Anthology Film Archives

Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives

JAMES SIBLEY WATSON JR.

May 22 – May 24

May 22-24, 2026

James Sibley Watson Jr.’s place in the history of avant-garde cinema is unimpeachable, thanks to the pioneering works he made with Melville Webber between 1928-33: in particular FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1928) and LOT IN SODOM (1933), which represent two of the very first American films to experiment with radically expressionist techniques. These two works continue to be celebrated by film historians and scholars, while USHER screens annually at Anthology as part of the Essential Cinema. It’s high time, though, to shine a spotlight on Sibley Watson’s body of moving-image work as a whole.

An heir to the Western Union telegraph fortune, Sibley Watson was a prominent figure in his native Rochester, New York, and a true Renaissance man. Filmmaking was just one of many disciplines he pursued during his career: perhaps most importantly, he was an integral part of the magazine “The Dial”, which was arguably the most important American modernist literary journal of the 1920s, and an early publisher of writers such as e e cummings, T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams, among many others. Sibley Watson served in various capacities before eventually becoming a co-owner and -editor of the magazine. Later in life, following his work in photography and filmmaking, he returned to the field of medicine – the subject of his university studies – and devoted the remainder of his career to his radiology practice, while also remaining an active philanthropist.

It’s his films that we celebrate here, though: a body of work that encompasses not only the two classics, USHER and SODOM, but several other lesser-known films that demonstrate his extraordinary intellectual range and curiosity. His filmography encompasses the truly bizarre melodrama parody, IT NEVER HAPPENED aka TOMATO IS ANOTHER DAY (1934); two sponsored films produced by Bausch & Lomb (THE EYES OF SCIENCE) and Kodak (HIGHLIGHTS AND SHADOWS); and finally, Sibley Watson’s groundbreaking experiments with radiography, which saw him combining his work in cinematography and medicine. We’ll be screening all of these works, alongside three films by Barbara Hammer, whose sustained interest in Sibley Watson Jr. manifested in two short films that take his Cinefluorography experiments as their point of departure and one feature (NITRATE KISSES) that incorporates excerpts from LOT IN SODOM.

Organized in collaboration with Anthology’s Archivist John Klacsmann and filmmaker and archivist Jake Ryan, both of whom researched Sibley Watson Jr.’s work at the George Eastman Museum. John Klacsmann will introduce Program 1 on Fri, May 22 and Jake Ryan will introduce Programs 1 & 3 on Sat, May 23.

Special thanks to Beth Rennie, Alyssa Hickey, and Sophia Lorent (George Eastman Museum); Rebecca Cleman, Karl McCool, and Jooyoung Park (Electronic Arts Intermix); and Brett Kashmere & Zachary Epcar (Canyon Cinema).

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