U B U W E B - Film & Video




Joseph Cornell (1903-1972)







Bookstalls (c. late 1930s)



Jack’s Dream (made with Larry Jordan) (c. late 1930s)



Rose Hobart (1936)



Cotillion / The Midnight Party (made with Larry Jordan) (c. 1938)



By Night with Torch and Spear (1942)



The Aviary (made with Rudy Burkhardt) (1955)



Centuries of June (made with Stan Brakhage) (1955)



Angel (made with Rudolph Burckhardt) (1957)



A Legend for Fountains (made with Rudolph Burckhardt) (1957/1965)



Nymphlight (made with Rudolph Burckhardt) (1957)



Gnir Rednow (with Stan Brakhage) (1960)






The first and greatest American Surrealist, Joseph Cornell is best known
for his boxes. The best of his mysterious assemblages of dime-store
tchochkes and paper ephemera in little hand-made cabinets perfectly
realize the elusive sublime at the heart of Surrealism, while avoiding
the juvenile theatrics of his European colleagues.

However, Cornell was also one of the most original
and accomplished filmmakers to emerge from the Surrealist movement, and
one of the most peculiar. Just as the ascetic and introverted Cornell
himself held Surrealism at arms length, borrowing only those elements
that suited his interests and temperament, his films superficially
resemble those made by other Surrealists, they are in truth sui generis. Only a handful of his contemporaries understood the genius of films like his Rose Hobart
— an unfortunate situation exacerbated by Cornell's own obstinate
resistance to public screenings. No one made films even remotely similar
to Cornell's for almost thirty years, and even now the perfect opacity
of his montage remains unrivalled...