Rhythm in Light

director: Melville Webber, Ted Nemeth, Mary Ellen Bute

original title: Rhythm in Light

year: 1934

running time: 5 min.

synopsis

Using light-splitting prisms, cellophane, sparklers, and ping-pong balls, the film attempts to represent what happens in the mind when listening to Grieg's score for the play Peer Gynt. The circular dance of shapes and lights drowned in darkness is structurally and rhythmically linked to the musical composition, their relationship anchored by a mathematical formula.

biography

From the 1930s to the 1950s, Mary Ellen Bute (1906–1983) undertook a project she called “Seeing Sound”. She created more than a dozen short abstract films that have been shown at Radio City Music Hall in New York. On the first of these, Rhythm in Light, she collaborated with Ted Nemeth (1910–1986) and Melville Webber (1871–1947).

more about film

director:

Melville Webber, Ted Nemeth, Mary Ellen Bute

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