Something is lost and found on Official Lost and Found Day.

“We come to life, we die… It's a perpetual renewal. How boring.”

– Mibu

Someone digs in soil on World Soil Day.

Someone shaves on Safety Razor Day (USA).

Accompanied by the sweet tunes of Bunny Berigan and Ira Gershwin's I Can't Get Started, a young man shaves his face. The Big Shave is a short commissioned film which contains many of the hallmarks of Martin Scorsese's later, more accessible work.

“I've been consulted by Franklin D., Gretta Garbo has had me to tea, Still I'm broken hearted, Cause I can't get it started, With you”

–Ira Gershwin, I Can't Get Started (1936)

There's also the obvious influence of #KennethAnger to be found, in nostalgic show tunes, the fetishisation of chrome and clean lines, followed by lustful, by ways erotic, violence. #Scorsese theme here is not homoeroticism, not on the surface at least, but the carnage laid upon so many young men sent off to the smouldering battlefields of #Vietnam. There'd be another six years of that. And meanwhile, some young men came back. And some picked up a job, driving a cab.

It took experimental filmmaker Marie Menken three years to shoot Lights. From midnight until 1 AM, she filmed New York's window displays during the holiday season, using her camera, motion, colour, and available light sources as her paintbrush.

“There is no why for my making films. I just liked the twitters of the machine, and since it was an extension of painting for me, I tried it and loved it. In painting I never liked the staid and static, always looked for what would change the source of light and stance, using glitters, glass beads, luminous paint, so the camera was a natural for me to try—but how expensive!”

– Marie Menken, c. 1966

Filming at night helped to avoid unwanted interruptions of people and cars, but turned out to be problematic for her hand-cranked #Bolex, which kept stalling in NYC's icy winter nights.

In the soul crushing future of 1999, one heroic nuclear family bravely fulfils their gender-specific duties. While Father Mike works in his computer-aided office, Son Jamie fails at computer homeschool and Mother Karen slavishly shops, cooks, and cleans as if the 70s never happened.

 

Thankfully, the future turned out to be even bleaker.

A little boy takes in the magic of pre-Christmas, while the adults rush and worry about all that must to be bought.

“So will someone tell me what happened or not? A brother shouldn't turn against his brother. And a guest shouldn't turn against a guest.”

– the host

16 year old Benno (Christof Wackernagel) lives in a reformatory until the Lohmanns, a rich middle-aged #WestBerlin business couple decides to adopt him. A new world opens up, one of adulthood and responsibility. For the teenager, this neatly regulated new bourgeois life feels all wrong.