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Favourite short films?

Started by Leo2112, November 29, 2010, 02:19:19 PM

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Leo2112

I think I've been watching more short films than the feature lengths recently.  It's certainly not as easy to root out the good stuff though, would like to hear some of your recommendations.


Here's Klaus the Forklift Driver, a pretty obvious one but still great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVssz2VMJVM&feature=related

Absorb the anus burn

La Cabina. Spain... Funny, scary then horrible.

The Stranger Left No Calling Card. UK... Creepy.

The Black Tower. UK... Avant creepy.

A Chair. A Plane. A Kwela.... Geoffrey Jones. Proto-music video, brilliantly realised, joyful.

Phil_A

I love Yuri Norstein's animations, Tale Of Tales and Hedgehog In The Fog. I wonder if he'll ever finish his feature film "The Raincoat", almost thirty years in the making.

Tale Of Tales Part I

Jan Svankmajer's "The Apartment". Slapstick, satire and surrealism, what more could you want?

Byt ("The Apartment") by Jan Svankmajer (1968)

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Klaus was the first thing that popped into my head upon seeing the thread title.

Spoiler alert
Proof that the Germans do indeed have a sense of humour. I first saw it years ago, late one night on Channel 4 and nearly woke the rest of the house up with laughter.
[close]

Jake Thingray

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on November 29, 2010, 02:29:06 PM

The Stranger Left No Calling Card. UK... Creepy.


Oh yes, wonderful. What a fantastic actor Alan Badel was, had he only been taller he'd have made a perfect Sherlock Holmes. Look out for lovely Geoffrey Bayldon, bewilderedly exclaiming "Napoleon Bonaparte?!". Impossible to get the music out of your head after seeing it, too. Its director, Wendy Toye, at one point really did show signs that she was going to live forever.

Also, LE PETOMANE: how on earth did Rossiter keep a straight face when saying "The Good Lord has seen fit to bless me with an elastic anus"?

Icehaven


Feralkid

This Flying Saucer Rock n Roll short.avi   Though to be fair, I am partially responsible for it.   

Cambrian Times


CollaterlySisters


Peru


This Czech animated version of The Pied Piper Of Hamlin is stunning. Not for kids though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UieeA2m_rms

superpie

I'm a big fan of all Don Hertzfeldt's short work. There's a sort of beautiful brutalism about them that always gets under my skin. 'Rejected' is possibly his best known work and was nominated for an Oscar back in 2000.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgQqSVrkkag

Famous Mortimer

I'll chuck La Jetee out there, which is a pretty amazing piece of work.

There was a DVD series a few years back called "Short", that released loads of weird and wonderful short films, including La Jetee and tons of others.

Leo2112

Some great choices here, cheers for sharing.  Does anyone know where it's possible to get a copy of The Black Tower?

Catalogue Trousers

Sort of on-topic, a request for help.

About a year ago, the Beeb showed a marvellous black comedy claymation short about two undertakers racing each other to a funeral. But for the life of me I can't remember the ruddy title.

Can anyone please help?

Boycey

@Catalogue Trousers: Think you will find it was called THIS WAY UP and it's a fun little piece

OK, I'm a bit biased here as shorts are my speciality (indeed, I used to run a short film festival and still work in that 'world') but particular favourites from the UK alone include:

Anything by John Smith who's a brilliantly accomplished filmmaker whose experimental stuff is playful and brilliant (and if anyone gets to see his short ASSOCIATIONS will see that there may have been an influence on a certain Mr Christopher Morris)

SOFT - A brilliant peice by Simon Ellis, a really fantastic UK filmmaker

JE T'AIME JOHN WAYNE a spot on parody of the French New Wave starring Kris Marshall

I urge everyone to check out the CINEMA 16 dvd's as they have some cracking shorts on them




Boycey

And after seeing more than 10000 short films in my life, I still think this Polish short called FALLEN ART is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7HMz1WKkso

Catalogue Trousers

Boycey! A thousand thanks, you splendid fellow, you!

Boycey

@Leo2112 And like a fool, after mentioning John Smith, I forgot to mention that he is the director of The Black Tower. Check out http://www.johnsmithfilms.com though, for some reason, not many of John's films are legally available....

Famous Mortimer

There's a shedload of weirdy short films here:

http://www.ubu.com/film/

Also, Canada's National Film Board recently put up all their old stuff online, and there's brilliant stuff like "23 Skidoo" on there:

http://www.onf-nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=10841

Boycey

Also from the NFB check out the Oscar Winning Animation Short RYAN - http://www.nfb.ca/film/ryan/

Johnny Townmouse

I have far too many short films that I could nominate as my favourite. I would echo Ryan as a beautiful, perfect short film. I also would say that the Cinema16 DVDs are excellent but they make the mistake of taking the short films of established directors which oddly has the effect of reducing the quality (the Von Trier short is worthless). Instead, they need to simply make a compilation of the best short films, although of course that might not be financially viable.

It always splits my students, but Lynne Ramsay's Gasman and Peter Mullan's Fridge are very thought-provoking films that manage to turn small moments into epic events.

As mentioned, La Jetée is wonderful, despite probably running on for longer than a short film should. Also, Kieslowski's Koncert Zyczen is a wonderfully understated exploration of masculinity and solidarity. Has the same uncomfortable feeling as that train scene in Hidden.
Many, many, many more, but that will do for now.

Boycey

That was the reason why the Cinema 16 DVDs were released - they were actually put together by the producer of Je T'Aime John Wayne who - despite the critical and festival success of the film - got tired of friends and family never being able to see it. So he put together the first DVD and it sold really well and this was partly to do with the fact that the 'established director' hook got people in

To be fair, the films from the famous directors happen to be quite good and there is a nice mixture of - supposed - unknowns.

Just reminded me; COPY SHOP is a superb film that is well worth tracking down...

Johnny Townmouse

Yeah, I think it is a great thing - the Cinema16 DVDs certainly make my life a LOT easier and have introduced me to some interesing shorts. However, I don't always think that the shorts are that well chosen, and in those cases it is usually because it is made by a name Director.

Copy Shop is fantastic. They produced it by filming almost 18,000 photocopies of digital frames, and then animated the photocopies. My favourite moments are those when we see the paper folded, or a hand, or it is wonky. Lovely mechanics.


Johnny Townmouse

Contradicting myself a bit here, by posting a short by a name director, but I have always loved this spiky little film from Scorsese. I just think it is elegant and incredibly well executed. A simple idea, very well done:

http://vimeo.com/15552149

And someone has fairly recently put Ramsay's Gasman onto youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPcblYWfykA

Also, how about Grice and Eno's Berlin Horse? More at the arty end of the short film spectrum, but I think it's a hypnotically beautiful little gem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDj8Tc6259o]
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDj8Tc6259o
[/url]


Boycey

The Meaning of Life, a  great short  animation by Don Hertzfeldt has been put online for free for one week at MUBI:

http://mubi.com/films/3583

Check it out as it's really good

Pseudopath

The Little Match Girl is always a cheery festive tale. Here's Disney/Pixar's take on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G28jZnxxdA

Apologies in advance.

lipsink

#28
Dimensions of Dialogue by Jan Svankmajer:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gtpo_jan-svankmajer-dimensions-of-dialog_shortfilms

Didn't they used to show Jan Svankmajer stuff (Meat Love) on MTV Europe in the early 90s during ad breaks?