Search Results: Experimental Film from Royal Books, Inc.

New York: Filmmakers Newsletter / Filmmakers' Cinematheque, 1971. Archive of 41 issues of "Filmmakers Newsletter," dating from the first four years of the magazine, including Vol. I, issue 1. Early issues of the magazine are scarce, and putting together a collection of this size piecemeal would be prohibitively difficult. Founded in 1967 by experimental filmmaker Carl Linder as "New York Filmmakers' Newsletter," it was originally published out of the Filmmakers Cinematheque, and served a similar purpose as Canyon Cinema's "Canyon Cinemanews," disseminating information on screenings, festivals, and republishing articles and essays about experimental film. Suni Mallow took over as editor in early 1968, and she quickly brought a wider focus to the magazine, dropping "New York" from the title and publishing the magazine under its own imprint (although it still retained ties to the Cinematheque). This broader approach to the world of avant garde film was successful, and when Mallow sold the magazine in… Read More

New York: The Living Theatre, 1959. Original poster for a night of avant-garde films hosted by the Gryphon Film Group at the Living Theatre on April 27, 1959. Filmmakers were present to introduce their works, including Stan Brakhage with his landmark short "Desistfilm" (1954). The Gryphon Film Group was founded by Marie Menken and her husband Willard Maas in the mid-1950s with the help of Charles Boultenhouse and Gregory Markopoulos. It was one of the earliest attempts, with Amos and Marcia Vogel's Cinema 16, at setting up a experimental film society in the United States. The group's primary interest was furthering the poetic and lyrical qualities of film, often focusing on the perception of corporeality, which is reflected in the films presented, both of the human form, in "Geography of the Body" (Maas, 1943), and sculpted object, "Visual Variations on Noguchi" (Menken, 1945). Poster 8.5 x 12 inches. Near Fine.

N.p.: N.p., 1971. Vintage double weight reference photograph from the 1971 short film. Typed label snipes affixed to the verso and bottom margin of the recto, along with an annotation in manuscript ink. An early short film by noted independent director Mark Rappaport, an experimental dissection of the concept of a "blue" movie. 10 x 8 inches. Very Good plus, with light wear along the bottom edge.

Rollinsville, CO: Self published, 1971. Original mail order catalog for Stan Brakhage films issued in 1971. Featuring 35 8mm and 35 16mm titles, with brief descriptions for the 8mm films. 7 x 8.5 inches. Ten pages, saddle stapled in self wrappers. Very Good, with dampstaining on the front wrapper and shallow vertical and horizontal creases.

Rollinsville, CO: Self published, 1976. Original mail order catalog for Stan Brakhage films issued in 1976. Featuring 47 8mm and 72 16mm titles, with brief descriptions for each film. 9 x 6 inches. 12 pages. About Near Fine in saddle stapled, photo illustrated wrappers.

Chicago: The Goodlion, 1972. First Edition. First Edition. Inscribed by the author to publisher Barney Rosset on the front endpaper: "Dear Barney / In thanks for all you've given, made possible: / Thanks, / Stan Brakhage." Barney Rosset was the founder of the Grove Press, which, in addition to its obvious importance, helped usher Brakhage's work into institutions in the 1970s by "publishing" select short films by the artist on tiny reels that were sold to libraries and the publisher's readership. In this volume, Brakhage investigates four of the principal architects of cinema, including Sergei Eisenstein. A wonderful association, and an important collection by one of the most important cinematic artists of the 1970s. Very Good plus in paper-covered card wrappers as issued, with moderate rubbing and a bit of light wear at the extremities.

N.p.: N.p., 1974. Two vintage reference photographs from the 1975 film. One with a printed snipe label affixed to the bottom edge of the recto. Noted independent director Mark Rappaport's first feature, an experimental film shot in pieces over eighteen months in New York. 10 x 8 inches. Near Fine.

N.p.: N.p., 1974. Collection of three vintage reference photographs from the 1974 avant-garde film. Two photographs with snipes affixed to the versos, and one with annotations in manuscript pencil regarding cropping. Noted independent director Mark Rappaport's first feature length film, shot in pieces over a year and a half. Two photographs 10 x 8 inches, one photograph 7 x 5 inches. Near Fine to Very Good plus.

New York: Impact Films, 1966. Original poster for the 1966 double feature of Robert Downey Sr.'s "Chafed Elbows" (1966) and Kenneth Anger's "Scorpio Rising" (1964) which ran together for over a month at the Gate Theater in New York for the premiere of Downey Sr.'s film. A unique pairing of two classic-underground filmmakers. Downey Sr.'s "Chafed Elbows," a manic film determined to offend everyone as hapless Manhattanite Walter Dinsmore has his "annual November breakdown," and Anger's "Scorpio Rising," a homo-erotic biker epic focusing on Brooklyn's Hell's Angels chapter with a pop music soundtrack. 27.25 x 40.75 inches, rolled, on archival linen. Near Fine. Criterion Collection Eclipse Series 33. BFI 1112.

New York: The Living Theatre, 1961. Original flyer for an exhibition of six films by Maya Deren held on February 20 and 27, 1961 at the Bleecker Street Cinema, and March 6 and 13, 1961 at The Living Theater. The flyer notes that music for two of the films, "Meshes in the Afternoon" and "The Very Eye of the Night" was composed by Teiji Ito. Ephemera related to Deren's work as a pioneering avant garde filmmaker is rare. The recto of the flyer describes the concept of "chamber films," likening Deren's films to the lyrical, abstract, and economical style of chamber music "save that the idiom is visual and the instrument is the motion picture camera." With brief biographies of Deren and Ito, as well as blurbs about Deren's films on the verso, including ones from Jonas Mekas and Joseph Campbell. 11 x 8.5 inches. Very Good plus. Manuscript red pencil circling Teijo Ito's name on the verso. Two inch jagged closed tear to the left edge, with glue stains to the lower corner of the recto and verso where a… Read More

New York: Cinéaste Publishers, 1981. Collection of 19 vintage issues of the long-running quarterly film periodical. Collection includes: Vol. VI, Nos. 1-3 Vol. VII, Nos. 1-3 Vol. VIII, Nos. 1-4 Vol. IX, Nos. 1-4 Vol. X, Nos. 1-4 Vol. XI, No. 1 Founded in 1967 by Gary Crowdus, "Cineaste" publishes film reviews, criticism, and interviews, and continues to be published today. Near Fine to Very Good plus overall, some issues with light age toning on the wrappers.

New York: Galeria Bonino, 1967. Complete set of four matching exhibition catalogs for a staggered series of installations by avant-garde film director Robert Breer, held at the Galeria Bonino in New York between 1965 and 1970. The first catalog is for an exhibition at the gallery titled "Constructions and Films," and was held in early 1965, noted as Exhibition No. 10. The other three catalogs deal with exhibitions of Breer's "floats," three-dimensional geometric shapes that the director would construct, then roll down a street as one would a float in a parade-though typically Breer chose rural roads as a means of offsetting the sheer modernity of his objects. Each catalog ends with a list of Breer's exhibitions to date. These three exhibitions, titled "Floats," "More Floats," and "93 Floats," were held at the gallery in 1966, 1967, and 1970, and are labeled Exhibition Nos. 18, 29, and 44, respectively. All four volumes Near Fine or better, each in saddle stapled wrappers, with light occasional rubbing. Read More

San Francisco: Artists' Television Access, 1990. Vintage flyer for the premiere of Danny Plotnick's 1990 experimental short film, "Death Sled II: Steel-Belted Romeos," with an addition screening of Plotnick's 1989 short "CREEP," as well as films by Mark Street, Phillip R. Ford, Phillip Guilbeau, Laura Rosow, Jim Sikora, and Dana Mendelssohn, at the Artists' Television Access (ATA), Saturday, February 3, 1990. According to director Danny Plotnick's website, "Death Sled II: Steel-Belted Romeos" is a "tale of backwoods blacktop mayhem-Two dim-witted, lead-footed guidos from Bayonne, New Jersey bust through stoplight after stoplight in their turbo-charged, bad-assed, jet-black Pontiac Grand Prix until their mean machine nearly eighty-sixes another hunk of American steel. And that's just the start of it ... A confrontation, an assault, fists-a-flying, and traffic violations." A trailblazer for the independent film scene of the 1990s, Plotnick made over twenty films since the late 1980s, and has released… Read More

New York: Jonas Mekas, 1969. Vintage large format poster for the 1969 experimental film by shot and edited by Jonas Mekas from his "film diary" footage shot between 1965 and 1969. Either unique or very nearly so, with no examples found in OCLC or institutions worldwide. The poster also doubles as liner notes for the film, briefly describing the scenes, and annotating them with the music cues and time stamps, for each of the six reels so that the viewer could engage with the nearly three hour work "according to the time available to him, according to his preference, or any other good reason." The introduction goes on to explain that after a fire in the neighboring building nearly destroyed the work, he decided release a three hour "First Draft" cut of the film he had been assembling as "Walden." Beginning in 1950, Mekas would carry around a small Bolex camera, capturing what he saw, commenting on his website "On some days I shot ten frames, on others ten seconds, still on others ten minutes. Or I… Read More

N.p.: N.p., 1970. Two vintage reference photographs from the 1970 experimental film, showing director Dick Fontaine and his wife, filmmaker and actress Pat Hartley. A fictionalized autobiography of the young filmmaker, featuring cameos by Norman Mailer and Jean Shrimpton. Fontaine is best known for his work as an independent documentary filmmaker, most notably "Will the Real Norman Mailer Please Stand Up!" (1967) and "Beat This: A Hip-Hop History" (1984). 8 x 10 inches. Near Fine.

Berlin: Akademie der Kunste, 1958. First Edition. First Edition. Limited Edition, one of an unnumbered 1000 copies. INSCRIBED on the title page by the author: "To / Billy Kluever / with my wishes / Hans Richter 59." German-born artist Hans Richter enjoyed a long career as a painter, avant-gardist, political radical, and filmmaker, co-founding the Association of Revolutionary Artists in Zurich, and regularly contributing to the Dutch periodical De Stijl. After moving to the United States in 1940, Richter directed two feature films, "Dreams That Money Can Buy" (1947) and "8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements" (1957), made in collaboration with Max Ernst, Jean Cocteau, Hans Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Alexander Calder, and others. Richter has been dubbed the "father of abstract film," and is considered one of the foremost historians of the Dada movement and early experimental film. Near Fine in pictorial wrappers.

San Francisco: San Francisco Art Institute, 1994. Vintage flyer for a fundraiser evening held at the San Francisco Art Institute on Friday December 9, 1994. Underground film director and video artist George Kuchar was known for his "low-fi" and DIY aesthetic, and was a decisive influence on No Wave Cinema, as well as artists and filmmakers such as John Waters, Andy Warhol, Todd Solondz, and David Lynch, among others. In his 40-year career as a filmmaker, Kuchar directed over 200 films and videos, including 15 8mm films made in the late 1950s and early 1960s with his twin brother Mike Kuchar, as well as many of his students' short films at the San Francisco Art Institute. His 1977 film "I, An Actress," a screen test of student actress Barbera Lapsley, was selected by the National Film Registry in 2011. 8.5 x 11 inches on purple paper. Near Fine.

N.p.: N.p., 1998. Four vintage color reference photographs from the 1998 film. Printed label of photographer Lars Høgsted on the versos, and three with a provenance label. The first Dogme 95 film, a dark comedy about a troubled family gathering to celebrate their father's sixtieth birthday. Shot on location at Skjoldenæsholm Castle in Ringsted, Denmark. 7 x 5 inches. Near Fine.

New York: Bleecker Street Cinema, 1981. Vintage flyer for the 1981 film, produced to promote screenings at the James Agee Room of the Bleecker Street Cinema. An early feature by independent filmmaker Adam Brooks, photographed by Jonathan Demme and shot entirely on super-8. 8.5 x 10.75 inches. Very Good plus, slightly age toned with light foxing on the verso, folded once horizontally.

N.p.: William Klein, 1968. Vintage photograph, shot by director-photographer William Klein, during the making of his landmark documentary. With Klein's stamp on the back, noting his address in Paris. In making his cinema verite documentary about the occupation of the Sorbonne begun during the May, 1968 protests in Paris, Klein received unprecedented access to student leaders, activists, various committee meetings, and the general assembly. Filmed during late May and early June of 1968, the film is less a picture of the birth of a radical movement than it is a catalog of the everyday struggles, both practical and intellectual, of maintaining focus on, moving forward from, and ultimate dissipation of that foundational revolutionary spirit. 7 x 9.75 inches. In an archival mat. Near Fine.