Maya Deren
- 1943Meshes of the Afternoon
- 1944At Land
- 1946Ritual in Transfigured Time
Echoed in
- Lost Highway1997
Meet Maya Deren
Outsider Cinema: Film made outside the mainstream
Hans Richter
- 1928Ghosts Before Breakfast
- 1921Rhythmus 21
- 1947Dreams That Money Can Buy
Meet Hans Richter
Marie Menken
- 1957Glimpse of the Garden
- 1961Arabesque for Kenneth Anger
- 1964Go! Go! Go!
Meet Marie Menken
You've already seen their influence
Experimental films rarely play at the multiplex, but their ideas do. Each double bill pairs an avant-garde film with something it fed.
21-87Star Wars
Where the Force came from
Lucas watched 21-87 over and over as a film student. He has tied the Force to a line spoken in it, and its number turns up in Star Wars.
Meshes of the AfternoonLost Highway
The dream that loops back on itself
A woman relives the same afternoon, each time meeting another version of herself. Critics have long traced Lynch's doubled, looping nightmares back to it.
MothlightSe7en
Scratched film opens a blockbuster
Kyle Cooper's twitching, hand-scratched opening titles for Se7en drew on the hand-worked film strips Brakhage spent his life making.
Scorpio RisingMean Streets
Pop songs as a second script
Scorpio Rising scored its bikers with thirteen chart records, each commenting on the scene. Scorsese has credited that idea for the way he uses songs.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 BruxellesElephant
Real time as a source of dread
Jeanne Dielman watches a routine in full until the smallest change feels catastrophic. Gus Van Sant has named it as a model for the long, patient takes of Elephant.
The full bill
Forty-four filmmakers to start with, from 1920s Berlin to the hills of Wales and Scotland, shot on an iPhone. Grouped by when their first film here was made.
1920s–40s
1950s–60s
1970s–80s
1990s–2020s
Start anywhere, follow the line
Each filmmaker leads to their films and to what those films changed, and from there to the next filmmaker.