Owen Land
An image from Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc., one of the productions that also features Owen Land.
Owen Land

Owen Land

January 1, 1944 — New Haven, Connecticut, USA

George Landow (1944 – June 8, 2011), also known as Owen Land, was a painter, writer, playwright, photographer, and experimental filmmaker. Shortly after the release of his film On the Marriage Broker Joke... (1977), Landow rearranged his name to Owen Land, an anagram of "Landow N.E." He has also worked under pen names Orphan Morphan and Apollo Jize.

According to film historian Mark Webber, Land made early films as a teenager, and his later films, made mostly during the 1960s and 1970s, are some of the first examples of the "structural film" movement. Land's films usually involve wordplay, and have been described by Webber as having a humor & wit that separates his films from the "boring" world of avant-garde cinema. Webber also said that he was inspired by Joyce, Beckett, and Ionesco. While the humorous aspects of his films makes them appealing to audiences who are not familiar with the perceived hermetic and insular world of avant-garde film, many of his works function as sharp parody of the experimental & "structural film" movement. The book Two Films By Owen Land (Lux, London) features the complete scripts of Landow/Land's films Wide Angle Saxon and On the Marriage Broker Joke as Cited by Sigmund Freud in Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious or Can the Avant-Garde Artist Be Wholed?, as well as footnotes written by Land interpreting the many references and elements of these two films and a filmography by Mark Webber. Released in May 2011, the book "Dialogues - a film by Owen Land" (Paraguay Press, Paris) features the complete script of his last film, as well as two interviews with the artist.

Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc.

Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc.

1966

Remedial Reading Comprehension

Remedial Reading Comprehension

1970

The Film That Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter

The Film That Rises to the Surface of Clarified Butter

1968

On the Marriage Broker Joke as Cited by Sigmund Freud in Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious, or Can the Avant-Garde Artist Be Wholed?

On the Marriage Broker Joke as Cited by Sigmund Freud in Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious, or Can the Avant-Garde Artist Be Wholed?

1977

New Improved Institutional Quality: In the Environment of Liquids and Nasals a Parasitic Vowel Sometimes Develops

1976

Thank You Jesus for the Eternal Present

1973

The Evil Faerie

1966

Wide Angle Saxon

Wide Angle Saxon

1975