Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film 1920-1970

A MUST have for any serious film lover... higly recommended to add this to your dvd collection. Great quality, beautiful sacred films of art. you won't regret this purchase.

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Given as a gift. Recipient has not expressed any issues with gift.

These two discs (there are really four, but two are Blu-Ray and two are DVD, with the same contents) contain 36 short films. Most are only five to fifteen minutes long, so they can make a nice break from work or other activities when you want to put your mind in a Completely Different Place for a short time. Most of the films do not attempt to tell a story, and many are completely abstract, just moving shapes set to music.I’m not a student of film history, so I can’t comment on the historical importance of these films, but the collection certainly gave me a good look at the way techniques and viewpoints changed over time. One of the things I found most interesting was seeing how different filmmakers at different times treated the same subject, such as life in a big city—it always seems to be New York—which appears over and over. Manhatta (1920) and Skyscraper Symphony (1929), for instance, focused on the city’s huge buildings, then new and exciting, with people as mere scurrying afterthoughts or (rather creepily) absent entirely. Later filmmakers concentrated more on the people, but with very different mindsets. The Pursuit of Happiness (1940), featuring endlessly hurrying legs, suggested that that pursuit was likely to be hopeless, whereas the poor but laughing children in In the Street gave a hint about where the happiness might have gone. Film techniques in many of the earlier films were relatively straightforward, but the 1950s’ N.Y., N.Y. drew on fly-eye multiple exposures, funhouse-mirror distortion, and other possibly new tools to create a playfully surreal vision.As one is bound to do with any anthology, I found some examples that I loved, a few that I thought were a complete waste of time, and a lot that were simply curious or interesting. Other viewers’ choices for those categories no doubt would be different from mine, but I think almost anyone will discover among these little nuggets some new and fascinating ways of using the photography of motion to examine and play with the world.

great stuff

What a commendable achievment from Flicker Alley. This 7-hour compilation represents everything the curious viewer needs to know about the history of experimental film. I'm a mildly obsessive collector of all things avant-garde, from music to art to movies, so I already knew most of disc one's contents from the Unseen Cinema set, and the three Kino collections. I am happy to say that the new resorations for blu-ray here are a stunning improvement. It's disc two that really rocks it for me - one incredibly rare and bizarre treasure after another, most never before released on disc. Because these films were mostly unconcered with issues or fashions of their time, the haven't dated poorly at all. Watching 1924's "Ballet Mechanique" is just as strange an experience today as listening to the latest album by Nurse With Wound. I understand this kind of out-there material is not for everybody, but if you're interested, I can't recommend it enough.

Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film from Flicker Alley is a solid collection of films, but falls in that strange DVD collection category. Here I am thinking of maybe the Wim Wenders box set which left out "Alice in the Cities," and "Kings of the Road." Masterworks is well worth purchasing for "In the Street," "Ballet Mechanique," "Lot in Sodom," and Brakhage and Solomon's "Seasons." There are some marvels here, but some of the films can be found in other collections, Library of Congress, etc. The fact that they are also on Blu-Ray is a plus. Back to the strange DVD phenomena, it's what they left out which is a little aggravating. This is definitely a good addition to some of the other Avant-garde film collections out there(KINO series comes to mind,) but wish there was more in this collection such as Sidney Peterson, Ken Jacobs, Bruce Connor, Carolee Schneeman, etc., etc. Masterworks is good, but could be even better.

Very good collection though, it could be much more expansive.

Erroneamente descritto come (4 Blu-Ray) {Edizione Stati Uniti}, ho scoperto che- 1.) Dentro il custode non 4 blu-ray discs ma 2 dvd discs e 2 blu-ray discs -la copia in blu-ray!2.) I dvd non sono regione 1 - NTSC ma regione 0 - region free e quindi si vedono perfettamente in Italia! Insieme ai dischi viene fornito un libricino in inglese di 28 pagine che ci guida nel nostro viaggio nella storia del cinema sperimentale americano dal 1920 al 1970. Da vedere!

Although just over half of the thirty six short films (including all those made before 1953) are already available on other fine DVD collections, this is the first set to have all these on Blue-ray too. They all look extremely good and in the correct format (except, strangely, Bells of Atlantis, which has been cropped rather obviously at the lower edge.) The choice of music is excellent and those which were originally silent are still silent (Meshes of the Afternoon being the most pertinent - the soundtrack usually played with this was added after Maya's death by her surviving husband.) All in all this is a great set with a great little booklet to accompany it. All the disks are also (regardless of what Amazon state) region-free. This would make a perfect introduction to the history of American Avant-garde which could then be augmented by many other fine DVD sets.