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Poster for Topless Cellist
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Released
1995 · FILM

Topless Cellist

Runtime
29 min
Documentary

Synopsis

Nam June Paik's first single-channel videotape since 1989 serves as a tribute to his longtime collaborator Charlotte Moorman. The work chronicles Moorman's career as an avant-garde performer, beginning with her classical training and continuing through her infamous arrest as the "Topless Cellist," which led to her becoming a talk-show celebrity. The piece features rare recordings of Moorman's performances, including Otto Piene's *Sky Kiss* and Jim McWilliams' *Chocolate Cello*. It also includes interviews with Moorman's friends, family, and collaborators, such as Yoko Ono, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Otto Piene, and Barbara Moore, offering personal insights into Moorman's unique life and work.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 11

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

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