Harry Smith

An allegory that explores human needs and desires amid the rituals of daily life in New York City. The film is a collage composed from a variety of film genres, intercutting portraits of important avant-garde figures, New York City landmarks, and Smith's visionary animation.

Avant-garde filmmaker Harry Smith applies an extension of Surrealist and "cut-up" techniques to animate collages of familiar images. In the process, he transmutes these elements like an alchemist. Smith utilizes the language of Qabalah, alchemy and experimental psychology in the film. (rotten tomatoes)

An anthology of Harry Smith's films 1-5, 7, and 10, unfortunately without the divisions clearly marked. (imdb)

Described as an "alchemist, mystic, & bohemian at large", Smith made this jaunty animated picture without benefit of a camera. It's a lively series of morphing patterns set to Dizzy Gillespie jazz, and has been called "five instruments with optical solo". (KG)

Superimposed photographs of Mr. Fleischman's butcher shop in New York, and the Kiowa around Anadarko, Oklahoma--with Cognate Material. (Harry Smith)

The Tin Woodman does a little dance, leaps and retrieves his axe from outside the frame, chops down a tree that turns into various objects, grabs a heart emblem from the corner and goes to the Emerald City at night with Toto. He goes to the edge of a cliff where he meats an Asian spirit who gives him a heart shape that becomes a kite that hooks to him with a cane. This is followed by approximately 10 minutes of kaleidoscopic images including a man's hands, a dancing girl and a cutout of Krishna. (imdb)

Early abstract animation short film.

No. 4: Fast Track a.k.a. Manteca (1947 or 1949-50) 16 mm, black & white and color, 2:16 or 6 min. Silent though possibly intended to be screened with Dizzy Gillespie's Manteca. The film starts with a color sequence showing Smith's painting Manteca (ca. 1950) with which he tried to subjectively depict Gillespie's song, every brushstroke representing a music note. The film concludes with black & white superimpositions. (evergreen.loyola.edu)

A very short collage animation from 1956 that Smith later expanded into a version running 12 minutes. The artwork crams a great deal of occult and religious symbolism into its 3-minute running time--alchemy, the Kabbalah, Buddhism, Eliphas Levi's Baphomet, and so on--while Misterioso by Thelonious Monk is playing. (johncoulthart.com)

Film Number 7 Color Study (ca. 1950-51) color; 16mm; silent; 5:25 min. (harrysmitharchives.com)

Film Number 5 Circular Tensions (Homage to Oskar Fischinger) (ca. 1950) color; 16mm; silent; 2:30 min. (harrysmitharchives.com)

Film Number 2 Message from the Sun (ca. 1946-48) color; hand-painted 35mm stock photographed in 16mm; soundtrack unknown; 2:15 min. (harrysmitharchives.com)

Another Harry Smith film that's very similar to Number 11, which is also entitled Mirror Animations. Smith wrote a description for this one: "An exposition of Buddhism and the Kaballah in the form of a collage. The final scene shows Agaric mushrooms growing on the moon while the Hero and Heroine row by on a cerebrum." (johncoulthart.com)