nor non-verification can be found at this time.

Online Resources:
IMDB: Filmography
Wikipedia: Bio
Film-makers’ Cooperative: Complete filmography for rental
Canyon Cinema: Partial filmography for rental

Film Books About Storm de Hirsch:
An Introduction to the American Underground Film by Sheldon Renan (E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1967) (Published simultaneously in Canada by Clarke, Irwin and Company, Limited, Toronto and Vancouver) (p. 32, 102.)

Video:
None

Director: Ken Jacobs

Starring: Jack Smith, Jerry Sims

Year: 1959 –63

Runtime: 15 mins.

Synopsis: Featuring Jack Smith. Material was cut in as it came out of the camera, embarrassing moments intact. 100′ rolls timed well with music on old 78s. I was interested in immediacy, a sense of ease, and an art where suffering was acknowledged but not trivialized with dramatics. Whimsy was our achievement, as well as breaking out of step. (from Film-Makers’ Cooperative)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Underground Film Timeline: 1960 — 1969

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Director: Owen Land

Starring: Art Gower, Gunner Piotter, Tanny Young

Year: 1976

Runtime: 10 mins.

Synopsis: A reworking of an earlier film, Institutional Quality, in which the same test was given. In the earlier film, the person taking the test was not seen, and the film viewer in effect became the test taker. The newer version concerns itself with the effects of the test on the test taker. An attempt is made to escape from the oppressive environment of the test — a test containing meaningless, contradictory, and impossible-to-follow directions — by entering into the imagination. (from Canyon Cinema)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Birth:
1944 (New Haven, Connecticut)

Death:
June 8, 2011 (Los Angeles, California)

Official Website:
None

Major Works:
Dialogues (2009)
Noli Me Tangere/Don’t Touch Me (1983)
The Box Theory (1984)
On the Marriage Broker Joke as Cited by Sigmund Freud in Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious or Can the Avant-Garde Artist Be Wholed? (1979)
Diploteratology (1978)
New Improved Institutional Quality: In the Environment of Liquids and Nasals a Parasitic Vowel Sometimes Develops (1976)
Wide Angle Saxon (1975)
No Sir, Orison (1975)
A Film of Their 1973 Spring Tour Commissioned by Christian World Liberation Front of Berkeley California (1974)
Thank You Jesus for the Eternal Present (1973)
What’s Wrong With This Picture? 2 (1972)
What’s Wrong With This Picture? 1 (1971)
Remedial Reading Comprehension (1970)
Baroque Slippages (1969)
Institutional Quality (1969)
The Film That Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter (1968)
Diploteratology (1967)
Bardo Follies (1967)
Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc. (1965-66)
This Film will be Interrupted After 11 Minutes by a Commercial (1965)
Adjacent Yes, But Simultaneous? (1965)
Not a Case of Lateral Displacement (1965)
Leopard Skin (1964-65)
Fleming Faloon (1963)
Richard Kraft at the Playboy Club (1963)
Are Era (1962)
Two Pieces for the Precarious Life (1961)
Faulty Pronoun Reference, Comparison and Punctuation of the Restrictive or Non-Restrictive Element (1961)
A Stringent Prediction at the Early Hermaphroditic Stage (1961)

Years Working:
1962 — 1966

Notes:
Originally born as George Landow, but changed his name to Owen Land sometime in the late ’70s for, as of now, unknown reasons. “Owen Land” is a partial anagram of “George Landow.”

Studied art at Pratt Institute, Art Student’s League of New York and the New York Academy of Art. Earned an MFA in painting at New York Academy of Art.

Is considered to be one of the first “Structuralist” filmmakers before that movement even began. Land eventually rejected structuralism and instead focused his filmmaking on comedy that typically played with language.

Online Resources:
IMDB: Filmography
Wikipedia: Bio
Film-makers’ Cooperative: Films for rental
Canyon Cinema: Films for rental
Fred Camper: Links to writing by Camper
Vimeo: Documentary on making of Dialogues

Film Books About Owen Land:
An Introduction to the American Underground Film by Sheldon Renan (E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1967) (Published simultaneously in Canada by Clarke, Irwin and Company, Limited, Toronto and Vancouver) (pp. 161-163.)

Video:
LAFF: Owen Land Q&A Part 1 – June 29, 2009

Director: Bruce Baillie

Starring: Not Applicable

Year: 1962

Runtime: 10 mins.

Synopsis: Here I Am is a sensitive, low-key portrait of the East Bay Activity Center, a school in Oakland, California, started in the 1950s to help emotionally disturbed children. The atmospheric documentary opens with hilly East Bay streets shrouded in fog. The mist lifts as the film moves to children at play. Often shown in unobtrusive close-up, the youngsters appear as thinking individuals, enjoying the swings, puzzling out problems, or interacting with their teacher in the classroom. (from Treasures IV DVD)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Director: Chick Strand

Starring: Not Applicable

Year: 1986

Runtime: 22 mins.

Synopsis: Intimate documentary about young women who make papier mache fruit and vegetables in a small factory in Mexico. They have a gringo boss, but the factory is owned by his Mexican wife. The focus of the film is on the color, music and movement involved, and the gossip which goes on constantly, revealing what the young women think about men. (from Canyon Cinema)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: None

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Birth: Dec. 3, 1931

Death: July 11, 2009

Official Website: None

Major Works: Fake Fruit Factory (1986)
Coming Up for Air (1986)
By the Lake (1986)
Artificial Paradise (1986)
Anselmo and the Women (1986)
Soft Fiction (1979)
Loose Ends (1979)
Kristallnacht (1979)
Fever Dream (1979)
Cartoon le Mousse (1979)
Mujer de Milfuegos (Woman of a Thousand Fires) (1976)
Guacamole (1976)
Elasticity (1976)
Cosas de Mi Vida (1976)
Mosori Monika (1970)
Waterfall (1967)
Anselmo (1967)
Angel Blue Sweet Wings (1966)

Notes: “Chick” is a nickname given to Strand by her father. Her real first name is Mildred.

Helped co-found Canyon Cinema with Bruce Baillie and edited three issues of the organization’s Cinemanews newsletter.

Studied anthropology at UC Berkeley and ethnography at UCLA. She also taught filmmaking for over 30 years at Occidental College.

1996: Recipient of AFI’s Maya Deren Independent Film and Video Artists Award.

Other Resources: IMDB: Partial Filmography
Wikipedia: Bio
Canyon Cinema: Films for rental
LA Weekly: Profile
The Portland Mercury: Profile
Bad Lit: Obituary

Video: None

Director: Hollis Frampton

Starring: Michael Snow (voice)

Year: 1971

Runtime: 36 mins.

Synopsis: In 13 sequences, a photograph lies on top of a burner on an electric stove. As the picture slowly burns and turns to ash, a narrator reminisces about the next photo in the next sequence, i.e. as we watch one photo be destroyed, we hear about the next photo we’ll see. Although not identified in the film, the narrator is structuralist filmmaker Michael Snow, yet the photos and the stories that go along with them both belong to the director, Hollis Frampton.

(nostalgia) is also the first film in Frampton’s seven-part Hapax Legomena series.

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986 (compilation DVD)

Official Website: Hollis Frampton site

Reviews: DVD Talk (Glenn Erickson)

Video: None

Director: George Kuchar

Starring: Barbara Lapsley, George Kuchar

Year: 1977

Runtime: 9 mins.

Synopsis: This film was shot in ten minutes with four or five students of mine at the San Francisco Art Institute. It was to be a screen-test for a girl in the class. She wanted something to show producers of theatrical productions, as the girl was interested in an acting career. By the time all the heavy equipment was set up the class was just about over; all we had was ten minutes. Since 400 feet of film takes ten minutes to run through the camera … that was the answer: Just start it and don’t stop till it runs out. I had to get into the act to speed things up so, in a way, this film gives an insight into my directing techniques while under pressure. (from Canyon Cinema)

DVD: Treasures IV: American Avant-Garde Film, 1947-1986

Official Website: None

Reviews: Moving Image Source (Ed Halter)

Video: None