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Technique Is The Medium

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The phrase belongs to Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, a member of the only true Surrealist outpost left in Europe. He started filmmaking in 1964 with a puppet show called "The Last Trick." The 12-minute short involves two semi-motorized stage magicians who somehow wind up as two disembodied arms. Svankmajer once stated in a BBC interview that stop-motion is the technique by which everyday objects become estranged. That method of display makes what he calls magic, not the objects themselves or their celluloid images. A handful of tapes of his material have been released, three currently in circulation:

Jan Svankmajer's Alice - $19.99

Jan Svankmajer's Faust - $24.99

Jan Svankmajer's Scenes From The Surreal - $19.99

AKA Phantom Ladies Over Paris New Finds:

Celine and Julie Go Boating

(1974) At long last Jacques Rivette's epic (dual cassette) story of Celine - a magician of sorts - and Julie, a librarian, and their flights of fancy (note: still priced to rent on tape).

unrated, 193 mins., French with yellow English subtitles, Color, $89.99

Rough Magic

(1997) Clare Peploe brought this noirish fantasy romance to the screen with Bridget Fonda and Russell Crowe as that classic mismatched pair, the magician's assistant on the lam and the low-rent PI sent over the Mexican border to find her.

rated PG-13, color, CC, appx. 104 mins., $22.99

Old Bargains:

Films of Charles and Ray Eames, Vol. 2

(1989) The folks responsible for that Museum of Science and Industry fixture, "Powers of 10", also made other wonderful short subjects about their hobbies and professional design projects. Volume 2 of their collection includes "Toccata for Toy Trains," "Kaleidoscope Jazz Chair," and other films which bring toys, maps, 19th Century Japanese prints, and the famous Eames stacking chairs to life - with musical stop-motion and unusual rake-focus effects.

62 min. total for seven films, Color, $39.99

The Life of The World's Greatest Escapologist

Peculiar psychodrama inserts act as segues for the most obscure interviews you could imagine. Then some Camille Paglia-wannabe shows up in black leather, and announced that seeing half-naked pictures of Houdini turns her on. This English-language doc was produced in Finland, and is so full of unintentional howlers that it qualifies as the nonfictional equivalent of an Ed Wood movie.

60 minutes, $19.99

Masters of Illusion

Art and science merged in "false" or "forced" perspective studies during the Renaissance. Computer analysis is applied to classics by da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo and others in this documentary produced for the National Gallery of Art.

30 min., Hi-Fi, Color, $29.99

Origins of American Animation

(1900-1921) Magician J. Stuart Blackton is featured, along with Edwin S. Porter, Windsor McCay, Gregory LaCava and Willis O'Brien, on volume three of the Library of Congress Video Collection. Blackton specialized in "lightning sketch" effects. He shot "The Enchanted Drawing" for Edison's studio sometime in the late 1800s, before starting Vitagraph with a fellow performer and a financier. The tape is packaged with liner notes by the Smithsonian Museum's Scott Simmon.

1 hr., 15 min. total for 23 films, silent with original music, B/W, $24.99

Vampyr

(1932) An aristocrat wanted to be a star. So he paid Carl Dreyer to put him in, essentially, a very expensive home movie - but one of unusually delicate beauty. Loosely based on a Sheridan LeFanu ghost story, this film abounds in "detachable shadows" clearly influenced by stage illusions. Long available only in brutalized or illegible prints; Vampyr has finally been given the restoration it deserves by Kino.

75 min., silent with musical score, B/W, $29.99

Women Who Made the Movies

This documentary covers a lot of ground in under an hour, but the unidentified "trick film" which frames it carries all the hallmarks of an Alice Guy Blache production. A woman in a Louis XIV costume opens her window, indulges in a little Meliesian handwaving, and a bower of foliage appears. Then a huge pansy covers the screen and the woman reappears on the top petal.

56 min., Color and B/W, $19.99
Last updated Sept. 28, 1998.
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