Poem 8 (1932)

Synchromy No. 2, synchronized to the "Evening Star" aria from Wagner's Tannhäuser, uses a statue of Venus to represent the star.

Four prisoners, in convicts' stripes, march backwards down stairs and, under the watchful eyes of guards, hop backwards into their cells. Later, one overpowers a guard and springs his three pals. But, will they be able to pull off an escape? Other guards come to the aid of their fallen comrade before all four felons can flee. Guards and convicts spring forward and backward out of cells, up and down stairs, and into and out of freedom.

A spoof of the early talkies and their supposedly wooden line readings.

Photographer Rudy Burckhardt shows us the ebb and flow of people rushing about Manhattan. Equally exhilarating in his novel approach to snap images quickly on the run, a method he inaugurated and that continues to the present day. In film, he added slow and fast motion, split-screens and superimpositions to his repertory.

Christopher Young experiments with objects and their uses.

An early widescreen film that was told by cutting the two sides of the image off and replacing them with a different image.

Screen titles introduce the film as a modern artist's impressions of what goes on in the mind while listening to music. Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite" accompanies images of common objects and abstract forms photographed in soft focus and through prisms: rings, pyramids, the staff of musical notes, and floating lights are all seen in multiple images, sometimes as if through a kaleidoscope, other times as if in animation. Images appear and patterns move across the screen. Sparklers celebrate at the film's end.

At a skid row mission, a cleric opines as men wait to eat. After his sermon, he brings out a pie and cuts it into small slices. The two men at the end of the line get none. They leave the mission and head for a garbage dump where junk becomes props for their play. A dress form becomes Mae West; a rusted car gives them a wild ride. Then, one dresses as a priest and promises pie in the sky. By the end, they sport metal halos.

Avant-garde piece making use of trick lighting.

A sing-along short with Irving Kaufman singing, Lew White at the organ, lyrics displayed for the viewing audience, and film clips illustrating the songs. "I Love a Parade" includes a montage of military marchers; "Baby Parade" is music and montage without Kaufman's singing although lyrics are superimposed on the screen images of children passing by. Then, it's on to "Presidents on Parade," featuring Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Coolidge, and FDR. Kaufman adds narration to bridge each piece.

In a European seaside village, a maiden takes clean sheets down from the clothesline. Carrying her basket of linens home, she stops to consult a fortune teller. The cartomancienne sees love in the cards. The young woman pauses to reflect. We then see water, swirling, and into view swims a man, as if just appearing on earth. He arrives on shore - is he just in her mind's eye, or is he real? She weaves a garland for her hair. Will they meet?

Cale makes a short film called Police Car. No sound, and it is in black & white. Part #31 in the Fluxus Film series.

In December, 1941, using music by Stravinsky, this film provides a reaction to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. An egg is smashed by a hammer; red color with white and then blue dominates the frame. Blue paint runs; small bulbs float. The dark colors spread. White, red, blue, and black dominate the frame. Then comes fire. The bulbs burn and break. A broken bulb's filaments are exposed.

Parabola is a celebration of film’s ability to create new ways of seeing the forms around us. Creating juxtapositions between light/shadow, stasis/motion, and form/music, this black-and-white short invites us to see the parabolic curve, or “nature’s poetry,” as both invigorating and beguiling.

A recently unearthed experimental documentary of the crashing sea set to Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave." An example of the filmmakers' "new cinema" theory which held that film should be more like music than literature. This film is based solely on its arrangement of images.

While playing his trombone one Sunday, the enthusiastic Zero sees Beatrix and falls in love. He returns the next week to express his feelings, and it's mutual. Over the next few months, they spoon, kiss, and find happiness. Then, she receives a letter from Kabul, demanding that she return to the palace of the grand vizier. The lovers part, heartbroken. Zero tries expressing himself to a woman on the street. He meets derision. Then, news of Beatrix. Does this romance end in smiles or tears?

A triumph of film art, creating on the screen a vast, awe-inspiring picture of the universe as it would appear to a voyager through space, this film was among the sources of inspiration used by Stanley Kubrick for his 2001: A Space Odyssey. Realistic animation takes you into far regions of space, beyond the reach of the strongest telescope, past Moon, Sun, and Milky Way, into galaxies yet unfathomed.

A montage of elephants, children, Native Americans, logging, a barnstormer, a blimp, people on and in the water, and a man who sings like a bird.

An insane man first loves then grows to hate his neighbor, an old man whose penetrating gaze unnerves the insane man. He plans a perfect crime and executes it one night. The next day, two officers knock on the insane man's door, investigating a shriek heard in the night. The insane man invites them in, answers their questions, and submits to an examination of his eyes by one of the officers, who proclaims him innocent. The insane man invites them to stay and relax awhile, then regales them with his theories of crime. His heart begins to beat louder. Angles on the set are skewed to suggest the man's internal disarray.

Arrival in the Bronx is shown with a view from an elevated train as it enters the city. Then follows a montage of sights from the Bronx. Many typical neighborhood activities are shown, along with scenes from many local businesses.