Joseph Cornell At Anthology Film Archives

Last Monday, I did something that I probably should have done a long time ago: I went to Anthology Film Archives. For those of you who are unfamiliar (probably most of you), Anthology Film Archives is, for all intents and purposes, the center of the avant-garde film universe. For a rather dingy-looking brick building in New York City’s East Village, that seems like quite a statement. However, despite its lackluster appearance, the building has served as one of the bastions of avant-garde film research, preservation, and, perhaps most crucially, showings in the world.

Anthology Film Archives, on 2nd Ave. and 2nd St. in New York City, NY; via wikipedia.org

Established by Jonas Mekas, P. Adams Sitney, Stan Brakhage, and Peter Kubelka in 1970, the Archives continues to function today as a preservation tool for experimental film (particularly American ones) and a theater for a wide-range of films, including not only recent works in experimental film, but also retrospectives on important figures in the experimental/avant-garde film tradition and even overlooked figures from Hollywood; currently, the Archives are running a “From the Pen of…” series, which takes a closer look at the oft-unnoticed role of the screenwriter in film.

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Last Saturday afternoon, however, was an offering typical of the Archives: the first part of a Joseph Cornell retrospective. Cornell, an American artist famous in the art world for his ‘boxed assemblages,’ is not as well known for his role as a filmmaker, although he occupies a pivotal role in the American film tradition. Famously, Cornell is often credited as the first practitioner of ‘found footage’ films, notably with his first work, the 1936 film Rose Hobart. Despite the film’s importance to avant-garde film history, it might be better remembered as the instigator of an infamous Salvador Dalí rant.

Dalí, who was present at the first screening of the film at MOMA, reportedly burst out halfway through the film something to the effect (there are differing accounts as to the precise wording…better not to favor one over the other) that he’d had the exact same idea to create a collage of film footage and that Cornell had somehow stolen it from his subconscious. Although the comment might strike most of us as hysterical, it seems to have had a sobering effect on Cornell, who showed his films only very infrequently to the public thereafter.

Which, I should add, is a shame, because some of his early films are wonderful and charming. Those who resent the prickly modern attitudes of Cornell’s sculptural and assemblage work might be shocked to see these films: the triptych of “Cotillion,” “Children’s Party,” and “Midnight Party” (all 1940) are an immediate delight. Combining footage of children at various parties, the antics of several infants, and several entertainment shows—ranging from a tightrope walker to a juggling seal to a knife-thrower, Cornell conjures up some of the magic of childhood and—even in the somewhat academic, overbearing atmosphere (for me, anyway…) of Anthology’s Maya Deren Theater—laughter.

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One of Stan Brakhage’s projects in making films was to recreate the experience of early childhood in his audience, which he encapsulates in his artistic manifesto Metaphors On Vision: “Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective…” Some of Brakhage’s films, at points, are elusive and atmospheric his his pursuit of that eye. Cornell, to my knowledge, never offered any overt thesis of childhood perspective à la Brakhage, but he does indeed also pull us back into childhood. By eliminating narrative but retaining observable situations, Cornell brings us back to the viewing state of a child.

One of the several amusing infants in Cornell's triptych Cotillion, Children's Party, and Midnight Party; via tumblr.com

Of course, each situation, such as the children bobbing for apples, implicitly involves narrative, but the narrative is not an arcing one—it is slight. A child’s world is one of distraction, of bouncing from one object of interest to the next, of one successive, flitting narrative after another. Innocent, a child always follows everyone’s favorite live-better maxim—carpe diem—before being away of its implications. 

There’s space for reading the film critically, as one might do with Brakhage, but there’s also space, as I mentioned above, for simply enjoying the film. The scenes with the baby trying (and failing) to eat as he falls asleep would put a smile on the face of even the most deadened film scholar. The scenes of the knife-thrower, even as we’re sure of the inevitable (safe) results, still cause a nervous twitch and a fluttery sense of relief, an instinctive, child-like thrill.

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Other films were equally moving, although centered in nostalgia, rather than the retracing of childhood feelings. “Centuries of June” and “Gnir Rednow” were bursting with the longing for days past. The camerawork and composition of both films were especially notable and, as it turns out, for good reason: both were collaborations with Stan Brakhage. Although Brakhage is billed as ‘photographer’ on both pieces, the mere presence of his deft hand on the camera makes an argument for a ‘co-director’ tag. Brakhage’s eye for detail and his swift, hallucinatory camera style possess, respectively, a sureness and a warmth that I’m not sure Cornell could manage on his own.

Like Brakhage’s “The Wonder Ring,” the beautiful “Gnir Rednow” is a paean to the play of light created on New York City’s elevated subways. It represents an honest attempt to reexamine the world around us and find something new and original in it. By tackling the subway from so many different angles and perspectives, Cornell and Brakhage transform the oft-mundane experience of riding the subway into something giddy and ethereal, something worthwhile and wonderful.

“Centuries of June” is less interesting, focusing on a dark house on a seemingly abandoned property. The first few minutes of the film is largely tracking shots, which begin on the greenery of the property (sunlight through leaves) before panning over to the dark, foreboding exterior of the house. The film moves on to focus on a group of children playing on the property, as well as some wonderful tracking shots of a bird and a butterfly.

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Some of the Cornell work shown during this part one of the retrospective—looking specifically of “Legend Of Fountains,” “Aviary,” and “Nymphlight,” simply did not appeal to me. In comparison with the other work, these pieces seemed less polished and more informal—maybe a little too ‘experiential’ to be of interest to me. I’ve read that several of these films focused on some of Cornell’s favorite locations in New York City and that loose premise is evident in these films. While there are graceful moments in all of them (a shot tracking a group of pigeons as they flit through the trees), these films do little to create a lasting image of place for me.

With the exception, that is, of the final film “Angel.” Lacking in NYC-monument recognition, I cannot say for sure the statue/fountain at the focus of this beautiful film is, indeed, in New York City, but I assume it's somewhere in the borders of the Big Apple. Focusing on the titular angel and the pool that surrounds her, Cornell plays with the colors of the sky, the plant life, and the striking tonality of the water to create a brief, quiet film resonant with the watery peace of Monet’s Water Lilies—perhaps lacking the Impressionist coloring scheme, but with all the tremulous beauty.

A frame from Cornell's film Angel; via emory.edu

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But the most impressive film of the showing remained Cornell's first film, Rose Hobart. Not only is it an integral part of film history as the first collage/found footage film, it's a fascinating study of a relationship between a fan and a Hollywood star. Cornell discovered a copy of the 1931 film East Of Borneo in a junk shop and became obsessed with the leading lady, Rose Hobart. She portrays a woman on the hunt for her husband in the Borneo jungle; when she finds him, he is in the employ of a mysterious prince. A love triangle, naturally, results.


None of this plot, however, is represented in the film. Instead, the film is almost entirely composed of shots of Hobart, who is, at various times, talking, smiling, flirting, frowning, and generally playing the part of a romantic Hollywood lead. For Cornell, this distillation might have been the result of a self-directed obsession, but for the rest of us it serves as a fascinating study of the leading lady and how she comports herself. Watching her interact with the two principal love interests raises interesting questions about the presentation of women in Hollywood and how relationships are visualized.