
Lawrence Jordan
Photoplayd Industry Rating
Not enough rated films yet to compute a weighted score.
Roles are weighted by involvement: director 1.0, screenwriter 0.7, lead 0.8, supporting 0.4, crew 0.1.
Known principally as a maverick spirit in the world of avant-garde American cinema, Lawrence Jordan played an important role in the late 1950s and early 1960s San Francisco art scene. Jordan has made over seventy experimental films, including a number of fanciful, filmic animations made from collaged cut outs of Victorian engravings. The animations extend dreamlike imagery of collaged landscape into a cinematic realm of transformation and free form symbolism. Jordan seeks to delve into the deep structures and Jungian connotations of the mythological images his films reference. His alchemical approach to imagery creates what he has called the “theater of the mind, which you construct. That is the Underworld... the realm of the imagination. You have to have a place to work with images.” Jordan founded the film department of the San Francisco Art institute in 1969 and taught there for over thirty years. He made his own box assemblages in Cornell ’s lyrically evocative style since the mid-1960s. Many feature ingenious mechanical and kinetic effects. He continues to make films and box collages at his home and studio in Petaluma where he has lived since 1978.
Known for
Credits

Sophie's Place (1986)
Director

Spectre Mystagogic (1957)
Director

Night Light (2016)
Director

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1977)
Director

Duo Concertantes (1964)
Director

Trumpit (1956)
Director

Entr'Acte (2014)
Director

The Ogre's Garden (2019)
Director

For Life, Against the War (1967)
Director

Our Lady of the Sphere (1969)
Director

Gymnopédies (1965)
Director

Enid's Idyll (2004)
Director

Hildur and the Magician (1970)
Director
Poet's Dream (2005)
Director

Ancestors (1978)
Director

The Grove (1993)
Director

Harper's Bazar (2022)
Director

The Season's Change (1960)
Director

Silent Sonatas (2007)
Director
Cornell, 1965 (1978)
Director

Postcard from San Miguel (1996)
Director

Johnnie (1964)
Director
Blue Skies Beyond the Looking Glass (2008)
Director

Ein Traum der Liebenden (1964)
Director
Entr'acte II (2015)
Director

The One Romantic Venture of Edward (1956)
Director

Solar Sight II (2012)
Director
Rodia-Estudiantina (1966)
Director

Oz (2019)
Director

Entr’acte III (2017)
Director

The Apoplectic Walrus (2015)
Director

Minerva Looks Out into the Zodiac (1959)
Director

The Dream Merchant (1965)
Director
Pink Swine! (1963)
Director

Untitled Early Film (—)
Director

Hommage (2024)
Director

The Forty and One Nights (1961)
Director

Tapestry (1988)
Director
Chateau/Poyet (2004)
Director

After the Circus (2013)
Director
Hamfat Asar (1965)
Director

Reve d'Or (2024)
Director

Jewel Face (1964)
Director

Belle du Jour (2021)
Director

Alchemy (2021)
Director

The Apoplectic Walrus (2015)
Director

Hymn in Praise of the Sun (1960)
Director

Star of Day (1993)
Director

Three by Cornell (1972)
Director
Portrait of Sharon (1960)
Director
The Visible Compendium (1991)
Director
Triptych in Four Parts (1958)
Director

Undertow (1955)
Director
Driving Demons (2014)
Director

Orb (1973)
Director

The Black Oud (1992)
Director

Time Travel (2017)
Director

The Soccer Game (1960)
Director

The Apparition (1976)
Director
Inferno (2014)
Director
The Egg (—)
Director

Big Sur: The Ladies (1966)
Director
Moonlight Sonata (1979)
Director

Visions of a City (1978)
Director
Adagio (1983)
Director
The Sacred Art of Tibet (1972)
Director

Carabosse (1980)
Director

Finds of the Fortnight (1980)
Director

Three (1956)
Director

In a Summer Garden (1982)
Director

Once Upon a Time (1973)
Director

Cosmic Alchemy (2010)
Director

The Old House, Passing (1967)
Director
Winter Light (1983)
Director

Circus Savage (2009)
Director
The Miracle of Don Cristobal (2008)
Director
Water Light (1956)
Director

Solar Sight III (2013)
Director

Masquerade (1981)
Director

Delirium (2018)
Director

Solar Sight (2011)
Director

Beyond Enchantment (2010)
Director

Man Is in Pain (1954)
Director





