Friday Night Flicks: Adventures in Short Filmography, Vol. 1
Consider, if you will, the attention span of the average film enjoyer in 2023. Being forced to sit through an entire feature film is gradually becoming a form of torture, the likes of which you’d expect the short film genre to come as a welcome reprieve.
Consider yourself: when was the last time you were able to endure an entire film without pulling out your phone for the obligatory, intermittent doomscroll?
Forgive me if my accusations hit a bit too close to home, and just know that - when it comes to dual-screentime - I’m the absolute worst. You know it’s bad when watching your old favorites without voluntary interruption begins to feel like a chore - when it takes you four anxiety-riddled sittings to get through a film like Fargo. I think we’re ignoring the fact that there is a stigma surrounding the entire short film genre. Even our most trusted critics, bloggers, and celebrity voices feel the need to frame these films in miniature as being complicated, abstract works of art, made with a very specific, niche audience in mind and therefore incapable of being understood by the general public - which couldn’t be further from the truth.
To illustrate my point: one of the most celebrated short films in history is literally just a fifteen-minute documentary on the life cycle of the seahorse, aptly named The Seahorse. No frills or subversive messaging, no bizarre, sensational imagery, no experimental cinematography; just a brief snapshot of some uniquely captivating corner of life, through the lens of someone with a tasteful eye for visual aesthetics. —Jackson Todd
La Jetée
Post-nuclear armageddon society seeks refuge in the catacombs of Paris past, present, and future. Told through a 30-minute succession of black and white stills, this early time travel epic formed the plot basis for Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys.
Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life
Richard E. Grant of Withnail and I fame stars as a young and ambitious Franz Kafka in this 22-minute short, which offers a nightmarish (but equally light-hearted) look into the inception of the author’s most famous work, The Metamorphosis. Perfect for the holidays, strangely enough.
The Seahorse
As mentioned earlier: literally just a fifteen-minute, visually stunning documentary on the life cycle of the seahorse. No frills, just gills.
Rain
We’d be remiss not to include at least one experimental, trance-inducing screen poem, in this case director Joris Iven’s cinematic love letter to his home town of Amsterdam.
[above framegrab: La Jetée by Chris Marker]
