Music: "Biguine d'Amour" - Don Baretto and his Cuban Orchestra (KALEIDOSCOPE); "Honolulu Blues" - Red Nichols and his Five Pennies [COLOUR FLIGHT].
Len Lye, pioneer kinetic artist, sculptor and experimental filmmaker, died in May 1980 in New York. He had emigrated to the United States from England in 1944. Between 1951 and his death, he worked on a number of films. Of the five films he made in the USA, several are considered to be his finest. These powerful "American Films" develop the techniques of "direct" filmmaking in new directions; together they constitute a major body of "direct" filmmaking. Len Lye lost interest in gaining public screenings for his work, and went "underground." These films were therefore known only to a small group of filmmakers and a few audiences. The films gained a legendary reputation .... They have hitherto been largely inaccessible and are therefore virtually unknown.
KALEIDOSCOPE (1935) and COLOUR FLIGHT (1938) are "direct" films - that is, films made without a camera. Lye painted colorful designs onto celluloid, matching them to dance music.
1935/1938, 16mm, color/so, 8m, $25
Inspired by Man Ray's "shadowcast" experiments, Len Lye discovered a whole range of new applications for this process in COLOR CRY and created the best and most elaborate "shadowcast" film ever made.
For years he tracked down materials and experimented with new effects. The complex textures and shapes he creates reflect Len Lye's masterful sense of abstract movement. Its color is very pure. The dramatic music interacts with the visuals to create a very powerful film.
1952, 16mm, color/so, 3m, $22
PARTICLES IN SPACE (1979) grew out of the same calligraphic material as FREE RADICALS. As with its companion film, PARTICLES is concerned with the energy of movement - of shaping light in darkness, by scratching on the film surface. In this film, Len Lye focuses on "a smaller, more compact zizz of energy than I'd ever got before on film." The rhythms of African drums again provide the musical counterpoint. "I thought FREE RADICALS as 'definitively revised' an almost unbelievably immense masterpiece (a brief epic) and that PARTICLES IN SPACE was its contemplative equivalent. COLOR CRY as great as I remembered it ...." - Stan Brakhage
Jazz guitar solo by Tal Farlow.
Before his death, Len Lye completed the drawings for TAL FARLOW (1980), his last scratch film. Just before he died, he gave approval for his assistant, Steven Jones (an experimental filmmaker) to complete the film. Jones edited it into its present shape, which also received the approval of Ann Lye, widow of the filmmaker.
Note: PARTICLES IN SPACE and TAL FARLOW are on one reel.
1979/1980, 16mm, b&w/so, 5.5m, $22
Color Cry
Particles in Space
Tal Farlow
Rhythm and Free Radicals
1952-1979, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 13.5m, $40