‘Human might, majesty and mayhem’: a visual time capsule from 1965
In A Trip Down Memory Lane, the Canadian avant-garde filmmaker Arthur Lipsett uses newsreel footage covering 50 years to unleash a flurry of previously unrelated images – women in a beauty pageant, a scientific demonstration, an automobile catching fire – combined for unsettling and satirical effect. Created in 1965 as a ‘time capsule’, Lipsett’s collage film serves both as a glimpse into the dramatically different yet not-so-distant past, and as a peculiarly incisive exploration of what its producer, the National Film Board of Canada, calls ‘human might, majesty and mayhem’.
videoHistory
In Stalin’s home city in Georgia, generations clash over his legacy
20 minutes
videoHistory
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21 minutes
videoMedicine
Drinking wine from toxic cups was the 17th century’s own dubious ‘detox’ treatment
11 minutes
videoProgress and modernity
Moving from Tibet to Beijing, Drolma reconciles big dreams with harsh realities
31 minutes
videoEngineering
How water-based clocks revolutionised the way we measure time
10 minutes
videoFilm and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
5 minutes
videoEnvironmental history
In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests
13 minutes
videoNature and landscape
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5 minutes
videoArchitecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes