The Midnight Short Film Club

Still from Ritwak Ghatak's "My Lenin" a Documentary short film from 1970s Bengal.

These past few month I've inadvertently fallen into the role of "projector" for my friend's dorm hangouts. I'll hook my laptop to the tv and spend hours showing music, tv shows, movies, Wikipedia articles, whatever ends up the object of our conversation. I'll occasionally pull up a film from my watchlist and throw it on, or start explaining the Kuleshov Effect, it's almost like teaching a class on nothing and everything at the same time. So today I'm going to talk about three short films, "My Lenin," "Paul is Dead," and "Mothlight"

"My Lenin" is a 1970s film by Ritwak Ghatak, a Bengali filmmaker from the era of Satyajit Ray and Parallel Cinema. It follows life in the rural villages of Bengal to the city of Calcutta as Leninist ideology is picked up by both communities. The film was banned in India for a number of years, but showed internationally which luckily meant there were a few prints circulating, which gives us today access to it. The film is available to watch for free on youtube with subtitles,

It's a simple 20 minute film, depicting the way word of Communist ideology spread from rural to urban areas. A very interesting look into the culture formed around a figure, from stage plays to streets in the honor of Lenin.

"Paul is Dead" is a completely different type of film. A 2018 comedy film about the Beatles waking up to find Paul McCartney dead, and a look-alike just down the street. Based on the real world conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney died in the late 60s and was replaced by a look-alike and the subsequent albums contained clues to this fact.

"Paul is Dead" the film is a slightly different story, brightly dressed Beatles George and John are at each others throats while Ringo is trying to keep things in order when they discover Paul had died the previous night. They decide it's best to bury him on top of a nearby mountain, and enlist the help of Billy Shears, a local man who looks exactly like Paul, while also trying to convince him to take Paul's place in their band. It's a fun watch and free on Vimeo.

"Mothlight" is an old favorite of mine, a 4 minute experimental collage film by Stan Brakhage, who is a very interesting figure in American cinema. The film is constructed from various parts of leaves and insects, and is very different form most things I've watched, which is probably what drew me to it.

Stan Brakhage himself is an important figure from American Experimental Cinema, his book "Telling Time" is quite the interesting read and I definitely recommend it. You can watch Mothlight for free off Youtube.