Even: As You and I (Roger Barlow, Harry Hay + LeRoy Robbins, 1937)
Feb
27

A film editor struggling with a long strip of celluloid. DP: Hy Hirsh.
Even: As You and I (Roger Barlow, Harry Hay + LeRoy Robbins, 1937)
Feb
27

A film editor struggling with a long strip of celluloid. DP: Hy Hirsh.
”'I know how you feel,' Reiko says quietly. 'And I will follow you wherever you go.'”憂國 [Yūkoku / Patriotism or the Rite of Love and Death] (Yukio Mishima, 1966)
Feb
26
1936

Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka) walking through her lover's blood, her kimono drenched. DP: Kimio Watanabe.
Covers February 26–28, 1936.
– intertitles
“The most precious thing that we all have with us, is time.”Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? (Stuart Hamisch, 1958)
Feb
24
technology

Straight after dinner, the child returns to his teevee while his mother stands silently in the doorway.
A film about technology on what would've been Steve Jobs' 70th birthday
– Steve Jobs
A nuclear family goes about their machine-driven day while slowly forgetting to communicate.
“For me, Afrikareise is, in its own genre, the most intense sound film that exists. Sound and images are in synch like in nature (even if it isn’t about the natural sound of something). The sound becomes the acoustic portrait of the visual action.”Unsere Afrikareise [Our Trip to Africa] (Peter Kubelka, 1966)
Feb
22
National Wildlife Day

A frame (source) shows a freshly killed zebra on its side. The film stock's perforations and sound track are visible. DP: Peter Kubelka.
Wild animals for this year's first National Wildlife Day (USA). A second one is on September 4.
– Peter Kubelka, via
Commissioned to film a rich Austrian couple's hunting trip, Kubelka sat on the material for several years before editing it in something more than the sum of its parts.
War Machine (Duvet Brothers, 1984)
Jan
21
the passing of Orwell

A repurposed TV still of a battle ship billowing thick black smoke with the text WAR MACHINE superimposed over it.
A scratch video from 1984 on the date George Orwell died (1950). Date of production is either 84 or 85.
“All my life, hold me close to your heart
But all else above
Hold my love, darling, just hold my love”All My Life (Bruce Baillie, 1966)
Jan
18
roses

A still of a red rose bush next to a fence. Image via à pala de walsh. DP: Bruce Baillie.
Roses for the end of the Wars of the Roses (note: January 18 is when Henry VII married Elizabeth of York in 1486; the wars would continue until June 16 the following year).
– Ella Fitzgerald, All My Life (Sidney D. Mitchell & Sammy Stept), 1936
In one continuous shot, the camera tracks a fence and rose bushes while Ella Fitzgerald's 1936 debut song All My Life is playing.
“… as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”Egged On (Charles R. Bowers, Harold L. Muller + Ted Sears, 1926)
Jan
17
inventions

Charley working his Rube Goldberger-esque egg-rubberizing contraption.
An invention for Benjamin Franklin's birthday. Inventor Charley (Charles R. Bowers) comes up with an ingenious method to make eggs break-proof for transport by rubberizing them.
– Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography
Bowers was an almost-forgotten silent era comedian, filmmaker, and animator. In more recent years, his groundbreaking stop-motion comedy has found a new, well-deserved, interest.
“Art and science encounter each other when they seek exactitude.”Escrime [Fencing] (Étienne-Jules Marey, 1890)
Jan
4
revolvers


Footage of Marey at work. Note the mobility of his invention. (via).
A revolver to commemorate Samuel Colt's sale of 1 000 revolvers to butcher Captain Samuel Walker in 1847.
– Étienne-Jules Marey
However, where there is bloodshed, there can be art. Scientist Étienne-Jules Marey studied movement, and further adapted an existing revolver-style camera gun invented by astronomer Jules Janssen in 1874. The revolution in Marey's invention was not in the least in its mobility. Unlike Muybridge, whose locomotion experiments required a huge, cumbersome setup, Marey could strap on his “gun”, and shoot moving footage while following his target around. His chronophotograph Escrime can be considered Marey's first successfully captured moving footage.
“In this film, by showing certain basic aspects of a city, a way of life is put on trial… the last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you and makes you sympathetic to a revolutionary solution.”À propos de Nice – point de vue documenté [À propos de Nice] (Boris Kaufman + Jean Vigo, 1930)
Jan
1
New Year's Day

Exuberant prostitutes, Jean Vigo (5th from the left), and some who appear to be men in drag, dance on a landing with confetti all around them. In the moving footage they can be seen high-kicking with increased vulgarity, the camera posed below them. DP: Boris Kaufman.
Confetti for New Year's Day.
– Jean Vigo in his manifesto Vers un cinéma social
X2000 (François Ozon, 1998)
Jan
1
2000

A young, naked man holding a drink observes two men asleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. On the wall behind them the text “2000” spelled out with tinsel garlands. DP: Pierre Stoeber.