Film Record: Butterfly with Four Birthdays, The

Still image from The Butterfly with Four Birthdays

Date produced: 1965

Filmmaker(s):

Sidney N. Laverents

Languages:

English

Duration:

00:25:00

Format:

16mm

Colour:

Kodachrome

Sound Notes:

Magnetic

Awards/Recognition:

PSA Ten Best 1965, PSA MPD Nature Film Award sponsored by Dick Bird 1965

Description:

"The Butterfly with Four Birthdays is a well done documentary on the life cycle of the Anise Swallowtail (Papilio Zelicaon). The Zelicaon, often mistaken for the Monarch, lives in the Western United States and lays her eggs on the anise plant, also known as sweet fennel. From the egg comes the baby caterpillar, thirdly the pupa or chrysalis stage, and finally, on its fourth birthday, the butterfly. This film also received the MPD Nature Film Award" PSA Journal, Sept. 1965, 50.

Resources:

See a 2004 New York Times article which likens the film to a David Lynch work in "A One-Man Band Who Created an Oeuvre" by Matt Haber.

Available on DVD 'Movies by Sid Laverents'.

This film is a part of the Sid Laverents Collection held by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Locations:

• United States (Filming)

Subjects:

• Nature
•      Insects
•           Butterflies

Genre:

• Nature

Form:

• Short

Repository:

Sid Laverents Collection, UCLA Film & Television Archive

Screenings:

• May 12, 2016 for "Metamorphic Cinema: Meditations on Transformation" at Oddball Films: San Francisco, CA
• Oct. 13, 2016 for "Nature's Horror Show" at Oddball Films: San Francisco, CA
• Friday, Jan. 30, 2004 for "The Wonderful World of Sid's Cinema" at the Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian: Hollywood, CA

Video Link:

• via A/V Geeks, Archive.org

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