Rose Hobart (1936)

Footage selected from 'East of Borneo' and other films is arranged and edited so as to highlight actress Rose Hobart.

Stars:

Charles Bickford, Rose Hobart, Noble Johnson

1 win.

Cast

Uncredited cast:
Charles Bickford	...	Man (from East of Borneo (1931) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Rose Hobart	...	Woman (from East of Borneo (1931)) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Noble Johnson	...	Man (from East of Borneo (1931) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Georges Renavent	...	Man (from East of Borneo (1931) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Lupita Tovar	...	Woman (from East of Borneo (1931)) (archive footage) (uncredited)

Storyline

Footage selected from 'East of Borneo' and other films is arranged and edited so as to highlight actress Rose Hobart.

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Plot Keywords:

gun | candle | volcano | alligator | lava | 

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Genres:

Short

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

December 1936 (USA)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

19 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Filmmaker Joseph Cornell designed this film - edited from the film East of Borneo - to be shown at "silent speed", with music provided by phonograph records, and projected through a deep blue filter.

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Connections

Edited from East of Borneo (1931)

User Reviews

A wonderful little experiment in obsession and deconstruction

A delightful experimental short, Rose Hobart takes a standard, five-year-old jungle flick called East of Borneo, cuts the sound, tints it purple, sets it to a jaunty samba, and disposes with almost anything that doesn't involve the titular actress. Quite possibly the first example of what I guess would be "found film", the cinematic equivalent to Duchamp, the deconstruction or distillation of something benign or otherwise into a completely different work of art.

The entire film is centered around Ms. Hobart, and as Cornell cuts between various sections of the film, sometimes in consecutive shots, it attains this sort of entrancing nonsense logic. She changes setting, she changes clothes, she changes peers, but she's always there, and if you avoid thinking about it exactly the way it is (it's a bunch of scenes spliced together), it becomes anything you want it to become. You can make up your own story, and the insistent aesthetics almost encourages random assumptions as she transcends time and space. Thanks to the purple tint and the delectable languidity the slow-motion affords, the entire enterprise becomes such a haunting dreamscape that even though nothing is really happening, you can't look away.

In this atmosphere, the ubiquitous samba music becomes mysterious, almost foreboding, as it happily bounces a long, a portent of doom for ol' Rose that, considering the film's unique chronology, literally COULD be right around the next corner, and not only would she never know it, but she'd probably be fine again by the time I drew another breath. Like Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son more than three decades later, Rose Hobart opens up a new reality within material that existed for completely different reasons. But if only Tom, Tom knew how to be so concise! The film is only 19 minutes, but it satisfies all, as we are seemingly experiencing things, not out of order, but at all times. For every scene that happens, I'm sure the subsequent and previous ones are happening just as well.

Such is the power of this little piece of something, nothing and everything that a simple hackjob so a guy can focus on some random chick instead of watching the movie she's in can make one feel...damn near omnipotent. Someone get me a copy of Honey with Jessica Alba on the double! Oh wait, I already have it. Oh, that's right. I haven't thought of it yet. Such is this.

{Grade: 9/10 (A-)}