Slavko Vorkapich
2021
The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra
Robert Florey, Slavko Vorkapich
Jules Raucourt, George Voya
This short experimental film tells the story of a man who comes to Hollywood to become a star, only to fail and be dehumanized. He is identified by the number 9413 written on his forehead.
The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra
Moods of the Sea
Slavko Vorkapich, John Hoffman
A recently unearthed experimental documentary of the crashing sea set to Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave." An example of the filmmakers' "new cinema" theory which held that film should be more like music than literature. This film is based solely on its arrangement of images.
Moods of the Sea
The Past of Mary Holmes
Slavko Vorkapich, Harlan Thompson
Helen MacKellar, Eric Linden
Mary Holmes (MacKellar), once a famous opera star known as Maria di Nardi, now lives in a run-down shanty and suffers from alcoholism. Known for her eccentric behavior, Mary breeds geese, and is thus known in her neighborhood as 'The Goose Woman'. She blames her grown son Geoffrey (Linden) for the deterioration of her voice, and does everything to destroy his life. When Geoffrey, who works as a commercial artist, announces to her that he will marry Joan Hoyt (Arthur), an actress, she becomes torn with jealousy and threatens to reveal to Joan that he is an illegitimate birth.
The Past of Mary Holmes
Abstract Experiment in Kodachrome
Slavko Vorkapich
This dazzling stop-motion animation provided Vorkapich with a forum to demonstrate complex perceptual theories related to the persistence of vision and phi phenomenon. The dance of objects and their movements before the camera lens–somewhat similar to Oskar Fischinger’s abstractions–illustrate many visual sensations playfully executed by Vorkapich.
Abstract Experiment in Kodachrome
Millions of Us
Slavko Vorkapich, Tina Taylor
Millions of Us (1935) is an early example of American labor-left filmmaking that experiments with enacted forms, anticipating Frontier Films’s renowned People of the Cumberland (1938) and Native Land (1942). Produced surreptitiously in Hollywood in 1934-5, the film dramatizes the plight of millions of unemployed workers amidst the Depression. This message is filtered through the story of a single “forgotten man” who walks the streets in desperate search of a job. Driven by hunger, he contemplates becoming a scab. A union man intervenes, coaching him to recognize common interests with his brethren. He is ultimately converted to the cause of trade unionism.
Millions of Us
Conquer by the Clock
Frederic Ullman Jr., Slavko Vorkapich
Conquer by the Clock was a short dramatic propaganda film produced by the RKO Pathé in 1942 to encourage wartime industrial production. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1943.
Conquer by the Clock
