Category Archives: short films

Setter’s ‘Spectives: ‘Sesame Street,’ the ‘Crack Master’ and Me

~

Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Last night, I watched something I hadn’t seen in more than 30 years.

It was an imaginative animated short that appeared on Sesame Street when I was a kid, so you know it was long ago. In it, a young woman lying on her bed imagines the crack on her wall to be various friendly animals: a camel, a hen and a monkey. She travels with them through the wall and finds what is hoped to be a new pal but turns out to be the “Crack Master,” a horrible, frowning face made of cracks. This “Crack Master” then is “destroyed” as the plaster that makes up his visage falls to the ground because he is “mean.”

Whoa, right? What a trip.

Actually, this short frightened me practically to death as a young child; I remember running out of the room when it was on so I didn’t have to see it. There was something about the face of the “Crack Master” that bothered me, as well as the idea of cracks coming to life. But in watching it last night, I did something I’ve been unable to do for decades: Conquer my fear. The scares of childhood weren’t, thankfully, there. Just the remnants of memories.

This clip has some notoriety; apparently I wasn’t the only kid to be horrified by it years ago. It remains a very creative piece: stark but well-realized, despite the eerie subject matter. You can decide for yourself whether all my fears were warranted by watching it here:

Skip’s Quips: The ‘Dog’ Fan Cometh

~

Blog Sketch 082813Guess what Turner Classic Movies was showing on the tube late last night.

If you said Un Chien Andalou, you win an ant-covered hand.

That’s right. Luis Buñuel’s bizarre, seminal 1929 short was appearing on the cable channel that’s also featured flicks starring Joan Crawford, Robert Wagner and the like.

Variety’s the spice of life, it seems. Or in Chien‘s case, maybe the razor.

I’ve got to admit, though–TCM definitely doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the cinema. Its eclectic selection’s one of its hallmarks, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anything more eclectic than Buñuel’s Andalusian Dog.

I still remember hearing gasps during showings of this film at, I believe, New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The notorious scene where a man appears to slice a woman’s eyeball (it was actually a cow’s) still elicited a reaction after all these years.

I think the great Buñuel would’ve been tickled at that. He might even be amused that his Andalou was being showcased on a major cable channel.

And I can’t help but be pleased, too. This is a movie that everyone should see–a picture about nothing, filled with wild, nonsensical yet somehow connective images. It’s about filmmaking and the ability to tell a story without having one. It’s about art.

And art starred on TCM last night. Turner Classic Movies, I salute you.