Category Archives: documentary

The perfect human

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdn6wrM1Hqw]

Andy Warhol by Jørgen Leth in 66 Scenes from America (1982)

“My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.”

Hjort: Some of your documentary films experiment interestingly with the relation between word and image. I’m thinking, for example, of “66 Scenes from America”, which presents a series of almost hyper-real, postcard-like images of America, that are identified, in a series of significantly delayed, laconic and minimalist comments. The longest sequence is that of Andy Warhol fastidiously eating a hamburger. Having completed this exercise, Warhol delivers the following line: ‘My name is Andy Warhol and I just finished eating a hamburger.’ What, exactly, is the purpose of the intentionally strained and awkward relation between images and words in “66 Scenes from America”? —Jørgen Leth interviewed by Mette Hjort & Ib Bondebjerg, September 2002

They Call Us Misfits

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFCy2xP3Vuw&]

Dom kallar oss mods (English title: They Call Us Misfits) is a 1968 Swedish documentary film directed by Stefan Jarl and Jan Lindqvist. The film, the first in what would become a trilogy, is an uncompromising account of the life of two alienated teenagers.

The Mods from the original title Dom kallar oss mods indicates that Mods in Sweden were not the Mods we know from British subculture. The youths depicted would have been described in English speaking countries as as hippies.


Le Vampire (1945) – Jean Painlevé

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjNh0uZCCLc]

I’ve mentioned Painlevé (who died 18 years ago today) here. Le Vampire features footage of Murnau’s classic Nosferatu, which eventually leads to discussion about what vampire bats are like, illustrated with a live guinea pig. Unidentified jazz music reminds of the New Orleans voodoo tradition of vampires. A strange mix of fact and fiction.