Shorts for Days: Cityscapes

Shorts for Days: Cityscapes

7 Episodes

The sights and sounds, hustle and bustle of the modern metropolis have long inspired filmmakers to develop a corresponding cinematic language to capture its frenetic energy. From the dizzying head-rush of Manhattan as seen through the kaleidoscopic lenses of D. A. Pennebaker and Hollis Frampton to the sly wit of Jean Vigo’s droll portrait of a French resort town to the idiosyncratic musings of Chris Marker’s offbeat Chinese travelogue, these miniature city symphonies pulse with the rhythms and happenstance poetry of the urban landscape.

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Shorts for Days: Cityscapes

7 Episodes

  • Penelope Bartlett on Cityscapes
    06:45
    Penelope Bartlett on Cityscapes
    Episode 1

    Penelope Bartlett on Cityscapes

    Episode 1

    Criterion Channel programmer Penelope Bartlett discusses the films in Shorts for Days: Cityscapes.

  • À propos de Nice
    23:42
    À propos de Nice
    Episode 2

    À propos de Nice

    Episode 2

    Directed by Jean Vigo and Boris Kaufman • 1930 • France

    Jean Vigo was twenty-five when he made this, his debut film, a silent cinematic poem that reveals, through a thrilling and ironic use of montage, the economic reality hidden behind the facade of the Mediterranean resort town of Nice. The fi...

  • N.U.
    11:53
    N.U.
    Episode 3

    N.U.

    Episode 3

    Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni • 1948 • Italy

    This 1948 film by Antonioni documents the lives of street cleaners in Rome. N.U. is short for Nettezza urbana, the Italian municipal cleaning service.

  • Daybreak Express
    05:43
    Daybreak Express
    Episode 4

    Daybreak Express

    Episode 4

    Directed by D. A. Pennebaker • 1953 • United States

    Shot in 1953, though not completed until 1957, DAYBREAK EXPRESS was the first film D. A. Pennebaker made, a mad rush of images of New York City captured from a train and edited to the rhythm of Duke Ellington’s song of the same name. A jazz afi...

  • Sunday in Peking
    19:42
    Sunday in Peking
    Episode 5

    Sunday in Peking

    Episode 5

    Directed by Chris Marker • 1956 • France

    A rare, tourist’s-eye glimpse into Maoist China, the first of Chris Marker’s inimitable travelogues is a colorful stroll through the city of Beijing set to the filmmaker’s personal reflections on its people, history, and culture.

  • Surface Tension
    09:52
    Surface Tension
    Episode 6

    Surface Tension

    Episode 6

    Directed by Hollis Frampton • 1968 • United States

    A film in three parts: a man talking while a telephone rings, a walking tour of New York, and a goldfish swimming.

  • The Black Balloon
    20:46
    The Black Balloon
    Episode 7

    The Black Balloon

    Episode 7

    Directed by Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie • 2012 • United States

    The black balloon, an alien in a crowded land, searches for some semblance of companionship after losing all of its friends.

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