Robert Nelson Movies

“When Picasso died I wanted to make the first post-mortem documentary, as I knew would happen anyway, and cheaply. The film took four hours to...

Commissioned by the San Francisco Mime Troupe as a short to be screened during intermission for its rather infamous 1965 Minstrel Show (Civil Rights...

"Even when we know the game is an illusion, the experience of Bleu Shut is entirely a pleasure: the ‘game’ is fun, the Nelson/Wiley...

"Dada-inspired performance in which absurd actions take place in an environment of strange symbols and graphic forms." -Mark Webber. Design by...

The first part of what was intended to be a three-part experimental travelog for Nelson’s home state of California, this film covers the...

The Off-Handed Jape is an afternoon’s lark made by Nelson and his artist friend William Wiley. The two men perform whimsical actions and poses...

Nelson sets minimal, repetitive imagery against a looping recording of his daughter Oona, which goes gradually from sweet to curious to mysterious to...

Shooting in 1966 without script, story, or any narrative preconception, Nelson and Wiley created a masterwork of ‘60s independent cinema. The...

A continuous dissolve of 87 male and female nudes. "The film's fascination lies with the suspense of that magic moment, halfway between two persons,...

[1970/2003, color, 7.5 min] Experimental short film preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

“In their starkly minimal film, The Awful Backlash, directors Robert Nelson and William Allan, focus solely on a pair of hands as they begin to...

A film by Robert Nelson

A chaotic film featuring the Grateful Dead. The songs that are included are Sitting on Top of the World, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Cold Rain...

A ‘film wake’. Though celebratory in mood, it has a mournful subtext… death and dying. We dedicated it to Dr. Sam West, departed...

Recurrent themes of violence, sex and TV commercials. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

A black-and-white travel journal, in which the themes of memories and their relationship to the past suddenly catch up and rush away from us. The...

A feature-length documentary directed by Dorothy Wiley and Gunvor Nelson about five working San Francisco artists: William T. Wiley, Robert Hudson,...

A film by Robert Nelson

A film by Robert Nelson

A film by Robert Nelson