Heaven and Earth Magic
Heaven and Earth Magic (also known as Number 12, The Magic Feature, or Heaven and Earth Magic Feature) is a 1962 American avant-garde cutout animation film directed by visual artist, filmmaker and mystic Harry Everett Smith.
| Heaven and Earth Magic | |
|---|---|
 Film still from Heaven and Earth Magic | |
| Directed by | Harry Everett Smith |
| Produced by | Harry Everett Smith |
| Edited by | Harry Everett Smith |
Production company | Mystic Fire Video |
| Distributed by | Mystic Fire Video |
Release date |
|
Running time | 66 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Plot
Heaven and Earth Magic centers on an unnamed heroine, whose journey after the loss of a "very valuable watermelon", results in various bizarre situations including a visit to the dentist, being transported to heaven, and return to earth after being "devoured by Max Müller on the day Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London".
Reception
Fred Camper from Chicago Reader praised the film's artistic style, calling it "a mysterious world of alchemical transformations in which objects suggest a multitude of possibilities."[2] Time Out Magazine offered the film similar praise, comparing it to the works of Max Ernst and Georges Méliès.[3]
Legacy
It is listed in the film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, noting the film as director Smith's magnum opus, and saying "Incomplete, deeply idiosyncratic, rearranged from materials taken largely from an earlier period —a Victorian-era catalogue— it is explicitly "folk" in nature."[4]
See also
- List of animated feature films
- List of stop-motion films
- Cutout animation
- Alchemy
- Hermetic Qabalah
References
Citations
- Marcus 2011, p. 106.
- Camper 2020.
- TimeOut 2014.
- Schneider 2013, p. 392.
Sources
Books
- Marcus, Greil (April 26, 2011). The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes. Picador. ISBN 978-1-4299-6158-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Steven Jay Schneider (2013). 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Barron's. ISBN 978-0-7641-6613-6.
Websites
- Camper, Fred. "Heaven and Earth Magic". ChicagoReader.com. The Chicago Reader. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
- "Heaven and Earth Magic 1962, directed by Harry Smith". TimeOut.com. Time Out Magazine. Archived from the original on April 17, 2014. Retrieved February 10, 2020.