Sorry for the subject line, I couldn’t think of a better one.
I found a website that has a lot of old short films of the artistic variety. Here it is: www.uruweb.com/film/index.
The picture at the top is from the infamous eyeball scene in Un Chien Andalou, which is on the site, which I’ll link to after I describe it a bit. The only problems are that the image is a lot darker than when I saw it on DVD, and it’s a little hard to see everything; and it doesn’t have translations of all the title cards. The one right after the eyeball cutting scene says “10 Years Later”, IIRC. This is of interest because She shows up with both of her eyes still intact.
The eye cutting scene happens early on in it, so it’s worth watching at least that far. It’s also worth seeing the last few minutes because they lead up to the very end, with a haunting final shot. Between the eyeball cutting scene and the end, it’s not as interesting to me except for one part where a guy is dragging a piano with a dead horse and two people. Well, the parts with the ants are also interesting because Dali uses them in “The Persistence of Time” as well.
There’s one part in it that might be NSFW. It’s about a third of the way in, where a guy is fondling a woman’s breasts and her clothes disappear and reappear. That’s why I’m linking to it after describing it. Otherwise people might skip the description and unknowingly watch something NSFW. It should be safe to link to because you won’t see that part unless you start watching it.
If anyone saw the screen (I’m in the computer room of my school’s library) during that part they probably think I’m some kind of perv. Oh well.
So here’s the link: http://www.ubu.com/film/bunuel.html
The other movie on the site that I saw is Film, which was written by Samuel Beckett. Even though it’s his only work in this medium (a film), it has a lot of similarities to his other work.
The Wikipedia page says something interesting about it, but it’s a poorly written article and the interpretation it has isn’t very good IMO, so I’ll just say here what the interesting bit is. I’ll spoiler it in case people want to analyze the movie themselves. You’ll notice that the camera is following the main character. This is actually the perspective of someone who is following him. The identity of the follower is revealed at the end. You’ll notice that the camera moves to stay right behind him, but there are a few parts where it rotates around him a bit and then he stops and looks freaked out, then the camera goes back behind him and he continues on. The man is unaware of the existence of the follower as long as it stays right behind him.
There’s another movie on the page that’s one of his plays, but I haven’t seen it yet.
If there are other movies on that site that anyone thinks is of interest, go ahead and mention them. I’m not sure I want to put in the time to watch the movies on the site unless someone says they’re worth watching.