Heaven and Earth Magic (also called Number 12, The Magic Feature, or Heaven and Earth Magic Feature) is an American avant garde feature film made by Harry Everett Smith. Originally released in 1957, it was re-edited several times and the final version was released in 1962. The film primarily uses cut-out-animated photographs.
The 66-minute cut of the film is now available on DVD and VHS from the Harry Smith Archives. It is sometimes screened at one-time cinema events, often with some kind of live music instead of the film's soundtrack (which consists solely of sound effects). A recent Ann Arbor Film Festival revival featured a score by laptop musician Flying Lotus.
This film is screened at John Zorn's Essential Cinema concerts, where a group of musicians perform behind the film. In the liner notes to Naked City's "Heretic" album it says "This record is dedicated to Harry Smith. Mystical Animator, Pioneer Ethnomusicologist, Hermetic Scholar, Creator of Heaven + Earth Magic, one of the greatest films of all time."
Read more about Heaven And Earth Magic: Plot
Famous quotes containing the words heaven and, heaven, earth and/or magic:
“I sink back shuddering from the quest.
Earth being so good, would Heaven seem best?
Now, Heaven and she are beyond this ride.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“Those who obey the will of Heaven will prosper, while those who oppose Heaven will perish.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Once the sin against God was the greatest sin, but God died, and so these sinners died as well. To sin against the earth is now the most terrible thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable more highly than the meaning of the earth.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)