Lawrence Jordan

Born: 1934-01-01 in Denver, Colorado, USA

Known For: Directing

Biography

Known principally as a maverick spirit in the world of avant-garde American cinema, Lawrence Jordan played an important role in the late 1950s and early 1960s San Francisco art scene. Jordan has made over seventy experimental films, including a number of fanciful, filmic animations made from collaged cut outs of Victorian engravings. The animations extend dreamlike imagery of collaged landscape into a cinematic realm of transformation and free form symbolism. Jordan seeks to delve into the deep structures and Jungian connotations of the mythological images his films reference. His alchemical approach to imagery creates what he has called the “theater of the mind, which you construct. That is the Underworld... the realm of the imagination. You have to have a place to work with images.” Jordan founded the film department of the San Francisco Art institute in 1969 and taught there for over thirty years. He made his own box assemblages in Cornell ’s lyrically evocative style since the mid-1960s. Many feature ingenious mechanical and kinetic effects. He continues to make films and box collages at his home and studio in Petaluma where he has lived since 1978.

Filmography

2025

Films For Freedom ... (Director)

2024

Hommage ... (Director)
Reve d'Or ... (Director)

2022

Harper's Bazar ... (Director)

2021

Alchemy ... (Director)
Belle du Jour ... (Director)

2020

Encounters in Light as The Filmmaker

2019

Oz ... (Director)
The Ogre's Garden ... (Director)

2018

Delirium ... (Director)

2017

Time Travel ... (Director)
Entr’acte III ... (Director)

2016

Night Light ... (Director)

2015

The Apoplectic Walrus ... (Director)
The Apoplectic Walrus ... (Director)
Entr'acte II ... (Director)

2014

Inferno ... (Director)
Driving Demons ... (Director)
Entr'Acte ... (Director)

2013

Solar Sight III ... (Director)
After the Circus ... (Director)

2012

Solar Sight II ... (Director)

2011

Solar Sight ... (Director)

2010

Cosmic Alchemy ... (Director)
Beyond Enchantment ... (Director)

2009

Circus Savage ... (Director)

2008

The Miracle of Don Cristobal ... (Director)
Blue Skies Beyond the Looking Glass ... (Director)

2007

Silent Sonatas ... (Director)

2005

Poet's Dream ... (Director)

2004

Chateau/Poyet ... (Director)
Enid's Idyll ... (Director)

1996

Postcard from San Miguel ... (Director)

1993

The Grove ... (Director)
Star of Day ... (Director)

1992

The Black Oud ... (Director)

1991

The Visible Compendium ... (Director)

1988

Tapestry as Himself

1986

Sophie's Place ... (Director)

1983

Winter Light ... (Director)
Adagio ... (Director)

1982

In a Summer Garden ... (Director)

1981

Masquerade ... (Director)

1980

Carabosse ... (Director)
Finds of the Fortnight ... (Director)

1979

Moonlight Sonata ... (Director)

1978

Cornell, 1965 as Narrator (voice)
Ancestors ... (Director)
Visions of a City ... (Director)

1977

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ... (Director)

1976

The Apparition ... (Director)

1973

Orb ... (Director)
Once Upon a Time ... (Director)

1965

Gymnopédies ... (Director)
A Legend for Fountains ... (Co-Director)
The Dream Merchant ... (Director)
Hamfat Asar ... (Director)

1964

Johnnie ... (Director)
Jewel Face ... (Director)
Duo Concertantes ... (Director)
Ein Traum der Liebenden ... (Director)

1963

Pink Swine! ... (Director)

1961

The forty and one nights ... (Director)

1960

Hymn in Praise of the Sun ... (Director)
Portrait of Sharon ... (Director)
The Season's Change ... (Director)
The Soccer Game ... (Director)

1959

Minerva Looks Out into the Zodiac ... (Director)

1958

Triptych in Four Parts ... (Director)

1957

Spectre Mystagogic ... (Director)

1956

The One Romantic Venture of Edward ... (Director)
Trumpit ... (Director)
Water Light ... (Director)
Three ... (Director)

1955

Untitled Film of Geoffrey Holder's Wedding
Undertow ... (Director)

1954

1953

Unglassed Windows Cast a Terrible Reflection