George Maciunas was the founder of the 'anti-art, pro-chance' Fluxus Movement, and Artype is a simple but mesmeric short film from 1966, one of many made by him and his associates as an accompaniment to the numerous parties, shows, happenings and freakouts organised, attended and no doubt thoroughly enjoyed by the cream of the 1960s American Avant Garde.
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It seems unnecessary to reiterate that these are random selections, what else could they be in this Universe?
Ground breaking computer generated graphics from one of the pioneers, cool (and cool looking) Lillian Schwartz (1927-2024).
In Rotte Sun (Red Sun, 1970) four West German women decide to kill as many men as they can. It's a groovy era, though, so even with a packed agenda, there is always time to cut a rug.
Red Sun tries very hard to be daring in terms of its attitudes toward life, death, sex and revolution but is far too turgid and muddled to shock. It is oddly compelling, however, rather like watching the old, slow, pleasantly boring early iteration of reality TV show Big Brother, just punctuated by murder rather than arguments about who's eaten all the cereal.
Nuits Rouge, d. Georges Franju (1974)
Georges Franju's last film (a low budget French-Yugoslav-Italian TV production) has some of the kinetic energy of Judex, and even a little of its poetry, but only in very short bursts.
The plot, which is a load of Tin Tin type nonsense about the lost treasure of the Knights Templars, allows for action, intrigue and a somnambulistic Gayle Hunnicutt in a Catwoman outfit, killing people with deadly darts launched from a blow pipe.
It all ends in a James Bond style 'assault on the secret base' finale, which is quite hard for a director to pull off with seemingly only twenty people at their disposal. Franju manages it, of course, he's Franju.
Sylvia Koscina as the last minute heroine of Judex: Daisy, the fortuitously passing acrobat.
