the nightmare collection | T h e B r o th er s Qu ay F il m C o l lect ion
/ 01 ( 19 7 9 ) N o ctu r n a A r t if ic ial ia ( 2000) In Ab sen t ia ( 2003) The Pha n t o m M u s eu m
Stephen & Timothy Quay (1947-) are American identical twin brothers who are better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. The Brothers Quay reside and work in England, having moved there in 1969 to study at the Royal College of Art, London after studying illustration and film at the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. In England they made their first short films, which no longer exist after the only prints were irreparably damaged. They spent some time in the Netherlands in the 1970s and then returned to England where they teamed up with another Royal College student, Keith Griffiths, who produced all of their films. In 1980 the trio formed Koninck Studios, which is currently based in Southwark, south London. The Brothers' works show a wide range of often esoteric influences, starting with the Polish animators Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica and continuing with the writers Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Robert Walser and Michel de Ghelderode, puppeteers Wladyslaw Starewicz and Czech Richard Teschner and Czech composers Leoš Janáček, Zdeněk Liška and Polish Leszek Jankowski. Most of their animation films feature puppets made of doll parts and other organic and inorganic materials, often partially disassembled, in a dark, moody atmosphere. With very few exceptions, their films have no meaningful spoken dialogue—most have no spoken content at all. Accordingly, their films are highly reliant on their music scores, of which many have been written especially for them by the Polish composer Leszek Jankowski.
1979 Nocturna Artificialia
/ 21 min
/ Plot An enigmatic story told in seven chapters, each introduced by an elliptical sentence on a title card. A man is in an apartment. He goes outside where a red tram runs beside a cathedral. He can see religious art. In his apartment and workshop, his nearly colorless life does include a cloth of rich, red brocade. He works amid constructs of straight lines, planks, wires, and scaffolding. He falls from a chair in his flat. He's not dead...
/ Themes There are many different themes seen throughout the short film. These themes include impressions of a man, a tram and an unidentified city at night. Much of it seems to be a dream that comes from his fixation with specific objects on the tram. There is a more general view of the streets he wanders at night, but even when he seems to wake up at the end of the film, he finds tramlines running through the middle of his room. Everything in the film is glimpsed and only half-heard by sound and music, as there is no dialogue. Suspense is created through movement of the tram and angles of the camera.
2003
The Phantom Museum
/ 17 min
/ Plot Woman sits alone on a chair at a table in a room on one of the top floors of an asylum. Bright spot lights dot the night, sometimes shining on her window. She sharpens pencils and writes on a page in a copy book. The pencil point often breaks under her fingers' force...
2000 In Absentia
/ 11 min
/ Plot A look inside one of the world's most extraordinary museum collections: Sir Henry Wellcome's unique trove of medical curiosities...
/ 02 ( 19 8 6) S tr e e t o f C r o c o d il es ( 19 9 0) The Co m b ( 19 9 1) The Ca ll igr ap h er
1986 Street of Crocodiles
/ 22 min
/ Plot A man closes up a lecture hall; he reaches into a box and snips the string holding a gaunt puppet. Released, the puppet warily explores the darkened rooms about him. The desolate ambience and haunting musical score are meant to convey a sense of isolation and futility. As the short continues, the mute protagonist explores a realm of what are described by the director as "mechanical realities and manufactured pleasures". As the protagonist chooses to join this world, the camera slowly reveals how unfulfilling the surroundings actually are.
/ Themes Although heavily metaphorical, the piece also exemplifies the experimental and curious nature of the Quays' work. Rather than examining the potential symbolism of such props as screws, dust, string, and wind-up monkeys, many shots seem to focus on the movements and inherent characteristics of the materials. As they do in most of their films, the Brothers Quay employ a more musically grounded structure in place of a straightforward literal narrative in Street of Crocodiles.
1990 The Comb
/ 17 min
/ Plot The comb opens in the shadowy bedroom of a sleeping beauty and seems to enter her mind and burrow into her dreams...
1991 The Calligrapher
/ 1 min
/ Plot With harpsichord music in the background, a dandy, seated at a table, plucks a quill pen from a ceiling full of them above him, dips it in ink, thinks, then draws a straight line down the page in front of him, out of which sprout six more quill pens, each held by a hand...
/ 03 ( 19 8 8 ) S ti l le Nat c h t I ( 19 9 1) S ti ll e N at c h t I I ( 19 9 2) S ti ll e N at c h t I I I ( 19 9 3) S ti l le Nat c h t I V ( 2001) S ti ll e N at c h t V
1988 Stille Nacht I
/ 4 min
/ Plot A magnet moves on a floor. A moth beats against a window. A doll child watches the magnet; threads of metal filings gather around the magnet. The doll, who's sitting at a table, looks in a bowl that's on the table‌
1991 Stille Nacht II
/ 5 min
/ Plot A tear falls from the eyes of a veiled face. A white ball whips around a heart-shaped paddle. A mournful voice sings, “Are we still married?�
1992 Stille Nacht III
/ 5 min
/ Plot Near an extraordinary chair with many legs, a hand is visible gripping an edge. The hand is weathered, the fingers cracked and scarred...
1993 Stille Nacht IV
/ 4 min
/ Plot Can't go wrong without you is part of the quay brothers' stille nacht series which includes dramolet (stille nacht I), are we still married? (stille nacht II) and tales from the vienna woods (stille nacht III).
1994 Stille Nacht V
/ 5 min
/ Plot In this clip their puppets go on a sexual adventure to the song “Dog Door,” featuring lyrics by Tom Waits.
/ 04 ( 19 8 4 ) The Ca bin et o f J an Sv an k m aj er ( 19 8 5 ) Thi s Un n am eabl e L it t l e Br o o m ( 19 8 8 ) R e he a r s al s F o r E x t in c t An at o m ies
1984
The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer
/ 14 min
/ Plot It is structured as a series of little lessons on perception at Prague in a form of a puppet simulacrum of Svankmajer, whose head is an opened book, to a doll whose head the masters empties of dross and refills with a similar open book...
1985
This Unnameable Little Broom
/ 11 min
/ Plot Loosely based on the Mesopotamian "Epic of Gilgamesh", here Gilgamesh is portrayed as a grotesque, Picassoesque being who uses a tricycle to patrol his box-shaped kingdom that hovers above a dark abyss...
1986
Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
/ 14 min
/ Plot Oscillating hands each hold a pen; a man made of wire has a malevolent look and an oscillating eye as he pokes at a bump on his forehead. Op-art stripes are in the fabric. Lines become jumbles that become balls that oscillate, bounce, or stay suspended in air...
/ 02 ( 19 8 6) S tr e e t o f C r o c o d il es ( 19 9 0) The Co m b ( 19 9 1) The Ca ll igr ap h er
1986 Street of Crocodiles
/ 22 min
/ Plot A man closes up a lecture hall; he reaches into a box and snips the string holding a gaunt puppet. Released, the puppet warily explores the darkened rooms about him. The desolate ambience and haunting musical score are meant to convey a sense of isolation and futility. As the short continues, the mute protagonist explores a realm of what are described by the director as "mechanical realities and manufactured pleasures". As the protagonist chooses to join this world, the camera slowly reveals how unfulfilling the surroundings actually are.
/ Themes Although heavily metaphorical, the piece also exemplifies the experimental and curious nature of the Quays' work. Rather than examining the potential symbolism of such props as screws, dust, string, and wind-up monkeys, many shots seem to focus on the movements and inherent characteristics of the materials. As they do in most of their films, the Brothers Quay employ a more musically grounded structure in place of a straightforward literal narrative in Street of Crocodiles.
1990 The Comb
/ 17 min
/ Plot The comb opens in the shadowy bedroom of a sleeping beauty and seems to enter her mind and burrow into her dreams...
1991 The Calligrapher
/ 1 min
/ Plot With harpsichord music in the background, a dandy, seated at a table, plucks a quill pen from a ceiling full of them above him, dips it in ink, thinks, then draws a straight line down the page in front of him, out of which sprout six more quill pens, each held by a hand...
/ 03 ( 19 8 8 ) S ti l le Nat c h t I ( 19 9 1) S ti ll e N at c h t I I ( 19 9 2) S ti ll e N at c h t I I I ( 19 9 3) S ti l le Nat c h t I V ( 2001) S ti ll e N at c h t V
1988 Stille Nacht I
/ 4 min
/ Plot A magnet moves on a floor. A moth beats against a window. A doll child watches the magnet; threads of metal filings gather around the magnet. The doll, who's sitting at a table, looks in a bowl that's on the table‌
1991 Stille Nacht II
/ 5 min
/ Plot A tear falls from the eyes of a veiled face. A white ball whips around a heart-shaped paddle. A mournful voice sings, “Are we still married?�
1992 Stille Nacht III
/ 5 min
/ Plot Near an extraordinary chair with many legs, a hand is visible gripping an edge. The hand is weathered, the fingers cracked and scarred...
1993 Stille Nacht IV
/ 4 min
/ Plot Can't go wrong without you is part of the quay brothers' stille nacht series which includes dramolet (stille nacht I), are we still married? (stille nacht II) and tales from the vienna woods (stille nacht III).
1994 Stille Nacht V
/ 5 min
/ Plot In this clip their puppets go on a sexual adventure to the song “Dog Door,” featuring lyrics by Tom Waits.
/ 04 ( 19 8 4 ) The Ca bin et o f J an Sv an k m aj er ( 19 8 5 ) Thi s Un n am eabl e L it t l e Br o o m ( 19 8 8 ) R e he a r s al s F o r E x t in c t An at o m ies
1984
The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer
/ 14 min
/ Plot It is structured as a series of little lessons on perception at Prague in a form of a puppet simulacrum of Svankmajer, whose head is an opened book, to a doll whose head the masters empties of dross and refills with a similar open book...
1985
This Unnameable Little Broom
/ 11 min
/ Plot Loosely based on the Mesopotamian "Epic of Gilgamesh", here Gilgamesh is portrayed as a grotesque, Picassoesque being who uses a tricycle to patrol his box-shaped kingdom that hovers above a dark abyss...
1986
Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
/ 14 min
/ Plot Oscillating hands each hold a pen; a man made of wire has a malevolent look and an oscillating eye as he pokes at a bump on his forehead. Op-art stripes are in the fabric. Lines become jumbles that become balls that oscillate, bounce, or stay suspended in air...