Flea Sings

Apu is a jobless ex-student dreaming vaguely of a future as a writer. An old college friend talks him into a visit up-country to a village wedding. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 1996.

Aparajito picks up where the first film leaves off, with Apu and his family having moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy city of Varanasi (then known as Benares). As Apu progresses from wide-eyed child to intellectually curious teenager, eventually studying in Kolkata, we witness his academic and moral education, as well as the growing complexity of his relationship with his mother. This tenderly expressive, often heart-wrenching film, which won three top prizes at the Venice Film Festival, including the Golden Lion, not only extends but also spiritually deepens the tale of Apu. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 1996.

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

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. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

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.

Decollages Recolles is a mystery as it is unfinished, with no indication of the track Hirsh intended. We had two reels, each with a head title, but no identification whether they were to be printed together, or projected side by side (which seems more likely). Parts of reel one have optically printed layers of fireworks, oscilloscopes, birds, etc. Hirsh reprinted images similar to those in Eneri, Come Closer and Divertissement Rococo. Reel two is a much less polished collage with live action shots including city windows, a marching band, monkeys, circus performers, Charlie Chaplin footage and Paris neon at night. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2000.

A static close-up of a clock. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

This is one of those abstract animated films in which colored, richly textured light moves in a black, three-dimensional space. The pictures and the electronic score are unified in a strict structure made of three main sections which progressively develop three subsections. This film may look like it was made using computers or video to the uninitiated, but only animation and much optical printing are to be seen herein. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.

An award winning 45-minute film portrait of Al Neil’s life, music and art. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.

In late 1890s Wyoming, Butch Cassidy is the affable, clever and talkative leader of the outlaw Hole in the Wall Gang. His closest companion is the laconic dead-shot Sundance Kid. As the west rapidly becomes civilized, the law finally catches up to Butch, Sundance and their gang. Chased doggedly by a special posse, the two decide to make their way to South America in hopes of evading their pursuers once and for all. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 1998.

A young man desperately seeks out the fleeting image of a female companion, and though he never quite catches her, he discovers much more through the surreal explorations of his own sexuality. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

This is a hand-painted work which involves a variety of colors applied within gouged and scratched shapes which approximate both swift shifts of bird-shape (legs, beaks and feather-spreads especially) and the Bird of Paradise flower-form as well, the former tending to metamorphize into the latter across the course of the work. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.

Gus Van Sant, dissatisfied professionally, counts five ways to end his life. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

The short film was made from material shot for a Levi’s commercial on which Gus Van Sant was given complete freedom. Van Sant delivered the ad, and separately made his own short film; one that feels complete in and unto itself. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

"Color/form, light/shadow, flatness/depth, figuration/abstraction, landscape/paint, all collaging and colliding in an exploratory, arrhythmic, kinetic dance constructed a frame at a time by Fred Worden on his optical printer. This early film now reveals itself as a revelatory early warning sign of Worden's filmmaking to come, comprising ten minutes extrapolated from only four frames of source imagery." (Mark Toscano) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

Aztec romance and the dream of love. The anthropologist’s most human desire, the ultimate contact with the informant. The denial of intellectualism and the acceptance of the romantic heart, and a soul without innocence. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

As a guitar screeches, the image comes into focus. Experimental short film preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Lights whirl around the frame. Experimental short film preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

The film is a portrait of Allison Krause, one of the students murdered at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 by the Ohio National Guard. It is a memorial put together from footage that Richard Myers and his students filmed of Allison (unknowingly at the time) during student war demonstrations. The film’s images are very simple but the soundtrack read by Arthur Krause, Allison’s father, is deeply moving. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.