JEFFERSON CIRCUS SONGS
16mm, 16 minutes, 1973
Created in the summer of 1973 in the basketball court of Jefferson High School in Minneapolis, Jefferson Circus Songs uses both cut-out animation and pixilation to create a “circus” of surreal happenings. The actors are Minneapolis school children dressed in fantasy costumes- each child imagined the roll they wanted to play (princess, monkey, etc).
Restored by the Academy Film Archive
“JEFFERSON CIRCUS SONGS alternates and sometimes combines life-size cardboard animations with live performances by children and the effect is entirely unified and delightful.”
“Suzan Pitt [Kraning]’s films possess an absolutely cosmic sense of patience, of things happening at their own speed and with their own logic. Made with children, JEFFERSON CIRCUS SONGS is a string of puzzling little episodes, some using cut-out animation, some featuring a pixilated cast clad in moppet wigs with stockings stretched over their faces. After its screening at the 1973 New York Filmmaker’s Expo, critic Rex Reed noted that ‘most of it is quite sophisticated and brilliant. It’s likeable because it’s perfect for what it is - a fantasy - and such things, if done well and with talent and vision, need no outside logic ... like looking into a Faberge egg.’ ”