INVERTED NARRATIVES
New Directions in Story-Telling

Early directors D.W. Griffith and Lois Weber develop the radical language of cinema narrative through audience-friendly melodramas made for nickelodeon theaters. Experimental fantasies are depicted in such independent productions as Moonland (c. 1926), Lullaby (1929), and The Bridge (1929-30). Depression era films by socially-conscious filmmakers reshape drama as demonstrated in Josef Berne's brooding Black Dawn (1933) and Strand and Hurwitz's biting Native Land (1937-41): each pictures a raw reality. Parody and satire find their mark in Theodore Huff's Little Geezer (1932) and Barlow, Hay and Le Roy's Even as You and I (1937). David Bradley's Sredni Vashtar by Saki (1940-43) boasts an inadvertent post-modern attitude.

12 FILMS:
The House with Closed Shutters (1910)—D.W. Griffith & G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
Suspense (1913)—Lois Weber & Philips Smalley
Moonland (c. 1926)—Neil McQuire & William A. O’Connor
Lullaby (1929)—Boris Deutsch
The Bridge (1929-30)—Charles Vidor
Little Geezer (1932)—Theodore Huff
Black Dawn (1933)—Josef Berne & Seymour Stern
Native Land (1937-41)—Frontier Films: Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand (excerpt)
Black Legion (1936-7)—Nykino: Ralph Steiner & Willard Van Dyke
Even As You and I (1937)—Roger Barlow, Harry Hay & Le Roy Robbins
Object Lesson (1941)—Christoher Young
"Sredni Vashtar" by Saki (1940-43)—David Bradley

Year: 1910-1943
Running time: 155 minutes
Contents: 12 Films
Format: B/W;
Sound & Silent
Region: 0
Available as part of 7-disc box set

Buy Now
"The creative explosion that took place at the margins of Hollywood."
–Le Monde, Paris

UNSEEN CINEMA: INVERTED NARRATIVES is one of a seven-DVD series exploring American avant-garde cinema from 1894-1941. Presented by Anthology Film Archives in association with the British Film Institute, Cineric, Film Preservation Associates, Deutsches Filmmuseum, George Eastman House, The Library of Congress and The Museum of Modern Art.

"Just one of the amazing things this series of early American avant-garde films drives home is just how far into the belly of the Hollywood beast the experimental filmmakers progressed."
–The Guardian, London

"Like the cinematic attic of a madcap, film-savvy aunt, Unseen Cinema is stuffed with treasures and oddities just waiting to be discovered."
–Museums New York

Films preserved by
Anthology Film Archives
British Film Institute
Creative Film Society
Film Preservation Associates
George Eastman House
Larson-Casselton Collection
Orgone Archives
UCLA Film and Televsion Archive

Music by
Eric Beheim
Marc Blitzstein
Cameron Mac Pherson
Rodney Sauer
Robert Vaughn

Notes by
Kevin Brownlow
Harold Casselton
R. Bruce Elder
Jan-Christopher Horak
David James
Chuck Kleinhans
Bruce Posner
David Shepard
Cecile Starr

Curated by Bruce Posner
Produced for DVD by David Shepard
Released by Image Entertainment

Sponsored by Anthology Film Archives, New York, and Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main.
Made possible in part by Cineric, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, and Film Preservation Associates, Inc.

Special Contents of this Edition © 2005 by Anthology Film Archives