Home Movies #20: Dance Tests

A collection of twenty short films, averaging 2-3 minutes, by various filmmakers depicting American life, intended to be shown in a continuous loop at the American Pavilion of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Some releases of the film include ten extra minutes of rough cuts.

A prelude to Tongues (1982) which languishes over love and its effect on people.

An abstract work featuring three dancers, the performers interact with large screens as well as each other. Included in Shirley Clarke’s Four Journeys Into Mystic Time, costuming and color play an integral role in this piece.

Part of the larger filmic Four Journeys Into Mystic Time, in this work director Shirley Clarke makes use of a dancer’s body not only as the primary performer, but also as a canvas on which to paint projected images. Further enhanced by editing and effective use of shadows, the film is a transformative experience.

Documentary about filmmaker Shirley Clarke which originally aired on the French television series “Cinéastes de notre temps”.

Nominated for an Academy Award, this live-action short film playfully chronicles the construction of the Tishman Building at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York City.

A couple in love interacts across a multitude of environments.

New York City’s bridges dissolve into shifting abstractions through montage, superimposition, and color. Set to an electronic score by Louis and Bebe Barron, the film transforms familiar urban structures into an uncanny, alien landscape (an alternate version of the film features a jazz score by Teo Macero).

Interview with Jason Holliday aka Aaron Payne. House-boy, would-be cabaret performer, and self-proclaimed hustler giving one man's gin-soaked, pill-popped view of what it was like to be black and gay in 1960s United States.

Shirley Clarke's frenetic documentary about multi-talented musician Ornette Coleman.

Eight drug addicts are waiting for their connection in a New York apartment while a two-man documentary team films the proceedings. Things go out of control as the men grow increasingly nervous and the cameraman keeps recording.

The acclaimed poet is examined in this film completed just prior to his death at age 88, with his speaking engagements at Amherst and Sarah Lawrence Colleges intercut with studies of his work, as well as with scenes of his life in rural Vermont and personal reminiscences about his career. He is also seen receiving an award from President Kennedy and touring an aircraft carrier. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2006.

First shown on January 30, 1967, FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR was an open-call, collective statement from American independent filmmakers disparate in style and sensibility but united by their opposition to the Vietnam War. Part of the protest festival Week of the Angry Arts, the epic compilation film incorporated minute-long segments which were sent from many corners of the country, spliced together and projected. The original presentation of the works was more of an open forum with no curation or selection, and in 2000 Anthology Film Archives preserved a print featuring around 40 films from over 60 submissions.

New York City’s bridges are reimagined through montage, superimposition, and vivid color, transforming industrial architecture into rhythmic visual abstraction. Accompanied by a jazz score by Teo Macero, the film renders the urban landscape musical, kinetic, and alive (an alternate version of the film features an electronic score by Louis and Bebe Barron).

Three actors in Hollywood live and love together. A director comes from New York to make a movie about actors and Hollywood.

A fifteen-year-old boy wants to buy a gun from an adult racketeer named Priest, in order to become president of the gang to which he belongs, and to return them to active "bopping" (gang fighting) which has declined in Harlem.