Index 42 : Stones & 20 Action and Destruction Films - Ernst Schmidt Jr.

If I had to name a single Austrian filmmaker who to this day has not received the international recognition deserved for the artistic level his work attained, I would unhesitatingly name him. When he died in 1988 at the early age of 50, Ernst Schmidt Jr. left behind a body of work that could hardly be more multifaceted, including experimental documentary films, material films, expanded cinema, abstract films, project films, conceptual films, Lettrist text films, compilation films, and a feature length dramatic film. The catalogue of a posthumous exhibit at the Vienna Secession in 2001 and his home page (initiated and maintained by his half brother Helmut Benedikt) encompasses close to 100 works. In 1980 Schmidt Jr. drew from this abundance to create a compilation of films entitled 20 Aktions- und Destruktionsfilme 1965-1979. This compilation is now available for the first time on DVD. (Peter Tscherkassky)

FILMS

Steine  30'
-20 Action and Destruction 1965-1979-                    
1  Yes/No 1968           3'       
2  White 1968 2'       
3  Cheers 1968            3'       
4  Red-white-red 1967            1'       
5  Snip Snap 1968       2'       
6  A Movie ABC 1971 1"      
7  Imperial Theater 1970        6'       
8  Collected by Wendy 1979   2'       
9  A Sub-history of Film 1974 2'       
10  The Act of Thinking 1968 3'
11  My Funeral an Experience 1977   1'
12  12 Uhr Mittags - High Noon 1977             4'       
13  The Merry Widow 1977    1'       
14  Gertrude Stein would have liked to 1979 see Chaplin in a film in which he would just walk down a street, turn around a corner and then around the next and so on ad infinitum         3'       
15  N 1978       6'       
16  Art & Revolution 1968      2'       
17  Bodybuilding 1965            9'       
18  Onetwothree 1965           8'       
19  Film Scraps 1966   10'     
20 ColorFilm 1967    30"

Total running time: 71 min
Extra DVD: 20 pages booklet, bilingual English-German