Anemic Cinema (1926) - Marcel Duchamp

Painter and sculptor Duchamp makes a film consisted almost entirely of spirals. The films juxtaposition is rather simple. There is a neutral spiral or spirals, and then the next shot is of a stone wheel with dialogue written on it. There isn't a hell of a lot more to add ot it then that.

Ballet Mecanique (1924) - Fernand Leger

Ballet Mecanique is one of the few films on this set I know I saw several years ago. It is also one of the most written about films of the period. Leger got his start as a Cubist painter, although that is not the dominant style here. Leger does have a tendency to reverse images, showing things upside down and backwards. The editing is about the wildest of any of these avant-garde films. It fluctuates from unmoving shots, to several shots lasting no more than one frame long creating various contrasts between shapes. Leger uses his frame to manipulate space and show only what he's interested in. He'll isolate a mouth, or an eye, or hand and block off the rest of the shot. Like most of these films images and patterns repeat, and actions go on and on. As for the title, the film intercuts rhytmically with machine parts operating, in a style that would later be used to more symbolic effect in Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera.