FILM, VIDEO, DVD: ALPHABETICAL LISTINGS
A B C D E F G H I J K L MN O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
Film, Video, DVD: N
Nancy Graves: Balance AT-52
30 min / color / 1992 / GPN / DVD /VHS
Elementary school through adult
Children will discover that balance doesn't always mean symmetry as artists create balance through shape and color. Sculptor Nancy Graves wears a hard hat and works in a foundry to create a work that is a surprising balancing act. Hosted by the comedy team Penn and Teller, this program encourages creativity and critical thinking.
The Napping House ED-186
5 min / color / 1985 / WW / 16mm, VHS
Preschool through adult
The mood for this simple tale of family members and the snuggling heap they make on a drowsy day is set by cool blue colors and wistful woodwinds. Sleepy bodies accumulate on a sagging bed, one by one, each to its particular musical theme and narrative tone. All is calm until a fateful itch throws the pyramid into an eruptive reverie as the sun breaks through in glorious color, filling the house "where no one now is sleeping." The repetitive text invites young viewers to join in!
Suggested Classroom Activities: Have students discuss how color affects our moods or perceptions of a setting; have students make up a story of their own that has a chain-reaction in it and discuss with them how often small things can affect big ones.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts: A Woman’s Touch NEW!
30 min/2002/ DVD
High school through college
From the realization that female fine artists through the ages have largely been ignored in art history, The National Museum of Women in the Arts was founded. This is a survey of great woman artists in the museum’s collection. It begins in the 1500s Italy with Lavinia Fontana, Sofonisba Anguissola, and Elisabetta Sirani then moves through the centuries to Northern Europe, France, and the U.S.: Maria Sibylla Merian, Marianne Loir, Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Suzanne Valadon, Camille Claudel, Mary Cassatt, Lilla Cabot Perry, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Alice Neel, Audrey Flack, Frida Kahlo, and Lorrie Goulet. Subtitled for hearing disabled.
Native American Architecture
ED-494
20 min / 1996 / LUC / VHS
Middle school through adult
Pueblo, tipi, hogan, longhouse-these are words that symbolize Native Americans to most people. But they are also unique forms of architecture and inventive building forms that suit the needs of a people living in unison with nature. Here’s a tour across America of the dwellings of every major group. From simple wigwams and iglus to the grandeur of pyramid mounds and magnificent clan houses of the Pacific Northwest.
Native Americans: Myths and Realities ED-484
16 min / 1997 / CHA / VHS
Middle school through adult
This film features young Native Americans who seek to find a balance between the tradition of their culture from the past, and the conformity to modern day society. The teens struggle with maintaining cultural identity in a world that may not understand or accept difference. The fight to find common ground can be aided with education in the school systems and also from peer groups.
Native Land ED-448 NEW!
88 min/1942/ VHS
High school through adult
In this historic film, conventional narrative style was disregarded to invent a more subjective and instinctive approach to cinema. During the Great Depression, photographer Paul Strand and documentarian Leo Hurwitz unflinchingly strove to expose the forces that threaten to undermine the strengths of the United States from within--social injustice, greed, anti-unionism, and racism. Commentary spoken and sung by Paul Robeson.
Nature and Nature: Andy Goldsworthy WA-574
17 min / 1991 / RC / VHS
High school through adult
The viewer is privileged to observe Andy Goldsworthy in the Scottish countryside creating sculptures and formations that are in harmony with the environment. His materials are drawn from nature itself and his works, like many natural things, are ephemeral. He meets up with Colin Renfrew, head of the Cambridge University Department of Archaeology. The two discover surprising similarities between their interests and approaches toward their chosen pursuits.
The Nature of Music WA-343
141 min / color / 1988 / FI / VHS
High school through adult
"Is there truth in the saying that music can offer what the rest of life denies us?" Narrator Jeremy Marre poses this question at the beginning of this
2-part investigation of the role of music in human life. Part One (Sources and Sorcery) and Part Two (Songs and Symbols) each take the viewer on wide-ranging travels around the world, visiting cultures as diverse as Madagascar, Tibet, Andalusia, and the Arctic North. Music is depicted as an essential part of human existence, defining religious ceremony, celebrating birth and death, and connecting human beings with animals, the natural world, and each other. This program is recommended not only for music classes, but also for students of art history, dance, and social studies.
Navajo: Race for Prosperity ED-95
26 min / color / 1976 / DA / 16mm
Middle school through adult
This film offers a contemporary view of life on a Navajo reservation and focuses on the development of industries there. An arts and crafts cooperative provides a source of income and at the same time keeps alive the Navajos' beautiful art traditions. The film suggests that the Navajos' future prosperity may depend on the Indians' management of their reservation's reserves of coal, uranium, and oil.
Neighbors ED-363
9 min / color / 1953 / IFB / VHS
Middle school through adult
In this widely acclaimed film, the late animator Norman McLaren (1914-1987) uses his pixillation technique of stop-action animation to create a social parable that has become a classic. "Movement is my basic language," McLaren said. "Motion is at the heart of cinema." Inspired by the surrealist art movement, McLaren developed this innovative method of movement rather than relying on narration to depict the story of 2 men who fight and die over a flower. Academy Award.
Nellie's Playhouse ED-125
14 min / color / 1982 / CSF / 16mm
Middle school through adult
Nellie Mae Rowe claims that she never had the chance to become an artist, yet her work was included in the exhibition of black folk art What It Is. This film examines her artistic productions-the huge dolls, stuffed-cloth hands, and found objects that have transformed her yard into a sculpture garden. In the film, the artist discusses her work and her passion "not for high things but for junk." Filmmaker Linda Armstrong has captured the joy of creation and one woman's triumph over adversity.
Neon: An Electric Memoir ED-171
25 min / color / 1984 / MCN / 16mm/DVD
High school through adult
This is a lively and amusing documentary about neon lights. Actress Jackie Burroughs portrays an aging and slightly decadent neon afficionado who reminisces about this electrifying art form. Neon signs and art from all across North America are featured, from Times Square in New York to the Las Vegas strip, from Soho lofts to the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles.
Neorealism up to 1954 ED-579 NEW!
60 min / 1992 / VHS
College through adult
Neorealism was the film movement that grew out of and tried to
make sense of the political and social chaos of post-WWII Italy.
For a decade it dominated Italian cinema and was the training
ground for Fellini, Rossellini and other luminaries of 20th century
film. This retrospective, recommended for advanced film students,
is narrated with English subtitles by director Carlo Lizzani.
The New Architecture
58 min each / color / 1986-87 / BFI / 16mm
College through adult
ln this series, lively documentaries explore the challenges, concerns, and major achievements of 5 contemporary architects. Profiled in these film portraits are Arata Isozaki of Japan, O.M. Ungers of Germany, Ralph Erskine of Sweden, James Stirling of the United Kingdom, and Richard Meier of the United States. In-depth interviews with the architects and their critics are combined with dramatic footage of their buildings and architectural drawings to present a series of films that will entertain, enlighten, and challenge the viewing audience.
- 1. Richard Meier NA-1
American architect Richard Meier leads the viewer on a personal tour of his major buildings, as well as the buildings that have most inspired him-
Le Corbusier's La Tourette in France and the baroque churches of southern Germany. Known for his stark white volumes and his use of grids, Meier describes his style as one of synthesized opposites-solid/void, public/private, man-made/natural, and, finally, art/function. Meier's progress is reviewed in visits to his buildings, beginning with his Smith House and including the Bronx Developmental Center; the Atheneum in New Harmony, Indiana; the Hartford Seminary; the Des Moines Art Center; the Frankfurt Decorative Arts Museum; and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
2. O. M. Ungers NA-2
Oswald Mathias Ungers is a highly intellectual architect whose work emphasizes history and continuity in architecture. "There are," he says "in certain circumstances, values and memories one can and should preserve." With a background in the cultural traditions of the area between Cologne and Trier, he explains that the history he grew up with becomes almost an existential issue for him and that "it is important for everybody to have a cultural history on which he can base his work." Ungers visits the Mathias Chapel and the Imperial Thermal Baths of Trier and the Castle Elz, places that influenced him as a child. Ungers's own projects shown in the film include the Oberhausener Institute in Cologne, low-income housing in Marburg and West Berlin, Constantin Square in Trier, the Baden State Library in Karlsruhe, and the Frankfurt Fairgrounds.
3. James Stirling NA-3
British architect James Stirling rejects the label of Post-Modernist, considering himself to be more sympathetic to the concerns of Modern architecture; he feels that Post-Modernism denotes a concern with surface that he does not share. One critic says of Stirling, "He understands the visual language of architecture and plays with it like a master." Stirling discusses criticism of his work by what he calls the "New Fogies," who object to his use of brilliant color. The 3 main buildings designed by Stirling that are explored in this film are the Sackler Museum at Harvard University, the Clore Extension to the Tate Gallery in London, and the New State Gallery in Stuttgart.
4. Arata Isozaki NA-4
Arata Isozaki, whose commissions now extend to the United States and Europe, is considered to be Japan's most influential architect. In this film, Isozaki discusses his early years of work with the noted Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and visits some of the most important buildings of his 20-year career, including the Oita Medical Hall, the Iwata Girl's School, and the Festival Plaza designed for Expo '70 in Osaka. Isozaki explains his approach to architecture and discusses the European, American, and Japanese influences that have determined the look of his designs. "My work includes quotations from the whole of our cultural legacy up to the present, bringing forth, hopefully, unique metaphors." At the site of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Isozaki speculates on the direction his work will take in the future.
5. Ralph Erskine NA-5
Ralph Erskine was born in London in 1914, but permanently relocated to Stockholm, Sweden, in 1939 where he was able to realize his dream of designing socially relevant architecture. In this film, Erskine discusses his response to early modern architecture, claiming that it consisted of too much technology with not enough consideration of the community to which a building belonged. The architect visits and discusses the designs of several large communities that he designed in Sweden, along with buildings on the campus of Frascati University and the town center of Ancona, Italy. In each case, Erskine talks about the design of the buildings as they relate to the people who live in them, designs that reflect the architect's own concept of "locally defined architecture."
6. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown NA-6
The Sainsbury Wing of London's National Gallery of Art is the central focus of this program about the architectural team, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. This controversial building, which drew praise from the client and condemnation from the Prince of Wales, elucidates the architects' clear commitment to complexity and contradiction in modern architecture. Their anti-heroic principles are examined by critics and the architects themselves.
A New Spirit in Painting:
Six Painters of the 1980s WA-173
58 min / color / 1984 / BPI / 16mm, VHS
High school through adult
International developments in painting are explored through the work of 6 provocative artists of our day: Georg Baselitz and Markus Lupertz from Germany; Sandro Chia and Francesco Clemente, Italians who moved their studios to New York in the early 1980s; and 2 Americans, David Salle and Julian Schnabel. We see these artists at work and hear them explain their sources and their attitudes toward image making.
New Ways of Seeing:
Picasso, Braque, and the Cubist Revolution WA-360
58 min / color / 1989 / PM / VHS
High school through adult
This program documents the 1989 exhibition, Picasso and Braque: Pioneering Cubism, held at New York's Museum of Modern Art. William Rubin, director emeritus of MOMA's Department of Painting and Sculpture, discusses the exchange between Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque that led to Cubism, one of the most influential art movements of this century. He explores fundamental differences in technique, vision, and temperament that fueled the artists' joint exploration of how to paint what we see. Interviews with later artists and designers, such as David Hockney, provide perspectives on Cubism's lasting influence on art, architecture, and design. The documentary is followed by a short behind-the-scenes look at the complex and exciting process of organizing a major exhibition of international scope.
New World Visions, I & II WA-233
60 min each / color / 1985 / FI / 3/4"vc, VHS
High school through adult
Vincent Scully, Sterling Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, examines and analyzes the first 350 years of American art, architecture, and design, and how these forms reflect the American consciousness. In these 2 programs, Scully uses as his base the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, with its impressive array of paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, furnishings, and interiors. He also ventures on location into larger architectural or natural settings. When ordering, please specify Part I (1650-1850) or Part II (1850-1914).
The New York School WA-117
55 min / color / 1975 / BPI / 16mm, VHS
High school through adult
This survey of Abstract Expressionism, written and narrated by Barbara Rose, discusses such noted 20th-century artists as Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, Philip Guston, Al Held, Hans Hoffman, Franz Kline, Willem deKooning, Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell, Barrett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still, along with two well-known critics of the time, Clement Greenberg and Robert Rosenberg.
Nguzo Saba: The Seven Principles
Varied times; see below / color / 1983 / BEA / VHS
Elementary school through adult
This series of video programs was produced to demonstrate the universality of the human experience through the folklore of people of African
descent. Each program demonstrates one of seven principles that support values that strengthen the family, school, and community. The seven principles (Nguzo Saba) are concepts coined in the Swahili language; they are the underlying concepts of the African-American festival of Kwanza. Produced under the supervision of Carol Munday Lawrence, the series employs the artistic talents of many filmmakers, as well as children's drawings.
- 1. Umoja: Tiger and the Big Wind (5 min) NS-1
The principle explored in this program is unity in the family, school, and community. Br'er Rabbit and his ingenious friends have to work together to get water from a hole greedily guarded by a ferocious tiger.
2. Kujichagulia: The Kangaroos Who Forgot (5 min) NS-2
Kujichagulia is a Swahili word meaning self-determination. This program tells the tale of 2 young kangaroos who get lost in the Australian outback and are adopted by a group of platypuses. The kangaroos eventually learn, "You try to be what you are not, you've lost the best of what you are."
3. Ujamaa: Noel's Lemonade Stand (8 min) NS-3
The principle of Ujamaa encourages economic cooperation. In this tale, Noel, a teenage boy who wants to earn more money, sets up a lemonade stand on his own. The business begins to make money only after one of his neighbors volunteers to help out with cookies to sell and moral support.
4. Ujima: Modupe and the Flood (5 min) NS-4
Ujima means sharing work and responsibility; this principle encourages people to build communities together and to share problems. Modupe, a village elder, rescues his community from an impending flood by burning his own home on the mountain, knowing that the villagers will rush to his aid and thus be safe on the hill, high above the flood waters.
5. Nia: Mary Jean and the Green Stone (4 min) NS-5
Nia implies doing one's best for oneself and for the community. In this story by Alice Walker, a young girl loses her ritual stone when she refuses to help a neighbor. She finds it only after she offers to help anybody who will assist her in her search.
6. Kuumba: Simon's New Sound (8 min) NS-6
Kuumba means creativity and the use of one's talents to beautify the community. Simon, a young boy of Trinidad, is trying to create a new musical instrument for Carnival. The sound of rain beating on an old oil drum gives him an idea, and results in Simon creating the drum that has become the national instrument of Trinidad.
7. Imani: Beegie and the Egg (7 min) NS-7
Imani teaches belief in one's family, one's community, and oneself. Beegie, a Masai girl, is told by her dying father to take an egg to the biggest acacia tree in the forest and to sing to it every day. She carries out his wishes because she has trust in her father and faith in herself.
Niagara Falls: The Changing Nature
of a New World Symbol ED-207
28 min / color / 1985 / DC / 16mm, VHS
Middle school through adult
Few places in the Western Hemisphere have figured so long in the American imagination as Niagara Falls. This fast-paced, often funny documentary tackles the fundamental question of what a nation does with its symbols. In the 17th century, the falls were seen as the quintessential wilderness symbol, vast and terrifying. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this symbol changed to represent the moral and national strength of the New World. With civilization in the background, this film allows the viewer to see Niagara with the eye of the artist, the explorer, and the Iroquois. This is an excellent film for general audiences and especially for students of history, art, and literature.
Nigerian Art: Kindred Spirits WA-427
60 min / color / 1991 / PBS / VHS
Middle school through adult
African art is on the verge of being discovered by the world. Actress Ruby Dee narrates a look at Nigerian artists who have been inspired by their continent's cultural and historical legacy to create art unique to their region and experience.
Night on Bald Mountain ED-193
8 min / b&w / 1933 / CS / 16mm
Middle school through adult
Night on Bald Mountain, by Alexander Alexeiff and Claire Parker, was the first film made on an animation pinboard and is now considered a classic in film animation. Based on a lively Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement of Mussorgsky's tone poem, the filmmakers have created a fantasy world of witches, demons, and skeletons. Images emerge and recede; storm clouds hover over scarecrows; cats, bats, and menacing warlocks cavort in the eerie moonlight.
Suggested Classroom Activity: Play a recording of the Rimsky-Korsakov piece and have students discuss it before seeing the film; after showing the film to the students, ask them to discuss any changes that the film made in their perception of the piece.
Norman Rockwell ED-463
50 min / 1994/ A&E / VHS
High school through adult
Norman Rockwell’s distinctive illustrations, glowing with the simple, noble character of average citizens, crystallized an image of 20th century American life. This A&E Biography video provides an intimate portrait of the artist and the man with interviews of friends and people he used as models and takes us on a tour of the Norman Rockwell Museum and his best-known images.
Norman Rockwell's World:
An American Dream WA-97
25 min / color / 1973 / FI / 16mm, VHS
Middle school through adult
Norman Rockwell, American artist and illustrator, began his career by illustrating magazines and books for children. He was known particularly for his paintings that appeared for decades on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post, and for his illustrations of such books as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The beauty and simplicity of the artist's world are revealed through his paintings, old photographs, film footage, and interviews.
Norman the Doorman ED-160
15 min / color / 1971 / WW / 16mm, VHS
Elementary school through adult
Norman is a feisty little mouse who lives in an art museum. His job is to stand guard at the mouse-hole entrance to the museum, but his true ambition is to become an artist. One of Norman's wire sculptures wins an award at the museum's art show, and Norman is granted his greatest desire-a tour of the museum's upstairs galleries. A witty adaptation of the children's book by Don Freeman.
North Star: Mark di Suvero WA-180
60 min / color / 1977 / AFA / 16mm
College through adult
American sculptor Mark di Suvero creates huge, open forms of beams, steel rods, and rough-hewn planks, asymmetrical compositions that often give a sense of an architectural structure in precarious balance. In this film, di Suvero is seen at work, drawing and constructing sculptures; discussing his ideas on art and politics in France (where he is both praised and criticized as the first living sculptor to exhibit in the Tuileries Gardens); and in his studio in Lower Manhattan studio.
Notes on Seeing ED-179
30 min / color / 1983 / FL / 16mm
College through adult
A dynamic Canadian art teacher, Dorothy Medhurst, has taught countless youngsters to perceive the excitement and beauty of life around them. At the Art Gallery of Ontario, she involves children in explorations of both art and nature. She explains why she is a critic of early reading, which she feels inhibits creativity in the child. Having taught since the 1930s, Medhurst's outlook is still as fresh as that of her youngest pupil. This film provides excellent material for discussion among groups interested in encouraging creativity in children.
Notre-Dame, Cathedral of Amiens
2 parts, 15 min ea / 1998 / VHS
Middle school through adult
Part 1 ED-553
This video is a poetic portrait of the great and quintessentially
Gothic cathedral located in Amiens on the Seine River, north of
Paris. Stunning and detailed views of the structure's architectural
intricacies are provided with narration and music.
Part 2 ED-554
Through the usage of digital modeling and animation, this video
amazingly recreates the 12th century town of Amiens and its architectural
centerpiece, Notre Dame Cathedral. The way it was designed and
built, encoded as an image of heaven, and why it nearly collapsed
is revealed.
Nubia '64 ED-408
42 min / color / 1964 / RC / VHS
High school through adult
This award-winning, historic documentary film is a journal of the gargantuan and successful efforts to move and thus save so many of the precious Egyptian temples and shrines built along the banks of the Nile River millenniums ago. To insure irrigation of crops, the Aswan Dam was built in Nubia and the rising waters would cover the relics. It is both an account of conservation of colossal works and a tribute to the hard working people who participated.
The Nude in Art ED-566 and ED-567
2-parts, 50 min ea / 2002 / DVD
College through adult
Part 1 ED-566
This film series starts at the very beginning of the representation
of the nude in art. Art historians discuss all of the different
cultural symbology of nudity in art. The classical time period
valued nudity as power whereas in the Renaissance there was a
competition among artists in constructing the ideal man.
Part 2 ED-567
The Enlightenment brought about new ideas that competed with the
very wealthy and religion. Man was declared to become the center
of the world while the rational human mind was more powerful than
religion. Artists soon began sitting in on anatomy classes.
The Modern nude has become very important for its realistic quality.
N.Y., N.Y. ED-20
15 min / color / 1958 / FTI / 16mm
Middle school through adult
Francis Thompson has created this abstract photographic essay on the city, using images that bend, stretch, and compress the cityscape. His collage evokes the technology, speed, light, machines, motion, and human activity of a vital city.
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