With the upcoming release of Robert Eggers's The Northman I thought it might be interesting to dive into some short films from major directors, focusing on their early work and the distinctive ideas you can see that they have early on.

• Since this was inspired by Eggers I thought we'd start with him! I've recently stumbled upon his first short film, Hansel & Gretel. It's an interesting little black and white silent film, one that feels very inspired by Nosferatu and is has ideas he'd later follow through on with The Lighthouse (visual ideas, not story or theme).
• Nolan's Doodlebug (here's a BC director, so now this post is relevant to the podcast!) is so weird and kind of an outlier in his catalog. The dreamlike, unreal imagery sort of tracks through to Inception, but it's a very odd bit of his filmography.
• Ari Aster's The Strange Thing About the Johnsons is one of the most unsettling shorts I've seen (at least on YouTube, if we go Vimeo many other directors have much weirder stuff). While it's off-putting, the short really does provide a kind of Ur-text for his later fascination with fucked up family relationships and the damage that can be caused by any member of said families. It tracks with the dead mother from Hereditary and even the mentally unwell sister in Midsommar.
• What if Darren Aronofsky produced a comedy sketch show? Fear not, that question is answered in No Time! This is...bizarre. It's sort of funny in places, shows the seeds of the idea that will eventually become the "hip-hop montage" that he is known for, but really it's just an awkward Mad TV episode that features none of your recurring sketches (though I found the sketch involving the two gentlemen fishing to be pretty chuckle-worthy).

What about y'all? Got any favorite short films from major directors? Lesser-known is always awesome, as I love finding new shorts that I haven't seen yet!