Heaven and Earth Magic

Harry Smith stated of Heaven and Earth Magic: "The first part depicts the heroine's toothache consequent to the loss of a valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land in terms of Israel, Montreal and the second part depicts the return to earth from being eaten by Max Müller on the day Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London." ==Production==

The film used cut-outs created from 19th-century catalogues. Music The film is accompanied by a musique concrète score featuring the noises of water, clocks and sound effects albums. John Waters of The Independent described it as "the sort of soundtrack you could put together in a hotel room", noting that "Smith lived at the Chelsea Hotel, rent unpaid, for much of that time." ==Reception and legacy==

Fred Camper from Chicago Reader praised the film's artistic style, calling it "a mysterious world of alchemical transformations in which objects suggest a multitude of possibilities." Time Out Magazine offered the film similar praise, comparing it to the works of Max Ernst and Georges Méliès. It is listed in the film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, noting the film as director Harry Smith's magnum opus, and saying "Incomplete, deeply idiosyncratic, rearranged from materials taken largely from an earlier period —a Victorian-era catalogue— it is explicitly "folk" in nature." Writing in 1999 for The Independent, Waters noted that "Smith's stop-frame animations look remarkably similar to Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations made a few years later". A still from the movie was used as the album art for Slowdive’s 2017 self-titled album. ==See also==