The Cage1947

We were trying to say goodbye to an epoch, the one into which we had been driven in Apollinaire's "Petite Auto." The adventures of a detached eyeball. Resources limited, content almost unlimited. Most celebrated shot: artist with head in birdcage. "Marks the emergence of a naive-sophisticated style." – S. P., The Dark of the Screen "[Peterson is] one of the originators of the American avant-garde cinema. The five films he made in San Francisco between 1947 and 1950 have become classics; they have influenced the cinematic education of many of the best filmmakers of subsequent generations." – P. Adams Sitney "One of the greats, a pioneer of the American experimental film .... With his sharp, proto-Funk assemblages of wild sight-gags and free associations, he celebrated those aspects of the Rene Clair and Buñuel/Dali films that were indebted to the work of Chaplin, Keaton, and Laurel and Hardy." – Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, program notes "Peterson's films affirm the emergence of this new artist, the American experimental filmmaker." – Jon Gartenberg