Arabesque for Kenneth Anger

Arabesque for Kenneth Anger

1961 · 5 min · ★ 5.7 · Documentary

Filmed at the Alhambra in Spain in just one day, according to Marie Menken. Arabesque for Kenneth Anger concentrates on visual details found in Moorish architecture and in ancient Spanish tile. The date 1961 refers to the addition of Teiji Ito's soundtrack and its subsequent completion, but the film was likely shot in 1960 or earlier. - David Lewis

Directed by Marie Menken

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Arabesque for Kenneth Anger

Dionysus

Both from Marie Menken.

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Bitch

“Andy Warhol called Marie Menken and Willard Maas ‘the last of the great bohemians,’ and, in 1965, made Bitch, his real-life parody of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Willard and Marie sitting on the couch in their living room, drunk and arguing on a Sunday afternoon. Unscripted, shot with a stationary camera in his signature home-movie documentary style, Warhol’s Bitch has never before been seen by the public—until now…” (Philip Gefter).

Moonplay

Moonplay · 1962

An expansion upon an idea put forward in Marie Menken's film Notebook; single-frame footage of the moon shot on various nights, blinking and darting around within Menken's field of vision.

Dionysus

Dionysus · 1964

In 1963 Boultenhouse wrote, produced, and directed Dionysius,which he described as a “free treatment of Euripides' The Bacchae.”It starred the dancers Louis Falco, Anna Duncan, and Nicolas Magallanes as Dionysius, Agave, and Pentheus respectively, and the experimental filmmakers Charles Levine, Willard Maas, Gregory Markopoulos, Marie Menken, Lloyd Williams and William Wood as the Chorus of Cameras. The film's score was by Teiji Ito.

The Life of Juanita Castro

The Life of Juanita Castro · 1965

The Life of Juanita Castro

A playwright taunts a number of actors into improvising a truly ridiculous but subtlely meaningful meditation on Fidel Castro and his family.

Hurry, Hurry!

Hurry, Hurry! · 1957

In this strange little film, Marie Menken photographs billowy flames superimposed over microscopic medical footage of writhing spermatozoa.

Visual Variations on Noguchi

Visual Variations on Noguchi · 1945

Visual Variations on Noguchi

A voice occasionally says a word or two: "on the sidewalk" or "lithium" or a woman's name. A hand-held camera frames parts of sculptures, or moves across their surfaces, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, almost always in close-up. The soundtrack, in addition to the voice, is discordant music. Light and shadows are paramount. Sometimes the camera repeats up and down movements; once, a set of jump cuts brings an object closer. The music can be shrill in contrast to the sculptures. Almost entirely of wood, they are the work of Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988): Abstract, usually smooth and rounded (but not always).

Go! Go! Go!

Go! Go! Go! · 1964

MovieDocumentary

Various forms of everyday motion in and around a city are shown at rapid speed.

Lights

MovieDocumentary

Shot over a period of three years. Marie Menken photographed New York window displays during the Christmas holiday. In order to avoid foot and street traffic interrupting the shots, Menken filmed from midnight to 1:00 in the morning, but had to keep the camera under her coat to keep it from freezing.

Chelsea Girls

Chelsea Girls · 1966

Follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City.

Notebook

Notebook · 1963

MovieDocumentary

A short, diaristic film; A series of impressions, animations and playful vignettes in color and B&W. Early/ Outtake footage of Menken's Lights can be seen here, as well as camera techniques she'd expand upon in later films.

Glimpse of the Garden

Glimpse of the Garden · 1957

Glimpse of the Garden

MovieDocumentary

Experimental film showing film clips of a garden, with birds chirping for the soundtrack.

Eye Music in Red Major

Eye Music in Red Major · 1961

Eye Music in Red Major

"A study in light based on persistence of vision and enhancement from eye fatigue." -- M.M.

The Geography of the Body

The Geography of the Body · 1943

The Geography of the Body

MovieDocumentary

A quotation from Aristophanes, "The desire and pursuit of the whole is called love," precedes views of a man and a woman's bodies, often in extreme close up. Off-screen, a voice recites fragments of oracular literature and purple prose. We see an eye, an ear, a mouth, a tongue, bits of hair, a hand, the tips of fingers, toes. Occasionally, the frame includes a larger scape of a body: a chest, a back, a breast. Usually the camera is stationery; sometimes, it moves across a body, remaining in close up. They hold hands for one moment. The bodies are without clothes; no genitalia are visible.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol · 1965

MovieDocumentary

Andy Warhol is a lyrical exploration of Warhol's creative process by filmmaker, painter, and actress Marie Menken. Using a hand-held camera, Menken captures Warhol and his assistants, including Gerard Malanga, as they work at the Factory. The result is an intimate portrait of the artist in the process of creating some of his most famous works, including the Brillo boxes, the Jackie series, and the Flowers silkscreens.

In Search of the Miraculous

In Search of the Miraculous · 1967

In Search of the Miraculous

In the Search of the Miraculous is a multi-levelled story realized with extremely personal techniques and with the kind of atmosphere of Poetry and Introspection, only a poet could create. It is, in fact, the story of a poet searching himself through his love for a girl, and of the girl searching for her father. Obsequious to the iron rules of the avant-garde, the film has neither a beginning nor an ending it is a series of moods, it is a search which is at the same time spiritual and concrete, it is a moment in the life of two people. (Donatella Manganotti)

Excursion

Excursion · 1968

A boat trip with friends round Manhattan, shot in single-frame mode

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