Tone Poem
see all genres ›Music often conjures pictures in our mind, so no wonder it has long inspired filmmakers to make motion pictures illustrating those thoughts. Variously fanciful and somber, these films bring beloved sounds to adventurous visual life.
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Genres / Music / Tone Poem
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Gymnopédies
Lawrence Jordan took not only the music but the title from Erik Satie. These three pieces are probably the most famous of Satie's musical series. The precise sense of the word "gymnopédies" is unknown. Etymologically it denotes the goings on of named (gymno) children (paidos); yet here the word...Watch Movie
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Adagio
Lawrence Jordan's rapturous live action short contemplates two nude figures in California idyll. They remain physically separated but Jordan's spellbinding cutting and tactile camerawork suggest a loosening of inhibition. Parisian fountains and classical statues signal the deep cultural bedrock...Watch Movie
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Moonlight Sonata
After GYMNOPEDIES, I had long wanted to animate a film specifically for a pre-selected piano piece by Eric Satie. MOONLIGHT SONATA is that film. It was totally designed for the "Gnossienne V" and the movements of the animation are timed to the overall rhythms as well as the...Watch Movie
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Duo Concertantes
DUO CONCERTANTES has two parts, THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION and PATRICIA GIVES BIRTH TO A DREAM BY THE DOORWAY. Both PATRICIA and HAMFAT ASAR (made the following year), the two most spectacular of Lawrence Jordan's animated works, operate against the backdrop of a fixed scene....Watch Movie
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Poet's Dream
The poet dreams a maiden's bubbles through edifices of forest and eclectic contagion. Yet another extraordinary work from filmmaker/animator/artist Lawrence Jordan that cleverly repurposes and rearranges pre-existing materials, crafting a compelling (albeit brief) narrative out of otherwise...Watch Movie
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The Magic Sun
Composer, photographer and filmmaker Phill Niblock's classic of experimental underground filmmaking with a sensational soundtrack by pianist Sun Ra and the members of his Solar Arkestra. Shot in the mid '60s when the Arkestra was based in New York, this film was produced using a unique negative...Watch Movie
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Masquerade
In the film MASQUERADE, we enter the experience of death with respect and reverence. The clouds disperse and the scene is revealed. As with all of Lawrence Jordan's films, the narrative is implied and can be viewed in a variety of ways. The man is dying, it seems, and the townsfolk stand around...Watch Movie
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The Other Also
A slow, meditative piece of visual music commissioned by the Paris Gallery of the Foundation Cartier for their group show, "Amours." Different artists, filmmakers and writers were asked to make something treating the concept of "amour" (or "love"). Hal Hartley decided to treat that aspect of love...Watch Movie
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Winter Light
Though best known for his collage films, Lawrence Jordan here makes exquisite study of the different aspects of light lilting through the early morning fog of California winter. Painterly gradations of color and juxtapositions in scale are beautifully arranged to music by Antonio Vivaldi.Watch Movie
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Ave Maria
Ivan Ivanov-Vano’s condemnation of the American war in Vietnam trades in some of the crude images one associates with Soviet propaganda: a soldier gunning down a child; clamoring capitalists superimposed over the killing fields. And yet its animation style is surprisingly subtle and its tone more...Watch Movie
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August Song
Filmmaker Jodie Mack's video animated short is the cat's pajamas. Literally. The London-born experimental animator's overlay of recycled everyday patterns and materials has a homey, patchwork quality well-suited to its just-barely-domesticated feline subjects. Its playful and eye-catching collage...Watch Movie
