Synchromy No. 4: Escape (Mary Ellen Bute - 1938)

[@mccarthystuart]

hard to believe this was made in 1938. It looks almost as thought it was made 20-30 years later.

[@GlobalsoftPirka]

The world's most dramatic triangle

[@MarkMiller-wz4nj]

fantastic!!!!! for decades wishing to see!!! THANK YOU

[@lysantibodo]

C'est tellement BEAU! Comment se fait-il que je n'ai jamais entendu parler d,elle. Parce que c,est le travail d'une femme? It's so BEAUTIFUL! How is it that I have never heard of it. Because it is the work of a woman?

[@heatherferreira4225]

YEP :(

[@jesaja53fem]

FANTASTIC!

[@binary132]

bach was so brilliant!

[@AlbertoHernandez]

VEry cool Historical techniques !

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

love it!!

[@croiners4166]

Wow!

[@isaacgoes4148]

it's LIT

[@PoitinCZ]

It's great what you find on KZbin, innit?

[@TacticalArtie]

Play the actual video, then read the intertitles explaining that it's Mary Ellen Bute's first color film.

[@blunderspublik]

That was amazing. I'm curious about where this came from too. Is it available on DVD/online?

[@ArtHistoryScholar]

The wonderful Light Rhythms disc from the great DDV box set, "Unseen Cinema"! I own the whole set & I highly recommend it! Some truly amazing, special, precious treasures of Cinematic Art such as this beautiful abstract movie!

[@bobbobato]

This is not the first colour film. There were experimental films in the 1890s and commercial colour musicals around 1930.

[@camilarios5438]

it says its hers first, not first overall

[@nicholasdauphinais]

How did she do this haha?

[@ckkjgc]

The Nazi's required concentration camp prisoners to wear colored triangles based on the outcast group they were part of, so Jews wore yellow triangles, homosexuals wore pink, communists, liberals, and trade unionists wore red, etc. I wonder if this was made in response to the Nazi policies--though the data, 1938, was a year before the war started.

[@TheRolltroll]

Actually Mary Ellen Bute, created it as a work of absolute cinema, which is inherently void of such ideas. The value is in the movement and distortion of the shapes, and the idea is that there is no need for a political idea to be pushed. also 1938 is quite before the public was aware of concentration camps.

[@ArtHistoryScholar]

@@TheRolltroll , I think the opening quote from Cecille Starr is inaccurate in its use of the word 'story' to describe this abstract visual music movie. I don't think this is exactly absolute cinema or absolute art but it definitely comes close to or points to that theoretical state. This is a non-story, non-character visual tone poem; an abstract movie that is non-narrative with no actors & no dialogue. It may have been inspired by the abstract thematic or conceptual idea or concept as explained by Starr; that the triangle behind a geometric grid is a metaphor that symbolizes the yearning of the human spirit when captured & oppressed to break free but that is all very abstract, the opposite of a story(narrative). Instead, it is a colorful, dynamic abstract cinematic visual music experience; an aesthetic experience that is about sensual pleasure, kinetic energy, & beauty. It it was inspired by that abstract thematic idea, it's just a very broad theme; an undeveloped, non-specific, abstract idea that isn't necessary to know about to enjoy the work itself.

[@conradoarroyo4556]

Tf is the point of this?