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A Movie (1958) (short)
In Bruce Conner's underground, experimental montage
short (12 minutes in length) - an avant-garde work composed of an
arrangement of short clips of odd, random bits of stock "found
footage" (allegedly from purchases of discarded 16mm films at
flea markets or scavenged B-film footage from camera shops), organized
in sections set apart by stretches of black leader, with lots of
repeated titles (inaccurate, and sometimes upside down), and accompanied
by Respighi's The Pines of Rome musical score:
- the many bits of film from various sources spiced
together to form a collage of images: the side view of a semi-nude
woman undressing, a distant view of galloping horses in a cavalry
charge on a hillside, Indians on horseback and on the warpath pursuing
a western wagon-train, an old-fashioned, horse-drawn fire engine,
a rampaging elephant, the spinning wheels of a steam locomotive
train, and various race sports cars (demolition derby cars, etc.)
speeding dangerously fast around a track with various crash scenes
- bare-breasted Balinese women carrying tall items on
their heads, a phallic-shaped zeppelin (the Hindenberg) flying above
a city, acrobats and tightrope walkers performing risky stunts high
above a city street, a submarine's periscope viewing a seductive,
black bikini-clad model, the underwater firing of a phallic-shaped
torpedo, the sight of a nuclear atomic bomb blast-explosion with
the resultant mushroom cloud
- surfers riding large waves, large open catamaran boats
being pummeled by breaking ocean waves, a stunt water-skiier dangling
from an apparatus that collapsed behind a boat, other water-boarders
and small boats performing water-ski-styled stunts and jumps, more
bicyclists riding on various experimental vehicles (scooters, cycles,
two-wheelers), motorcyclists racing through mud and getting stuck,
a bi-plane crashing and slowly sinking on the surface of a lake
- historic footage of President Theodore Roosevelt delivering
a speech, the destructive collapse of a suspension bridge during
an earthquake, war footage (fiery war plane explosions in the sky),
bombs striking their targets, numerous explosions, an active volcano,
the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II during her inauguration, the explosion
of the Hindenberg blimp, advancing WWI tanks, more race car crashes
on a circular curved track, a sky-diver parachuting from a plane,
another fiery object burning up in the sky
- a tropical beach scene with views of bullocks and
other animals, an entertaining Indian flute player, another view
of the rippling road of a suspension bridge during an earthquake,
more footage of the Hindenberg crash, more parachutists, a sinking
ship in a vertical position going down, an execution-firing squad,
dead corpses hung upside down, piles of dead bodies (soldiers) in
a field, another mushroom cloud, the carcass of a slaughtered dead
elephant surrounded by natives, starving and trembling African children
- an underwater view of a swimming beaver, the Hindenberg
crashing into the ground, a view of a scuba diver and tropical fish
underwater, the diver's exploration of a barnacle-encrusted wreck,
and a view of sparkling sunshine on the water
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Semi-Nude Woman
Demolition Derby Race Car
Bare-Breasted Bali Women
Tightrope Walker
Bikini-Clad Model
Atom Bomb Mushroom Cloud
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