The Rooftop Cinema page on the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s website characterizes Caroline Leaf’s animation as “truly magical” and given the four short films on deck this week, Madison’s summer arthouse series definitely capitalizes on Leaf’s sleepy wizardry.
A once prolific animator who has since retreated to a more reclusive position in documentary filmmaking, Caroline Leaf’s recent track record isn’t a sufficient scale of judgment. Some of Leaf’s earliest pieces reveal a sharp eye for image and an ingenuity in technicality. “Sand (or Peter and the Wolf)” isn’t just the first film in Rooftop’s collection; it’s Leaf’s first film ever. A loose interpretation of the classic fable, “Peter and the Wolf” establishes an early precedent for Leaf’s under-the-camera technique as she manipulates sand on top of glass.
Leaf would adapt her style further for “The Street,” a frank portrait of a family coping with the impending death of a loved one. Painting directly onto the glass the time, Leaf dissolves from one scene to another in a somnambulant flow. In a single motion, a young boy hopping a fire hydrant becomes that same boy hopping forward in time, his figure melting to a different posture and a new set of clothes. Given its anxieties over death and uncertainty, “The Street” feels like an especially valuable bad dream or a censored sequence from an especially risqué Sesame Street episode.
By 1977, Leaf had mastered telling stories using her sand sorcery in adapting Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. “The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa” is a liberal translation of Kafka’s postmodern text, but what it lacks in fidelity it makes up for in atmosphere and direction, and Leaf’s ability to simulate camera movement — again, all through manipulating grains of sand — is nothing short of sublime.
Fittingly, MMoCA’s presentation concludes with Leaf’s last animated short to date. Drawn out via scratching on 70mm film, “Two Sisters” crystallizes Leaf’s commanding direction and world-weary dreaminess. A very twisted relationship between two reclusive siblings emerges from and then retreats back into the darkness as limbs stretch out across the frame, swirling in and out like visions in a crystal ball. This isn’t “movie magic.” This is sorcery.
- “The Animated Poetry of Caroline Leaf” plays Friday June 13 at 9:30p in MMoCA’s Rooftop Sculpture Garden. Admission is $7 for general audiences and FREE to museum members.