Joseph Cornell’s collage aesthetic was expressed not only in his famous box assemblages but also in his occasional work in film (a collector of all things, he also maintained a cache of 16mm films). As an homage to Rose Hobart, a popular screen queen of B-films in the 1930s, Cornell radically altered her 1931 jungle-picture East of Borneo, interspersing fragments of a scientific documentary and turning it into a surrealist experience that caused Dali to exclaim, “He stole my dreams!”

In this omnibus work, the first feature-length Surrealist film made in America, a poor young poet sells dreams—each one a mini-movie realized by a noted painter or sculptor whom the émigré Dada artist and filmmaker Hans Richter invited to participate. The delightful segments are enhanced by original musical compositions by such composers as Paul Bowles, John Cage, Duke Ellington, and Darius Milhaud.