Come Closer

Legacy takes the audience on a rapid-fire journey through the evolution of the world, starting with a cosmic bang, evolving through billions of years of plants, animals and the creation of natural resources, ending with man and his bounty – “sitting on his world contemplating his coconut”. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

An mutoscope motion picture installation commissioned for the 86th anniversary of the Guggenheim museum. Later preserved and turned into a short film. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2000.

Wallace and Gromit have run out of cheese, and this provides an excellent excuse for the duo to take their holiday to the moon, where, as everyone knows, there is ample cheese.

Wallace rents out Gromit's former bedroom to a penguin, who takes up an interest in the techno trousers created by Wallace. However, Gromit later learns that the penguin is a wanted criminal.

Wallace's whirlwind romance with the proprietor of the local wool shop puts his head in a spin, and Gromit is framed for sheep-rustling in a fiendish criminal plot.

A surrealist translation of Catholic devotional postcard imagery set into unsettling motion. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2008.

A deer, disillusioned by the consumerism that defines his life. A lizard, ostracized from society, forever wandering. A chance meeting in the middle of a field. Who will survive? And who will transcend existence? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

Mountain Music illustrates what happens when technology gets too advanced too soon. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

The animation, music, and optical printing of Kitsch in Synch was produced by Beckett and the students in two classes he was teaching at CalArts. Although a group project, it is clear that Beckett was the director. The playful, catchy soundtrack is used to create a cycle of building tension and release. The brightly colored shapes create approximate symmetrical formations and become more densely layered, with glimpses of iconographic objects and even live footage near the end. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, in partnership with the iotaCenter, in 2007.

This animated short focuses on the lives of three eccentric people living on a farm in the Ukrainian countryside. Told in a non-linear, stream of consciousness style, the film depicts the deceitful relationship between a master and his two servants.

An animated short consisting of 4 segments: bowl, garden, theatre, marble game. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Harvard Film Archive in 2015.

A vibrant animation by Patricia Marx. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2000.

Krumins’ fantasy sets the world of flora and fauna on its ear. At one moment grotesque greenish mushrooms grow, wither and reverse their life-cycle, at another, strange crustacean-like animals speed around on a bed of feathers, next a room is inundated with giant ladybugs… Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

The bizarre adventures of the cartoon character Foska, drawn by 22 animators working in collaboration. Each animator worked on his or her own sequence only and did not know what action preceded or followed his or her sequence, except that the first drawing of a sequence is the last drawing from the previous sequence. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

An animated comedy short from the 1920s. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2008.

A children's fable about the power of advertising, the meaning of life and ultimately the test of a mother's love. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

Possibly the most lucid, vivid, and awesome demonstration of the building up of still images to create moving ones, Pasadena Freeway Stills simply, gracefully and powerfully shows us the process by which we are fooled by the movies. By doing so, Gary Beydler mines a very rich vein of associations and metaphor, without the slightest ostentation. Constructed as a thrilling arc of realization and, in a quite moving way, disappointment, the film is a beautiful articulation of our emotional entanglement with moving images, while simultaneously creating a form in which the illusion of cinema is brought into incredible relief as the film we're watching gradually catches up to the film Gary is holding up to the camera with his hands, one frame at a time. (Mark Toscano) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2008.

"I think of Odalisque as my first film. It was completed after film school and I worked with just a graphite pencil, a small group of colored pencils and animation bond. It is a trilogy of amorous dreams coming from the imagination of a woman recalling her childhood, her beloved twin so difficult to separate from and becoming an adult sexual person. The aria Sempre Libera from La Triviata by Verdi opens the film and the poem Leda and the Swan by WB Yeats ends it. It was great to work with Michael Riesman who created the sound track. I loved working in NYC in those days with Robin McDaniel, Rebecca High and others." Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.

An animation (long before there were such things) for Oscar Brown Jr’s track “But I Was Cool”, from his 1961 debut album Sin & Soul. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

The fourth film by a member of the '2nd generation' of computer filmmakers, artists who do their own programming. Abstract imagery includes some hand drawings. Synthesizer soundtrack. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.