Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.
Emmett Till was brutally killed in the summer of 1955. At his funeral, his mother forced the world to reckon with the brutality of American racism. This short documentary was commissioned by "Time" magazine for their series "100 Photos" about the most influential photographs of all time.
Nearly forty years after the moon landing the men on the mission reveal what really happened. On how close the mission came to disaster.
Disintegration Loop 1.1 consists of one static shot of lower Manhattan billowing smoke during the last hour of daylight on September 11th, 2001, set to the decaying pastoral tape loop Basinski had recorded in August, 2001. Shot from Basinski's roof in Williamsburg Brooklyn, this is an actual documentary of how he and his neighbors witnessed the end of that fateful day. It is a tragically beautiful cinema verite elegy dedicated to those who perished in the atrocities of September 11th, 2001.
This is a classing Jordan animation, primarily in B/W, with touches of color. Actually, the engraved art work was film on color negative, so that subtle variations in tone are recorded. The mood--enhanced by John Davis' original music--is dream-like. It is both lyric and crackling, producing a kind of anticipatory tension. The scenes, in the usual Jordan manner, follow the surreal principle of placing objects and people where the ought not to be, and making movements that in the waking world are impossible. Each scene is a kind of drama from another world.
The first American space station Skylab is found in pieces scattered in Western Australia. Putting these pieces back together and re-tracing the Skylab program back to its very conception reveals the cornerstone of human space exploration.