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1969-01-01
N/A
15 min
The Magic Machines is a 1969 American short documentary film directed by Bob Curtis about kinetic artist Robert Gilbert, a young hippie sculptor who makes bright-colored, motor-driven machines from metal trash and spare parts. It won an Oscar at the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970 for Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film and was nominated for Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject.
Sculptor Robert Gilbert narrates his own story as he trawls the scrapyard looking for his own pieces of abandoned engineering so that he can design and build some pretty innovative contraptions. He's based in the desert, and it's astonishing not just what he and his scrap-merchant pal manage to accrue from the sands, but also of his imagination in creating a sort of Meccano's user's wet dream. Some of these constructions are actually capable of self-propulsion! The production is a little on the dry side as we don't really see very much of the man actually at work, and his narrative is overly effusive at times - about both himself and his goals (though he does acknowledge that sex is better). I also found the soundtrack a bit annoying too, but that a man can create something from nothing quite this inventively makes this well worth quarter of an hour of your time.
