Unseen cinema. 7, Viva la dance. Escape : a seeing sound film : Synchromy no. 4 / designed and directed by Mary E. Bute ; photographed and technically directed by Theodore J. Nemeth ; produced by Expanding Cinema.

Format:

Video

Contributor:

Bute, Mary Ellen, director.

Nemeth, Ted, 1911-1986, director.

Cineric (Firm), presenter.

Expanding Cinema (Firm), production company.

Series:

Academic Video Online

Language:

No linguistic content

Genre:

Experimental films.

Animated films.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (6 minutes)

Other Title:

Synchromy no. 4 : Escape

Unseen cinema : early American avant-garde film 1893-1941

Viva la dance : the beginnings of ciné-dance

Place of Publication:

United States : Filmmakers Showcase, 1937.

System Details:

video file

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.

Participant:

Philadelphia Orchestra ; Leopold Stokowski, conductor.

Notes:

Title from resource description page (viewed July 24, 2020).

"Early American avant-garde film 1893-1941".

Contains:

Music: Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1685-1750. Toccatas, organ, BWV 565, D minor; arranged.

OCLC:

1191033341

Publisher Number:

ASP5053399/marc