03. Experimental Short Film Directors

Kenneth Anger grew up in Hollywood and started out as a child actor, but his interest in filmmaking was evident at an early age: he made his first film, Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941) , at age 14.

Anger developed into one of the pioneers of the American underground film movement. His gritty, violent, often homosexual-themed films were too strong for American audiences of the time, and many of his productions were filmed in Europe, mainly France.

However, Anger is best known for authoring the landmark "Hollywood Babylon" book series, which detailed a far seamier side of the Hollywood film industry than most people were aware.

Bruce Baillie was born on 24 September 1931 in Aberdeen, South Dakota, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Mr. Hayashi (1963), Quixote (1965) and Quick Billy (1971). He was married to Lorie Apit. He died on 10 April 2020 in Camano Island, Washington, USA.

Stan Brakhage was born on 14 January 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Loom (1986), The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Him (2000) and Dog Star Man (1964). He was married to Marilyn Jull and Jane Wodening. He died on 9 March 2003 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Robert Breer was born on 30 September 1926 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for What Goes Up (2003), Fuji (1974) and For Life, Against the War (1967). He was married to Kate Flax. He died on 11 August 2011 in Tucson, Arizona, USA.

Bruce Conner was born in McPherson, Kansas, in 1933 and studied art at Wichita University, the University of Nebraska, the Brooklyn Art School, and the University of Colorado. Moving to San Francisco in 1957, Conner became involved with the Beatniks. He continued to live and work in San Francisco, until his death in 2008.

Conner first made a name for himself in the 1950s with assemblages/sculptures of found objects. In the late 1950s, he began making short movies that proved highly influential and established him as one of the seminal figures in the history of independent, avant-garde filmmaking. Conner's first film, A Movie (1958), a visual collage created from bits of B-movies, newsreels, and other footage, has been listed on the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Connor was also responsible for Crossroads (1976), produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, which turned the destructive and sinister atom-bomb test in Bikini Atoll into elegiac visual poetry.

Joseph Cornell was born on 24 December 1903 in Nyack, New York, USA. He was a director and writer, known for The Children's Jury (1938), The Midnight Party (1969) and Jack's Dream (1938). He died on 29 December 1972 in Queens, New York City, New York, USA.

Maya Deren came to the USA in 1922 as Eleanora Derenkowsky. Together with her father Solomon Derenkowsky, a psychiatrist, and her mother Maria Fidler, an artist, she fled the Soviet Union. She studied journalism and political science at the Syracuse University in New York, finishing her BA at the New York University (NYU) in June 1936, and then received her MA in English literature from the Smith College in 1939.

In 1943, she made her first film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), co-starring with Alexander Hammid. Through this association, at Hammid's suggestion, she changed her name to Maya, meaning "illusion." Overall, she made six short films and several incomplete films, including Witch's Cradle (1944) starring Marcel Duchamp.

Deren is the author of two books, "An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form, and Film" 1946 (reprinted in "The Legend of Maya Deren," vol 1, part 2) and "Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti" (1953)--a book that was made after her first trip to Haiti in 1947 and which is still considered one of the most useful on Haitian Voudoun. Deren wrote numerous articles on film and on Haiti. Maya Deren shot over 18,000 feet of film in Haiti from 1947 to 1954 on Haitian Voudoun, parts of which can be viewed in Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1993) made after her death by her then-husband Teiji Ito and his new wife Cherel Ito.

In 1947, Maya Deren became the first filmmaker to receive a Guggenheim grant for creative work in motion pictures. She wrote film theory, distributed her own films, traveled across the USA, and went to Cuba and Canada to promote her films using the lecture-demonstration format to teach film theory, and Voudoun and the interrelationship of magic, science, and religion. Deren established the Creative Film Foundation in the late 1950s to reward the achievements of independent filmmakers.

Nathaniel Dorsky was born in 1943 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an editor and director, known for Elohim (2018), Pastourelle (2010) and Song (2013).

Oskar Fischinger was born on 22 June 1900 in Gelnhausen, Hesse, Germany. He was a director, known for Woman in the Moon (1929), Orgelstäbe (1927) and A Quarter Hour of City Statistics (1933). He was married to Elfriede Fischinger. He died on 31 January 1967 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Hollis Frampton was born on 11 March 1936 in Wooster, Ohio, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Not the First Time (1976), The Birth of Magellan: Cadenza XIV (1980) and The Birth of Magellan: Mindfall I (1980). He died on 30 March 1984 in New York, USA.

Ernie Gehr was born on 20 July 1943 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He is a director and cinematographer, known for Carte de Visite - Der V'03-Trailer (2003), Shift (1984) and For Daniel (1997).

Peter B. Hutton was born on 24 August 1944. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Study of a River (1997), No Picnic (1986) and Skagafjördur (2004). He died on 25 June 2016.

Joris Ivens was born on 18 November 1898 in Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands. He was a director and writer, known for La Seine a rencontré Paris (1957), The Mistral (1966) and A Tale of the Wind (1988). He was married to Marceline Loridan Ivens, Helen van Dongen and Germaine Krull. He died on 28 June 1989 in Paris, France.

Lewis Klahr is known for Wednesday Morning Two A.M. (2009), The Moon Has Its Reasons (2012) and Circumstantial Pleasures (2020). He is married to Janie Geiser.

Kurt Kren was born on 20 September 1929 in Vienna, Austria. He was a director and cinematographer, known for 8/64: Ana - Aktion Brus (1964), 16/67: 20. September (1967) and 10b/65: Silber - Aktion Brus (1965). He died on 23 June 1998 in Vienna, Austria.

Peter Kubelka was born on 23 March 1934 in Vienna, Austria. He is a director and editor, known for Mosaic in Trust (1955), Unsere Afrikareise (1966) and Pause! (1977).

Len Lye was born on 5 July 1901 in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was a director and writer, known for Crusade in Europe (1949), N or NW (1938) and He Loved an Actress (1938). He was married to Annette Zeiss and Jane Florence Winifred Thompson. He died on 15 May 1980 in Warwick, Rhode Island, USA.

Chris Marker was born on 29 July 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a writer and director, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Sans Soleil (1983) and Third Side of the Coin (1960). He died on 29 July 2012 in Paris, France.

Norman McLaren is one of the most awarded filmmakers in the history of Canadian cinema, and a pioneer in both animation and filmmaking. Born in Scotland, he entered the Glasgow School of Fine Arts in 1932 to study set design. His early experiments in animation included actually scratching and painting the film stock itself, as he did not have ready access to a camera. In the early 30s he worked as a cameraman in Scotland and England, and in 1936 went to Spain to film the Civil War. He emigrated to the US in 1939, aware that war was imminent, and in 1941, at the invitation of John Grierson, he moved to Canada to work for the National Film Board.

McLaren made several propaganda films for the NFB, but continued develop his experimental work in his spare time. He later founded the animation department at the NFB, where he was at his most prolific. His most famous work, Neighbours (1952), utilized a style of animation known as pixilation, where the camera films moving people and objects a few frames at a time, giving the action a frantic, unearthly look. The short film won McLaren an Oscar. He continued to use a variety of styles and techniques on his animated shorts, including the optical editor to film _Pas de Deux (1968)_, filming through a prism for _Line: Horizontal (1962)_ and also using live action featuring himself in Opening Speech (1960).

In addition to film, McLaren worked with UNESCO in the 50s and 60s on programs to teach film and animation techniques in China and India. His five part "Animated Motion" shorts, produced in the late 70s, are an excellent example of instruction on the basics of film animation.

McLaren died in 1987, leaving behind a lasting legacy to the film and animation world. The Canadian Film Board recognized this in 1989 by naming the CFB head office building the Norman McLaren Building.

Marie Menken was born on 25 May 1909 in New York City, New York, USA. She was a director and cinematographer, known for The Life of Juanita Castro (1965), The Gravediggers from Guadix (1960) and Chelsea Girls (1966). She was married to Willard Maas. She died on 29 December 1970 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.

American painter and artist in various media who participated in a few films. He helped found the Dada movement and was the prime American participant in the Surrealist movement. An American expatriate to Paris in the 1920s, he was a member of the so-called "Lost Generation" of creative minds associated with that time and place. His art encompassed not only painting but photography and collage. He acted for René Clair in one film and was assistant director to Marcel Duchamp on another. He directed a few films of a surrealist nature in the 1920s.

Walter Ruttmann was born on 28 December 1887 in Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Metropolis (1927), Mannesmann - Ein Film der Mannesmannröhren-Werke (1937) and Acciaio (1933). He was married to Christine Margarete Helene Prasch, Nina Hamson, Erna Treitel and Maria Christina Agnes Sommer. He died on 15 July 1941 in Berlin, Germany.

Harry Smith was born on 29 May 1923 in Portland, Oregon, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Mahagonny (1980), Number 8 (1954) and Number 13 (1962). He died on 26 November 1991 in New York City, New York, USA.

After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan Svankmajer started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. He first experimented with film-making after becoming involved with the multimedium productions of Prague's Lanterna Magika Theatre. He began making short films in 1964, and continued working in the same medium for over twenty years, when he finally achieved his long-held ambition to make a feature film based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (Alice (1988)). He has also exhibited his drawings, collages and 'tactile sculptures', many of which were produced in the mid-1970s, when he was temporarily banned from film-making by the Czech authorities. He has been a card-carrying member of the Prague Surrealist Group since 1969.

A graduate of Prague's School of Arts and Crafts, in 1936 he created a puppet theater, which was disbanded after the outbreak of WWII. During the war he designed stage sets and illustrated children's books. In 1945 he set up an animation unit with several collaborators at the Prague film studio; they called the unit "Trick Brothers." Trnka specialized in puppet animation, a traditional Czech art form, of which he became the undisputed master. He also created animated cartoons, but it was his puppet animation that made him an internationally recognized artist and the winner of film festival awards at Venice and elsewhere. He wrote the scripts for most of his own films.