''Time Piece'' is a 1965 American independentJim Henson: Before Happytime Murders, Muppet creator told edgy stories - Polygon
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experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

directed, written, produced by and starring Jim Henson. The film depicts an ordinary man living in constant motion, in a desperate attempt to escape the passage of

time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

. ''Time Piece'' is notable as one of the few live-action projects Jim Henson produced that did not involve any form of puppetry. The short film was nominated for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

for Best Live Action Short Film in 1966.

Plot

The fast-paced scenes in ''Time Piece'' are edited together in a rhythmic pentameter, with an underlying use of sounds and repetitive beats. The film begins with a young man (whose only line, repeated four times, is "Help!") sitting patiently in a hospital bed. An unidentified doctor enters the room and checks the man's heart rate, which begins to pulse rhythmically. As the rhythm increases, the film begins to follow the man's daily habits such as crossing a busy street, in different clothes and different locations, working in a busy office, working on a conveyor belt, walking through different locations and ending up in a forest where he has the appearance of Tarzan, eating dinner with his wife, walking down the street seeing pogo stick riders, and visiting a

strip club A strip club (also known as a strip joint, striptease bar, peeler bar, gentlemen's club, among others) is a venue where strippers provide adult entertainment, predominantly in the form of striptease and other erotic dances including lap dances. St ...

while simultaneously maintaining himself in motion. Eventually, the man is imprisoned for shooting the

Mona Lisa The ''Mona Lisa'' is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, ...

while intoxicated (signified by a scene of him painting an elephant

pink Pink is a pale tint of red, the color of the Dianthus plumarius, pink flower. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, p ...

) and dressed as a

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

and is forced to perform acts of labor like working in the rock pile. The man eventually escapes from prison and begins to frantically run across a long distance with different disguises like a man in a

top hat A top hat (also called a high hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or ...

and Tarzan while evading cowboys. The man then jumps off a diving board and soars into the sky (aided by a flying device) where he is subsequently shot down by the world's military powers. He falls from the sky defeated and lands in a muddy puddle in the form of a rustic clock. The clock strikes twelve and the film's events flash quickly on-screen. Back in the hospital room, the doctor covers the man's seemingly lifeless body. The camera then pans up towards the doctor's face, revealing him to be the same man smiling gleefully and winking at the camera.

Cast

* Jim Henson - Man, Doctor in facial shots * Enid Cafritz - Man's Wife * Jerry Juhl - Bartender * Frank Oznowicz - Office Messenger Boy, Man in Gorilla Suit, Dead man, doctor, prior to face reveal * April March - Stripper * Sandy Patterson - * Diana Birkenfield - * Dave Bailey - Drummer * Dennis Paget - * Jim Hutchison - Club Dancer * Barbara Richman - Club Dancer

Production

Unlike most films, ''Time Piece'' was not written as a script. Instead, Jim Henson had

storyboard A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of simple illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding proce ...

ed the entire film prior to filming. Between shuffling performances with The Muppets for '' The Jimmy Dean Show'' and film commercials, Henson shot the film intermittently from June 1964 to May 1965. Due to this restricted time frame, every shot in the film lasts only one to four seconds. Henson even calculated the amount of frames each shot would contain. Henson solely produced the film's animation sequences, while Muppet designer Don Sahlin was responsible for the film's visual effects shots. Legendary Blue Note Records engineer Rudy Van Gelder recorded the music.

Release

Henson premiered ''Time Piece'' at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1965. The film also had a lengthy screening run at the Paris Theatre in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. ''Time Piece'' was released theatrically in the United States with

Claude Lelouch Claude Barruck Joseph Lelouch (; born 30 October 1937) is a French film director, writer, cinematographer, actor and producer. Lelouch grew up in an Algerian Jewish family. He emerged as a prominent director in the 1960s. Lelouch gained critical ...

's '' A Man and a Woman''. In addition to its Academy Award nomination, the film also won the CINE Eagle Award and the American Film Festival's Blue Ribbon Award, and received recognition at the XII International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

References

External links

*
Excerptsof ''Time Piece''
on official

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