John Zorn Movies

A documentary about the colorful life, times and music of a true original, Louis “Moondog” Hardin, an eccentric blind musician and composer who had far-reaching artistic influence in spite of a deliberate decision to live on the streets of New York City. With a wealth of never before seen...

An opera by John Zorn and Richard Foreman

Raised in an insular Polish immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn where he's destined to become a poor baker like his father, Kaz Malek attempts to steal from a Russian mobster and run away with the girl of his dreams, Eva. Not cut out for a life of crime, he ends up with a $10,000 debt to the mobster...

For 12 years now, Mathieu Amalric has been filming the stupendous New York saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Whirligig films that Zorn likes to programme during his concerts, like a musical set. They are screened here for the first time out of a concert setting. Music in the making,...

Mathieu Amalric’s film with John Zorn began as a European TV commission that was quickly abandoned in favor of something more intimate: an ongoing dialogue between two friends that will always be a work-in-progress.

PBS produced documentary in two parts: the first is dedicated to saxophonist and composer John Zorn; the second is about Sonic Youth at the height of their powers in 1988.

A job like any other, for those who get up, go to bed, and collect their money.

Agatha is an international lawyer, Jo a filmmaker. The two women are lovers. While Jo is on the road showing her films, Agatha discovers and reads her diaries. Problems ensue as Agatha's transgressions lead to jealousy and a spiraling cycle of sexual obsession.

Filmed with an intimate three camera shoot by Antonio Ferrera, a close friend of John Zorn and a long time cameraman for the documentary masters the Maysles Brothers, this concert film captures the band performing a set of Zorn's Masada compositions at their home base in the Lower East Side, Tonic,...

Money (1985) is an historical document of the early days of "language poetry" and the downtown improvised music scene. A manic collage film from the mid-80s when it still seemed that Reaganism of the soul could be defeated. Filmed primarily on the streets of Manhattan for the ambient sounds and...

For 12 years now, Mathieu Amalric has been filming the stupendous New York saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Whirligig films that Zorn likes to programme during his concerts, like a musical set. They are screened here for the first time out of a concert setting. Music in the making,...

A look at avant-garde filmmaker Marie Menken.

Part Two of John Zorn's COBRA (see April 16 for Part One).

John Zorn with his band at Anthology Film Archves performs COBRA, part one.

Experimental documentary about Japanese experimental musician Otomo Yoshihide. Includes interviews with multiple musicians, artists, and writers as well as live footage.

This film is a documentary composition of new jazz, New York as the city that generates it, and the musicians playing it. The thoughts of the saxophonist Charles Gayle and the bass players William Parker and Peter Kowald from Germany accompany the film. Shot on 16 mm, this film remains one of a...

Short comedy film from Dina Waxman.

Loosely based on a section of the great Indian Mahabharata epic, Mori's Bhima Swarga (The Heaven of Bhima) is a riveting audiovisual exercise that uses mural paintings from the 18th century Kertha Gosha court in Bali to create a beautiful jigsaw of colour, glitch, figurative exoticism and plastic...

The more the knots tighten around her body, the more Clara's imagination flies away. She finds herself naked at the edge of a forest. The grass tickles her feet, a bramble scratches her, her breathing accelerates under the electric shocks of the nettles. Clara joins her lover, the forest.

Short animation from Nicolas Brault