View movie

View thumbnails
Run time: 11m

Play / Download (help)

(45 MB)512Kb MPEG4
(48 MB)Ogg Video
(650 MB)MPEG2

Resources

Paul Julian/Les GoldmanHangman (1964)

A cynical look at how humankind loves to feed others into the death machine, from a disturbing poem by Maurice Ogden, read by Herschel Bernardi. Shadows and shifting geometric planes lend a Chirico-like quality to Julian's animation. Great musical score by Serge Hovey


This movie is part of the collection: Academic Film Archive of North America

Director: Paul Julian/Les Goldman
Producer: Paul Julian
Sponsor: Martin J. Brown
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: animation; death; horror

Individual Files

Write a review
Downloaded 3,847 timesReviews
Average Rating:

Reviewer: STOIC1987 - - March 9, 2009
Subject: Response to Hangman (1964)
This is quite an unusual piece of work that I find very interesting. This short work of cut-scene animation; accompanied by music that fits the theme of the story is very artistic and unique. The Hangman is undoubtedly a great piece of poetry. A poem drafted into a short film that expresses the disturbing and disgusting side of man's nature - distorting Justice and certainly portrays how other human beings "feed other humans" through a "death machine". And often times, minorities of a particular community find themselves the scapegoats of the society's wrath and its urge to fulfill its vindictive desires. This piece of work is very insightful and a lesson that portrays the cruel side of humanity.

Reviewer: Athanatos - - January 10, 2009
Subject: Not Just Death
This isn't about loving to feed others to a death machine, or even intrinsically about death machines. It's about acquiescence to the state when it begins to oppress others, in the hope that it will leave the acquiescent alone.

If the poem/movie were about capital punishment, then the first person killed would have done something that is generally agreed to be wrong. But what the Hangman does is go after classes of people, each of whom (until the very last) is not in the majority -- aliens, Jews, blacks, lenders.

The democratic majority can always persuade themselves that it's just others who are hanged in this order. Were it not hanging but imprisonment, military service, confiscations of property (fines, imminent domain seizures, taxes) the principle would be the same.

Reviewer: kerriganm - - June 21, 2008
Subject: Wonderful, creepy 60's animation- Haunting!
Great 60's beatnik-style animation, narration and score. Indictment of capital punishment, as I read it, but perhaps more widely of discrimination and violence.