Movies: Joseph Cornell

Cornell employs clips from 1931's jungle melodrama East of Borneo – more specifically, clips of its lead actress, Rose Hobart – to disquieting effect. Through Cornell's collage editing, Hobart becomes a singular object of desire and dread, trapped in...

A film composed of the out-takes from Brakhage’s The Wonder Ring (1955), which Cornell had commissioned. There has been a long-standing misconception that the film "Gnir Rednow" is simply "The Wonder Ring" mirrored or projected in reverse. However, M...

Centuries of June, perhaps more than any Cornell film, is a naked attempt to capture the soul of a place and the mood of a disappearing moment....

Short film of a statue of an angel by an ornamental pond on a summer's day....

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jeal...

Smoke, sparks and steam dance together in Cornell's found-footage collage. Backwards title cards (or an alien language, if you like) punctuate this mishmash of the industrial and the ancient....

A lucid dream turned nightmarish reality. A ship sinking into a world of fear. A short film that’s mostly puppetry by one of America's most prolific twentieth century artists....

Director Joseph Cornell evokes the nostalgia of childhood by filming a children's party....

"I have not changed the editing structure. I have made the films printable. They are the first known fully collaged films, i.e., films made from found footage, and were done sometime in the ‘40s. Cornell combines Vaudeville jugglers, animal acts, cir...

A short, avant-garde movie, starring twelve-year-old ballet student Gwen Thomas, Nymphlight is a lovely blend of fact and fiction, using Bryant Park at the New York Public Library as a stage set for the fantasy inclusion of a certain nymph. A meditat...

A short film where circus performers entertain children....

A collaboration between Joseph Cornell and Rudy Burckhardt, Aviary is an impression of Union Square. The location held a particular fascination for Cornell who wanted to establish a foundation for artists and art therapy there. In the film, he treats...

In Vaudeville Deluxe, Cornell assembles footage of performers, like a man who balances in his mouth a frame that supports a seated woman. (Release date is approximately 1940s.)...

Carousel - Animal Opera (c.1938), a visual symphony by artist and sculptor Joseph Cornell....

One of Joseph Cornell’s funniest films, Thimble Theater is structured like a vaudeville variety show about nature....

A sombre day in the city....

Rare film by Joseph Cornell....

Joseph Cornell film from 1954, black & white....

A montage of elephants, children, Native Americans, logging, a barnstormer, a blimp, people on and in the water, and a man who sings like a bird....

Lawrence Jordan's portrait of the reclusive artist Joseph Cornell....