Works by Lawrence Jordan now available on DVD
Posted March 18th, 2014 in Announcements, New Acquisitions, New DVDs, News / Events
Now available to purchase from Canyon Cinema:
Chateau/Poyet (2010 | 11 minutes | Color | Sound)
The scene is set in front of a French chateau. The camera chases improbable incidents across the screen. Many are constructed out of one of Jordan’s favorite illustrators: Poyet. Duels occur on a tight rope. Heavier-then- air machines fly (and sometimes crash). Below guns spear exploding spheres. The timing of the animation is exquisite, existing in an atmosphere balanced between frenzy and delight.
Poet’s Dream (2005 | 5 minutes | Color | Sound)
The poet’s dreams a maiden’s bubbles through edifices of forest and eclectic contagion.
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Beyond Enchantment (2010 | 9 minutes | Color/B&W | Sound)
Where all is static motion; where music and light become one; where change and motion become one; and where the end is the beginning. Black and white cut-out animation with touches of color. Ladies of the past encounter science and natural phenomena.
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Enid’s Idyll (2004 | 16 minutes | Color | Sound)
Jordan has used 46 engraved Dore illustrations to IDYLLS OF THE KING as settings for his extravigantly romantic saga. As Enid, the protagonist, is seen in a vast array of scenes from deep forests to castle keeps, her champion is sometimes with her, sometimes away fighting archetypal foes. She dies, and through the magic of Gustav Mahler’s resurrection symphony, lives again. Both the black and white and the color-tint versions are equally affecting. Main themes love, death, and resurrection. Please note that there is a separate black and white version of this film.
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Postcard from San Miguel (1996 | 11 minutes | Color | Sound)
The mystery and the beauty of Mexico’s high desert colonial town, its churches, its abandoned silver mine, its statues and colored streets. Lines from Garcia Lorca.
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Our Lady of the Sphere (1969 | 10 minutes | Color | Sound)
“OUR LADY OF THE SPHERE – perhaps Jordan’s most exquisitely perfect creation – is a color collage of roccoco imagery juxtaposed with symbols of the space age. The images metamorphose, transmute, interpenetrate and otherwise change with the fluid effervescence of bubbles rising out of water, punctuated by sudden flashes of light, alarm buzzers and abrupt visual surprises. It is a mystical, jewel-like creation, like a Joseph Cornell box come to life.” – Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle
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Solar Sight (2011 | 15 minutes | Color | Sound)
A question I had in mind was: what’s the place of the human being in the cosmos? More and more we think about what is ‘beyond.’ Less and less is art concerned. I don’t know why. The question seems a bit grandiose, but I approached it quite simply. I have never worked with color photography as primary background to cut-out animation before. I was surprised that the result was so powerful (helped by John Davis’ very resonant music). It was liberating to release human figures into an apperception of suggested space, along with the primordial enigma of the revolving sphere. – Lawrence Jordan
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Cosmic Alchemy (2010 | 24 minutes | Color | Sound)
“Cosmic Alchemy is thematically and visually consistent with his earlier shots and yet, set to an evocative score by John Davis, Jordan has crossed into an unfamiliar and richly rewarding territory of metaphoric complexity. For the handful of folks unfamiliar with Lawrence Jordan’s work, Cosmic Alchemy will leave you desperately wanting more. For the rest, already quite familiar with his brilliance, this film will install a fresh appreciation for Jordan’s justifiable position among experimental cinema’s ascended masters.”– Jonathan Marlow, Dir. San Francisco Cinematheque
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The Miracle of Don Cristobal (2008 | 11 minutes | Color | Sound)
“For a long time,” writes director Lawrence Jordan, “I have wanted to construct a melodrama (animated) from the funky engravings of the 19th century which illustrated ‘young peoples’ adventure stories. Eventually, through a great deal of selection, such a film fell into place. I have attempted to present the high emotional overlay of very mundane events in this ‘alchemical melodrama.’ To that end, Puccini combines with blatant sounds of police sirens and old door buzzers on the sound track, while ‘real’ and nightmare images compete for screen time.”
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Blue Skies Beyond the Looking Glass (2006 | 17 minutes | Color | Sound)
Ever dance the mambo with silent film stars and Jordan animation? That’s what you get with Blue Skies Beyond the Looking Glass. It’s raucus. It’s lush. It’s delirium.
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Circus Savage (2009 | 1 hour | Color | Sound)
I have woven together a vast river of image and sound from all the unused film material piled up in my studio since 1952. In essence this is my visual autobiography. There are clips from strange and unusual films, all the out takes from all my films, as well as all the uncompleted projects. — Lawrence Jordan
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