Unseen Cinema 3: Light Rhythms

Music and Abstractions

Light Rhythms is part of the film retrospective Unseen Cinema that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema.

The rhythmic elements of cinema are explored by artists and filmmakers fascinated in the abstract qualities of light. The American authors of avant-garde classics Ballet mecanique (1923-24), Anemic cinema (1926), and Nuit sur le Mont Chauve (1934) are finally acknowledged for their seminal artistic achievements made in Europe. Pioneer abstract films by Ralph Steiner, Mary Ellen Bute, Douglass Crockwell, Dwinnell Grant, and George Morris are compared and contrasted with Hollywood montages created by Ernst Lubitsch and Slavko Vorkapich. For the first time on video, composer George Antheil's original 1924 score accompanies Fernand Leger and Dudley Murphy's film Ballet mecanique, a truly avant-garde cacophony of image and sound.

26 FILMS BY FEATURED DIRECTORS: Alexander Alexeieff, Oswell Blakeston, Rutherford Boyd, Al Brick, Francis Bruguiere, Mary Ellen Bute, Douglass Crockwell, Marcel Duchamp, W.J. Ganz Studio, Dwinell Grant, John Hoffman, Francis Lee, Fernand Leger, Looney Lens, Ernst Lubitsch, George Morris, Dudley Murphy, Ted Nemeth, Claire Parker, Rrose Selavy, Ralph Steiner, Slavko Vorkapich, Melville Webber.

Curated by Bruce Posner and produced by David Shepard

"Rich with inventive and curious experiments." - LA Weekly

"There's a certain American impulse to be cherished here - irascible, restless, and vibrant. The sense of possibility, of play, of discovering the possibilities of the form, is palpable in Unseen Cinema." - City Pages, Twin Cities

Made possible in part by Cineric, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, Film Preservation Associates