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==Production==
==Production==
The film used [[cut-out|cut-outs]] created from [[19th century]] [[catalogues]].<ref>[https://harrysmitharchives.com/product/heaven-and-earth-magic/ Harry Smith Archives]</ref><ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/1211787 Mind, Medium and Metaphor in Harry Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic on JSTOR]</ref>
The film used [[Cutout animation|cut-outs]] created from [[19th century]] [[catalogues]].<ref>[https://harrysmitharchives.com/product/heaven-and-earth-magic/ Harry Smith Archives]</ref><ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/1211787 Mind, Medium and Metaphor in Harry Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic on JSTOR]</ref>


===Music===
===Music===

Revision as of 08:59, 12 February 2023

Heaven and Earth Magic
Film still from Heaven and Earth Magic
Directed byHarry Everett Smith
Produced byHarry Everett Smith
Edited byHarry Everett Smith
Production
company
Mystic Fire Video
Distributed byMystic Fire Video
Release date
  • January 1, 1962 (1962-01-01) (United States)
Running time
66 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Heaven and Earth Magic (also known as Number 12,[2] The Magic Feature, or Heaven and Earth Magic Feature) is a 1962 American avant-garde independent[3] cutout animation film directed by visual artist, filmmaker and mystic Harry Everett Smith. Jonas Mekas gave the film its title Heaven and Earth Magic in 1964/65.

Plot

Harry Smith stated of Heaven and Earth Magic: "The first part depicts the heroine's toothache consequent to the loss of a valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land in terms of Israel, Montreal and the second part depicts the return to earth from being eaten by Max Müller on the day Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London."[4]

Production

The film used cut-outs created from 19th century catalogues.[5][6]

Music

The film is accompanied by a musique concrète score featuring the noises of water, clocks and sound effects albums.[7] John Waters of The Independent described it as "the sort of soundtrack you could put together in a hotel room", noting that "Smith lived at the Chelsea Hotel, rent unpaid, for much of that time."[7]

Reception and legacy

Fred Camper from Chicago Reader praised the film's artistic style, calling it "a mysterious world of alchemical transformations in which objects suggest a multitude of possibilities."[8] Time Out Magazine offered the film similar praise, comparing it to the works of Max Ernst and Georges Méliès.[9]

It is listed in the film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, noting the film as director Harry Smith's magnum opus, and saying "Incomplete, deeply idiosyncratic, rearranged from materials taken largely from an earlier period —a Victorian-era catalogue— it is explicitly "folk" in nature."[10] Writing in 1999 for The Independent, Waters noted that "Smith's stop-frame animations look remarkably similar to Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations made a few years later".[7]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ Marcus 2011, p. 106.
  2. ^ Alchemical Transformations: The Abstract Films of Harry Smith - Senses of Cinema
  3. ^ FilmAffinity
  4. ^ "No. 12: Heaven and Earth Magic | Film Studies Center | University of Chicago". Archived from the original on 12 June 2010.
  5. ^ Harry Smith Archives
  6. ^ Mind, Medium and Metaphor in Harry Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic on JSTOR
  7. ^ a b c Walters, John L. (30 June 1999). "Now that's what I call folk music!". The Independent. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
  8. ^ Camper 2020.
  9. ^ TimeOut 2014.
  10. ^ Schneider 2013, p. 392.

Sources

Books

Websites

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