Best known for his magical collage boxes, Joseph Cornell also constructed collage films. His classic Rose Hobart, recognized as the first collage film-rather than one which was assembled or compiled, will be presented this fall as part of our surrealist-film series. Tonight we are delighted to present three recently rediscovered Cornell films, preserved by the Anthology Film Archives' Independent Film Preservation Program in New York: Boys' Games, Lonely Fountain and Collage #36. Local filmmaker Bruce Conner's first film, A Movie, might also be categorized as a "last film" or perhaps the sum of all films. As the title suggests, Conner takes on the movies, their conventions and our expectations in a wild continuity created from classic chase scenes, orgasmic eruptions, film leader and various disasters (to pull just a few instances from the flow). The film moves dizzyingly forward, following a logic of movement, action and shape, yet savoring the illogic of word and visual play, revealing a trajectory of desire, as much about the audience as the movies. As a result of ads placed in Bay Area newspapers, Ron Finne amassed a collection of other people's home movies (dating from the `20s to the `60s) for People Near Here. Those selected for the film were left untouched, although carefully chosen and ordered. Unlike the highly controlled work of Conner, Finne's interest seems to be in the chance, the arbitrary. Owen Land's What's Wrong With This Picture combines original and found footage. In the first section, two students interview a passer-by. The cinematic apparatus is foregrounded, both in their discussion and its presentation. The second section, a good-citizen clip followed by Land's recreation of it, questions not only the "truth" of the image, but of its content. In Pull Out/Fallout, Daniel Barnett creates a "junkfilm assemblage" from fifty prints of a trailer for a James Bond film. Barnet's "pull out" from the images is wonderfully timed to reveal Bond's secret mission. Ken Jacobs re-edited a mediocre fifties film he found in a trash bin to create The Doctor's Dream . "What's important to know is that, in recutting it, nothing was done to make a point or be funny. It was cut blind, that is, according to scheme. Unexpectedly, something was learned about how hot secret messages are smuggled through (social) customs. Sequential progression along conventional lines has the magic effect of disguising the real matter at hand from the observer" (Ken Jacobs). --Kathy Geritz Boys' Games, Lonely Fountain, Collage #36 by Joseph Cornell (Dates unknown, c. 10 mins, B&W, Prints from Anthology Film Archives). A Movie by Bruce Conner (1958, 12 mins, B&W, Print from PFA Collection). People Near Here by Ron Finne (1969, 12 mins, Silent, Color/B&W). What's Wrong With This Picture by Owen Land (1972, l0.5 mins, B&W/Color). Pull Out/Fallout by Daniel Barnett (1974, 4 mins, Color). The Doctor's Dream by Ken Jacobs (1978, 23 mins, B&W, Print from Film-makers' Cooperative).