Robert Nelson Movies

"Even when we know the game is an illusion, the experience of Bleu Shut is entirely a pleasure: the ‘game’ is fun, the Nelson/Wiley...

Commissioned by the San Francisco Mime Troupe as a short to be screened during intermission for its rather infamous 1965 Minstrel Show (Civil Rights...

"Dada-inspired performance in which absurd actions take place in an environment of strange symbols and graphic forms." -Mark Webber. Design by...

“When Picasso died I wanted to make the first post-mortem documentary, as I knew would happen anyway, and cheaply. The film took four hours to...

The Off-Handed Jape is an afternoon’s lark made by Nelson and his artist friend William Wiley. The two men perform whimsical actions and poses...

Shooting in 1966 without script, story, or any narrative preconception, Nelson and Wiley created a masterwork of ‘60s independent cinema. The...

Nelson sets minimal, repetitive imagery against a looping recording of his daughter Oona, which goes gradually from sweet to curious to mysterious to...

A feature-length documentary directed by Dorothy Wiley and Gunvor Nelson about five working San Francisco artists: William T. Wiley, Robert Hudson,...

A black-and-white travel journal, in which the themes of memories and their relationship to the past suddenly catch up and rush away from us. The...

A ‘film wake’. Though celebratory in mood, it has a mournful subtext… death and dying. We dedicated it to Dr. Sam West, departed...

A chaotic film featuring the Grateful Dead. The songs that are included are Sitting on Top of the World, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Cold Rain...

The first part of what was intended to be a three-part experimental travelog for Nelson’s home state of California, this film covers the...

A kinetic film sketch designed to involve the viewers muscles. The rocky seaside cliffs near Stinson Beach, California, hold the wrecked carcass of a...

Recurrent themes of violence, sex and TV commercials. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

[1970/2003, color, 7.5 min] Experimental short film preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2007.

A film by Robert Nelson

A continuous dissolve of 87 male and female nudes. "The film's fascination lies with the suspense of that magic moment, halfway between two persons,...

“In their starkly minimal film, The Awful Backlash, directors Robert Nelson and William Allan, focus solely on a pair of hands as they begin to...

A film by Robert Nelson

A film by Robert Nelson