rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Unseen cinema
    part number: 3
    part name: Light rhythms. Ballet mechanique
  title info:
    title: Unseen cinema
    sub title: early American avant-garde film, 1893-1941
  title info:
    title: Light rhythms
    sub title: music and abstraction
  title info:
    title: Images mobiles
  title info:
    title: Ballet mécanique
  title info:
    title: Ballet mechanique
  name:
    name part: Léger, Fernand
    name part: 1881-1955
    role:
      role term: director.
  name:
    name part: Murphy, Dudley
    name part: 1897-1968
    role:
      role term: director.
  type of resource: moving image
  genre: videorecording
  genre: Abstract films
  genre: Experimental films
  genre: Short films
  genre: Silent films
  genre: Surrealist films
  genre: Abstract films.
  genre: Silent films.
  genre: Short films.
  genre: Experimental films.
  genre: Surrealist films.
  genre: Films muets.
  genre: Courts métrages.
  genre: Films expérimentaux.
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: xxu
    date issued: 1924
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: zxx
  physical description:
    reformatting quality: access
    form: remote
    extent: 1 online resource (17 minutes)
  abstract: LIGHT RHYTHMS is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Music originally composed for it, the film's aggressive Dada spirit also becomes clear. The original score, full of player pianos and mechanical sounds, was so radical it could not be performed. A later concert version was never synchronized with the film. Only modern technology and Paul Lehrman's 1999 reconstruction of the initial score made it possible to recapture the makers' original intentions. --DEKE DUSINBERRE The music is scored for eight percussionists, two pianists, bells, siren, airplane propellers, and sixteen player pianos. It eschews conventional forms, instead creating a unique "soundscape." Due to technical limitations related to synchronization, this complex composition was never played in its original instrumentation, alone or with the film. --PAUL D. LEHRMAN A pioneer of cubism and abstract art, Fernand Léger emerged from the First World War enamored of the so-called machine aesthetic wherein the visual spectacle of modern life was the essential subject for modern painting. He also wrote about cinema, and in "Ballet mécanique", used rapid editing and the close-up to find visual drama and formal beauty in machine parts and functional objects. --MATTHEW AFFRON Boston-born Dudley Murphy was an engineering student, World War I pilot, and movie set decorator before launching his directing career with a series of evocative short films including the first American avant-garde film to be screened in New York City, "The Song of the Cypress" (1921). These musically driven experiments culminated in the jazz-infused Ballet Mecanique, and influenced his later Hollywood and independent features, including "The Emperor Jones" (1933). --SUSAN DELSON American composer-performer George Antheil went to Europe from New Jersey in 1922. His outrageous piano concerts featuring his avant-garde compositions made him "the toast of Paris." However, a fail…
  target audience: adult
  note: by Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy.
  note: "Music and abstraction".
  note: Title from resource description page (viewed June 11, 2020).
  note: Music by George Antheil ; adapated & arranged by Paul D. Lehrman.
  note: Silent with music.
  subject:
    topic: Surrealism in motion pictures
  subject:
    topic: Motion pictures
    geographic: United States
  subject:
    topic: Experimental films
    geographic: United States
  subject:
    topic: Surréalisme au cinéma
  subject:
    topic: Cinéma
    geographic: États-Unis
  subject:
    topic: Experimental films
  subject:
    topic: Motion pictures
  subject:
    topic: Surrealism in motion pictures
  subject:
    geographic: United States
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Academic Video Online
  identifier: http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login
  record info:
    record content source: ALSTP
    record creation date: 200611
    record change date: 20241201234949.8
    record identifier: in00005601520
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng