Unseen cinema. a seeing sound film : Synchromy no. 4 / 7, Viva la dance. Escape :
Viva La Dance is part of the film retrospective Unseen Cinema that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. This new medium of expression is the Absolute Film. Here the artist creates a world of color, form, movement, and sound in which the elements are in a state of controllable flux,...
| Other Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Video |
| Language: | No linguistic content |
| Published: |
United States :
Filmmakers Showcase,
1937.
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| Series: | Academic Video Online
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to this streaming video (Alexander Street Press) |
| Summary: | Viva La Dance is part of the film retrospective Unseen Cinema that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. This new medium of expression is the Absolute Film. Here the artist creates a world of color, form, movement, and sound in which the elements are in a state of controllable flux, the two materials (visual and aural) being subject to any conceivable interrelation and modification. --Mary Ellen Bute. Mary Ellen Bute's first color film tells a story in abstraction of an orange/red triangle imprisoned behind a grid of vertical and horizontal lines under a sky-blue expanse, perhaps representing freedom. J.S. Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" adds dramatic tension to the visual variables in motion. --Cecile Starr. By 1934, Mary Ellen Bute was purposefully engaged in making abstract films and by 1954 was exploring electronic imagery. Trained in painting and stage lighting, she continued theoretical studies with mathematician Joseph Schillinger and musician Leon Theremin. Her early collaborators in film were Schillinger, Lewis Jacobs and Melville Webber, but it was with cameraman Ted Nemeth that she realized an ongoing series of short "seeing-sound" films. She also filmed a feature-length version of James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake". --Bruce Posner. Before producing and filming Bute's short abstract films (1931-1953), Ted Nemeth learned his craft creating special effects for feature film "trailers." As head of his own New York studio, founded in 1940 (the year Bute and he were married), he made documentaries, commercials, and short subjects, two of which were Academy Award nominees. --Aram Boyajian. Alternate title: "Toccata and Fugue". 35mm 1.33:1 color sound 4:08 minutes. Production: Expanding Cinema. |
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| Item Description: | Title from resource description page (viewed July 24, 2020). "Early American avant-garde film 1893-1941". |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (6 minutes) |
| Playing Time: | 00:05:09 |
| Production Credits: | Music, Toccata from Toccata and fugue in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, transcribed by Stokowski. |