GET SHORTY
Every year the EIFF is home to dozens of fantastic SHORT FILMS. Paul Dale celebrates these little gems and looks at what’s showing in the last few days of the Festival.
It‘s that old dictum that was probably handed
down by the American poet Robert Frost that
‘there is no money in poetry but that‘s OK because there is no poetry in money‘. The same truth can be brought to the largely unthanked task of making movies — little titchy ones. Short films have been around since the beginning of cinematic age — Georges Melies (Le Voyage dens la Lune) and lidwin S Porter (The Great Train Rnbberjt‘) produced nothing else but short films. lt wasn‘t until that big old Klansman DW Griffiths mastered a new cinematic technology that the average feature film could become longer anyway — but that is a whole different story. Back in the early days of the 20th century shorts were an excellent way for the major
92 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 2:") Aug—8 Sep 200.“)
studios to experiment with new technology.
especially with the growth and development of
sound and animation. The growing American (and. to a lesser extent. UK) studios soon established departments specialising in shorts and these mini-movies were regularly slotted in between the main feature or newsreels. But clearly once the feature film industry really took off. the majors relegated the short form. The growth of television didn‘t really help to further their cause but new independent filmmakers who saw them as a great opportunity to showcase their abilities and hone their skills through making short films pounced upon the medium. Experimentation. obviously vital to the growth of the short film form. coupled with the freedom of expression enjoyed outside the rigid studio system in the 50s and ()(ls. resulted in more experimental work and bolder subject matters being confronted. And this is where I come in. My favourite shorts of all time are from this period. They are not only some of my favourite shorts — they are some of my favourite films. Their miniscule charm still plays across the windmills of my largely empty mind every day of my life. A handful of these mini babes that immediately come to mind are Stanley Kubrick‘s 16 minute boxing documentary The Day of the Fight. Chris Marker‘s brilliant 28 minute mind fuck La Jete’e (much later remade by Terry Gilliam as 'lii'eli'e Monkeys) and Chuck
Jones' brilliant Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera Dm‘f’. in which the carrot muncher gets to annoy the crap out of that old Jew hater Richard Wagner. They are all (to me at least) absolute masterpieces.
A lot has happened since these films were made — the short film became integral to the agit prop movement of political protest in 1970s America before being hijacked as a truly powerful commercial tool by MTV and the multichannel madness it spawned. Video. digital and computer editing facilities allowed a hungry
‘WITHOUT SHORT FILMMAKERS THIS FESTIVAL HAS NO HEART OR TRUTH'
new breed to use short filmmaking as a platform to greater fame and fortune. But undemeath this entire broad stroke history. there is a demographic of deeply dedicated short filmmakers who love the form and love the audiences who love their form. Much of the work of these often brilliant and beautiful men and women ends up in Edinburgh every year. Let us ‘praise them praise them' — because. let’s face it. without them this Festival has no heart or truth.