NJ Film Fest: ‘Dreams That Money Can Buy’ transfers artists’ visions to screen

by JAY LUSTIG

An image from the 1947 film, “Dreams That Money Can Buy.”

Like most film festivals, the New Jersey Film Festival, whose Fall edition is being presented in New Brunswick through Nov. 3, emphasizes new works. But it will also screen, Sept. 28 at 6 p.m., a film that’s 70 years old — and that still manages to seem ahead of its time.

You can watch a trailer of this remarkable film, below.

“Dreams That Money Can Buy,” directed by Hans Richter, is basically a series of dream sequences conceived by artists such as Max Ernst, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder, and set by music by John Cafe, Darius Milhaud, Paul Bowles, Josh White and others. Connecting the sequences is a story about a down-on-his-luck guy who starts a business in which he sells dreams to people.

“Dreams on the installment plan!”, as the film’s puckish narrator says.

Some of the sequences, like one with dancing mannequins and another with kaleidoscopic geometric patterns, are fanciful. Occasionally, though, the dreams turn into nightmares.

“Dreams That Money Can Buy” will be shown at the New Jersey Film Festival, Sept. 28 at 6 p.m., at the Ruth Adams Building at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Visit njfilmfest.com.

Other festival films this week will include “Life by the Landfill,” a documentary about environmental activists in Rome, with the short film “Siamo la Fine del Mondo (We Are at the End of the World),” about two lovers who stream details of their relationship to the world, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. at Rutgers’ Voorhees Hall.

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