Harvard University's Suggested Film Viewing List: Experimental/Avant-garde/Underground Films
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- DirectorRené ClairStarsCharles MartinelliLouis Pré FilsAlbert PréjeanA scientist's invisible ray freezes Paris into immobility.
- DirectorRené ClairStarsJean BörlinInge FrïssFrancis PicabiaAn absolute dada movie. Somebody gets killed, his coffin gets out of control and after a chase it stops. The person gets out of it and let everybody who followed the coffin dissapear.
- DirectorDimitri KirsanoffStarsNadia SibirskaïaYolande BeaulieuGuy BelmontA couple is brutally murdered in the working-class district of Paris. Later on, the narrative follows the lives of their two daughters, both in love with a Parisian thug and leading them to separate ways.
- DirectorGermaine DulacStarsAlex AllinLucien BatailleGenica AthanasiouObsessed with a general's woman, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.
- DirectorJean EpsteinStarsJean DebucourtMarguerite GanceCharles LamyAllan visits the sinister Usher family mansion, where his friend Roderick is painting a portrait of his sickly wife Madeline. The portrait seems to be draining the life out of Madeline, slowly leading to her death.
- DirectorJean GenetStarsBravoJean GenetJavaTwo prisoners in complete isolation, separated by the thick brick walls, and desperately in need of human contact, devise a most unusual kind of communication.
- DirectorBruce ConnerStarsTheodore RooseveltClips of atomic explosions, pornography, and B-movies are spliced together to evoke certain emotions.
- DirectorKenneth AngerStarsErnie AlloBruce ByronFrank CarifiA gang of Nazi bikers prepares for a race as sexual, sadistic, and occult images are cut together.
- DirectorSamuel BeckettAlan SchneiderStarsBuster KeatonNell HarrisonJames KarenA twenty-minute, almost totally silent film (no dialogue or music, save one 'shhh!') in which Buster Keaton attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye. But, as the film is based around Bishop Berkeley's principle 'esse est percipi' (to be is to be perceived), Keaton's very existence conspires against his efforts
- DirectorPaul MorrisseyAndy WarholStarsBrigid BerlinRandy BorscheidtChristian PäffgenLacking a formal narrative, Warhol's art house classic follows various residents of the Chelsea Hotel in 1966 New York City, presented in a split screen with a single audio track in conjunction with one side of screen.
- DirectorPeter KubelkaA trip to Africa is edited into a brief documentary without continuity between sound and image or story and time.
- DirectorCarolee SchneemannStarsCarolee SchneemannJames TenneyAn experimental short in which a couple engaged in lovemaking is superimposed over ocean and beach scenes.
- DirectorStan BrakhageStarsStan BrakhageJane WodeningThe prelude to Dog Star Man (1964), an experimental film wherein a man climbs a mountain along with his dog.
- DirectorStan BrakhageStarsStan BrakhageJane WodeningThe first part of Dog Star Man (1964), an experimental film wherein a man climbs a mountain along with his dog.
- DirectorStan BrakhageStarsStan BrakhageThe second part of Dog Star Man (1964), an experimental film wherein a man climbs a mountain along with his dog.
- DirectorStan BrakhageStarsStan BrakhageJane WodeningThe third part of Dog Star Man (1964), an experimental film wherein a man climbs a mountain along with his dog.
- DirectorStan BrakhageStarsStan BrakhageJane WodeningThe fourth and final part of Dog Star Man (1964), an experimental film wherein a man climbs a mountain along with his dog.
- DirectorBruce BaillieA visual documentary inspired by Erik Satie, showcasing the sights and sounds of the industrialized Castro Street in Richmond, California.
- DirectorPaul SharitsStarsDavid FranksA subversive experimental short film in which the word "Destroy" is uttered constantly while images on an individual are show with changes colors and the letters T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G displayed.
- DirectorHollis FramptonStarsRosemarie CastoroGinger MichelsMarcia SteinbrecherA rhythmically edited alphabet composed of street and shop signs shot in New York City and other elements is gradually replaced by repeated seemingly abstract shots in this influential structuralist film.
- DirectorJonas MekasStarsJonas MekasAdolfas MekasPola ChapelleFilmmaker Jonas Mekas creates an elegiac diary of a trip to his home country of Lithuania.
- DirectorJames BenningSixty one-minute shots with no camera movement. This tension between painterly and cinematic space is not only experienced as an intellectual contrast but is also felt as a dialectic between permanence and impermanence.
- DirectorSara GómezStarsMario BalmasedaYolanda CuéllarMario LimontaIn Miraflores, Cuba, the growing romance between Mario, a factory worker, and Yolanda, a schoolteacher, throws into relief the differences in their perspectives and values in Revolutionary Cuba.