''Look at Life'' is a 1965 one-minute short student film by

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...

, produced for a course in

animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

while Lucas was a film student at

USC Film School The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) houses seven academic divisions: Film & Television Production; Cinema & Media Studies; John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts; John Wells Division of Writing for Sc ...

. The film's running time of exactly one minute was required by the course. This was the first film made by George Lucas, and was heavily influenced by Canadian filmmaker

Arthur Lipsett Arthur Lipsett (May 13, 1936 – May 1, 1986) was a Canadian avant-garde director of short collage films. Life and career Born in Montreal into a Jewish family, Lipsett saw his mother, an immigrant from Kiev, commit suicide when he was 10 years ...

Summary

The film is a montage of various iconic photographs focusing mostly on common themes from youth culture in the 1960s, with a frenetic percussion soundtrack taken from the film ''

Black Orpheus ''Black Orpheus'' (Portuguese: ''Orfeu Negro'' ) is a 1959 romantic tragedy film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus and starring Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello. It is based on the play '' Orfeu da Conceição'' by Vinicius de Morae ...

''. The imagery includes photographs of

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

, American race riots, the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

, Buddhist monks,

beagle The beagle is a breed of small scent hound, similar in appearance to the much larger foxhound. The beagle was developed primarily for hunting hare, known as beagling. Possessing a great sense of smell and superior tracking instincts, the ...

puppies A puppy is a juvenile dog. Some puppies can weigh , while larger ones can weigh up to . All healthy puppies grow quickly after birth. A puppy's coat color may change as the puppy grows older, as is commonly seen in breeds such as the Yorksh ...

and bodies of dead soldiers. The only narration in the film is a man's voice yelling the text of Proverbs 10:12, "Hate stirreth up strife, while love covereth all sins." The film ends with written text: "ANYONE FOR SURVIVAL", followed by "End" and "?".

Availability

The film is included in the documentary ''A Legacy of Filmmakers: The Early Years of American Zoetrope'',A Legacy of Filmmakers: The Early Years of American Zoetrope posted officially by Gary Lava on Vimeo
/ref> which was released on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of Lucas' first feature film, ''

THX 1138 ''THX 1138'' is a 1971 American social science fiction film co-written and directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. Produced by Francis Ford Coppola and co-written by Walter Murch, the film stars Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasence, wit ...

''.

References

External links

*
The entire official short on YouTube posted by Academy of Achievement
{{DEFAULTSORT:Look At Life (Film) 1965 films 1965 short films American short films Short films directed by George Lucas American student films Films about Martin Luther King Jr. Films about the Ku Klux Klan Collage film 1960s English-language films

Summary

Availability

See also

References

External links