Len Lye: A Colour Box 1935

Post 3: Avant Garde Cinema

Discovering the art of Len Lye has to be one of the most treasured experiences of The Moving Image lectures has passed to me this semester. Lye is a radical creative mind, ahead of his time. His exuberant work stretches across film, sculpture, painting, poetry and more. His Films explode with kaleidoscopic hand applied colour, pulsing to rhythmic beats with the occasional brief plug to the G.P.O or finical benefactor.

Lye is an influential figure in the history of the moving image. In his early twenties, Lye travelled throughout the South Pacific, and lived for extended periods in Australia (at least we can claim some form of enlightening) and Samoa. He was forced out of Samoa for living with Indigenous communities. Moving to London in the 1920s, and then New York (1940s), Len Lye's career unfolded amongst avant garde modernism on the international stage.

Lye experimented with the possibilities of direct film-making. In some films he used a range of dyes, stencils, air-brushes, felt tip pens, stamps, combs and surgical instruments, to create images and textures on celluloid. In A Color Box, he employed the "photogram" method combined with various stencils and fabrics to create abstract patterns. It is a 16mm direct film.

Post 3: Surrealist Cinema

The representation of the subconscious, the image of dreams, and freedom from the restraints implemented by society and by reason or moral codes. The Surrealists pushed away from the idea of conforming to the status quo and shallow living doing what is ‘right’. The opposite of reality really is surrealism, subconscious thoughts and desires. Some of the truest aspects in Surrealist Silent film are found in passing frames of a larger film; the sudden emergence of the uncanny into the "normal" which may or may not be further explored in the rest of the film

In Man Ray’s ‘Starfish’, as if in a dream, scenes are stitched together to show a man and a woman walk along a country lane.  They climb a staircase and enter a room in which the woman starts to undress.  The man says farewell and goes away.  Later, the woman gives the man a starfish in a jar.  In his room, he examines it with fascination, and, as he does so, painted lines appear on the palms of his hand.  The woman returns to the same staircase with a knife, intent on murder, and finds a starfish.  The man meets the woman yet again, in the country, but this time she is accompanied by another man.  How beautiful she was, he reflects, looking at the starfish.  How beautiful she still is...

The desire for narrative, some point of mutual or emotive connection is disrupted and taken from us. The film becomes abstract in its cycles and repetition. The artistic and aesthetic choices become more apparent because of the lack of a rational sequential storyboard. Surrealist films challenge break from the tradition of movie plots, the screen representing the art forms of the theatre and our expectations of cinema.

The Starfish surreal Part 1

Post 2: Soviet and American cinema.

Whether judged by production statistics, popular success at the time or how they have aged and been appreciated through out time American and Soviet Silent cinema were on different tracks by the 1920s. American films whole hearted had stuck to the staples of romance and comedy to ensure a satisfied movie viewer; while the Soviet cinema had become a vehicle of mass propaganda, mostly government supported and subsidised.

I was surprised to find out that there was no working cinema in Moscow until late in 1921. The cinemas massive jump to popularity came out of the showing of old Russian and imported feature films. The Soviet Government did not seem so concerned by what was being shown at the time and by 1923 silent film was flourishing with some thing like 80+ cinemas. Of course it wasn't long before Communist ideas were being reinforced through the cinema by directors and writers who were convincing and dramatic in push away from 'western decadent capitalism' in their films (which was pleasing to the government).

 

 Major production houses had taken over the production of film in America. Mostly owned by those who also owned cinemas, silent film became an economic commodity more that an original work of art.Hollywood lead the way in plot creation, comedy, romance and feel good nationalist film were created to ensure profit margins and to ensure an audience post World War two of this happy life now assured

 

The Contrast is great in content and style but one common thead remains: that film was used to assure the viewer of the reasons for war, the enemy and quality of life.