Melting, 1965, 6 minutes

‘Melting’ shows the natural monostructural disintegration of a strawberry sundae, its passage from rigidity to softness, from edibility to waste. The spoon resting on the plate refers to the human presence, which lurks behind the screen, declining to interfere with what transpires.

Thom Andersen, who was born in Chicago in 1943 but has lived much of his life in Los Angeles, where he teaches at the California Institute of the Arts, is one of the US’s foremost film essayists.