Glass, a Portrait of Philip In 12 Parts
Saw this at Full Frame Film Festival. Wonderful portrait of a man whose music I admire more than anybody else’s. It wasn’t the standard documentary on an artist where the film is dedicated in making the subject look grander than they are. The Scott Hicks film is quite intimate, I never realized Glass was a closet Buddhist (he denies it). The filmmaker and the artist doing bring a certain humility to their tasks. Both practice their art because it intrigues them.
The Color Keeper
To the first time animator who created this: I wish it went on for longer, I was hooked. Watch it (Thanks for the submission)
Update: We have featured some of this filmmaker’s work before.
Standard Operating Procedure
Trailer for the new Errol Morris documentary on Abu Ghraib prison is riveting. BTW, as some of you might know, we have a category dedicated to the Errol Morris documentary style: recreations, meditative music, eloquent interviewees and detective work disguised as film research.
The Little Island
The BAFTA winning animated film by animator Richard Williams (Who Framed Roger Rabbit’s animation director). This was his first film and is a wordless engima of philosophical musings. Reminiscent of the 1950s modern animation of UPA.
Watch it. (Flash Video)
via Cartoon Brew
Domestic Safari
What if we started to see the material worlds of domestic settings as wild places? Is there a potential for the exotic and uncanny in the inconspicuously mundane?
The film is made up of three excursions in three homes from three countries (Körsbärsvägen, Sweden; La Casa di Sara, Italy; Kostonniemi, Finland) accompanied by a soundtrack realized just like the images: snippets recorded on location are decomposed and mixed together.
Images by Anders Weberg. Sound by Robert Willim.
Watch it. (Flash Video)
Download as Quicktime or Winmedia.
via MovingWeb
Protagonist
Incredibly interesting.
Explores extremism and the limits of certainty. Inspired by Greek drama, this visually inventive documentary weaves the stories of four men - a German terrorist, a bank robber, an “ex-gay” evangelist, and a martial arts student consumed by personal odysseys.
Reminds me of the Errol Morris film “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control”, which was great.
SIGGRAPH ‘07: The Itch
FPS Magazine has a great round up of all the movies featured at Siggraph ‘07 and available online at the moment. Have a look!
One of them is this quirky animated comedy following a strange period of a man’s life.
The Itch is Joel Green’s final year NCCA student project.
Download Quicktimes here.
Watch Flash Video here.
Also, on No Fat Clips: Respire, Mon Ami.
dim.
Produced at Se-Ma-For, the film has been written and directed by Marek Skrobecki with a peculiar animation technique.
Hard to describe the movie in a meaningful way. I’ve given my own interpretation on NFC, but you should watch the movie and make up your own. And then, perhaps post it.
Watch dim. (MPEG-4, AVI)
Claude Chabot - Apnée
One of the best uses of 3D. The camera moves around frozen time revealing story and drama. Beautifully done.
Watch it (Dek pointed out this video out earlier, oops!)
A Brief History of Errol Morris
We love Errol Morris here. We even have a category dedicated to him. Morris and Ira Glass are similar in many ways, great conversationalists that have a nose for good stories and good storytellers.
Here is a 46 minute documentary on the filmmaker. If you like his work, make sure to watch it.
Billy Collins
We have mentioned Billy Collins videos before (Forgetfulness & The Country). He was America’s Poet Laureate and is currently the New York State’s Poet Laureate. Very popular for a poet.
Recently, some videos based on his poems have had plenty of success. The ones presented by JWTNY feature Billy Collins reading his own work. The professional graphics for each poem come from a different artist. This is something that I have wanted to do for so long, take a poem and give it life.
My favorite in the series is The Best Cigarette. Every beautiful line makes for an equally wonderful visual. The result is a stunning piece of filmmaking. If I had just read these lines, I would have missed much of the visual connections within the lines. The video never once leaves its smoky black and white imagery but it gives you all that you need to imagine the event that Collins is describing.
Budapest is another perfect match of visuals and words. The visual style complimenting the playful and the absurd in the original.
Others:
- The Dead
- Hunger
- Some Days
- Now and Then
- Walking Across the Atlantic
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.
Directed by Errol Morris
“Mr. Death” is a stylized documentary that deals with the life and work of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., a US Federal Court qualified expert in execution technology. On the basis of his qualifications, in 1988 Leuchter was commissioned by German-Canadian publisher Ernst Zundel to conduct the first thorough forensic examination of the alleged Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland. After Leuchter testified that the alleged facilities were not — and could not have been — used for mass extermination, Jewish activists ruined his life.
One of the later works of Errol Morris is available in full on Google video. However, I’d recommend watching it on DVD.
One hell of a tale
Errol Morris’ cable show “First Person” was the video equivalent of Ira Glass radio show “This American Life.” In this episode, a Pilot relives the experience of saving lives and then living with the resulting disaster. His voice, his personality, his love for his wife, for flying are wonderfully captivating. I could listen to a guy like this for hours.
Watch part one, two, three, four, five & six (each segment is about 9 mins)
Bob Dylan - Gotta Serve Somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
An animated music video by John Wilson, animated with Peter Sis.
Watch it. (Flash Video)
Lyrics and informations, here.
Dayfly
Jean Pierre Khazem and Misi Park’s short film is based on the Hikikomori phenomenon, which literally means “pulling away, being confined”.
This Japanese term refers to the phenomenon of reclusive adolescents and young adults who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement due to various personal and social factors in their lives.
The main character looks like one of the creatures from Cunningham’s Come to Daddy, after a couple of sessions of the Ludovico treatment…
Watch it. (Quicktime)
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