Experimental film analysis - Essay Example

In Free Radicals, he synthesizes all his artistic abilities and sensitivities in order to create a truly majestic work. This paper intends to read Lye’s doodling on film through an examination of the multimedia character of the Free radicals. Although, the paper attempts to read the Free Radicals from within, i.e. by examining its medium and content on its own, it would try to incorporate necessary theoretical insights as well. 2. The Artistic Background of the Free Radicals Len Lye was always particular in drawing the source of his inspiration from music from various (often distant and little known) cultural backgrounds.

In one of his first and best animated sound films, which is A Colour Box, Lye uses Caribbean jazz in a time when it was not much known to the outside the world. Peculiarly, in Lye’s animation films, shadows, streaks and colors are easily blended to an extraordinary music with quite perfection. Color could be seen bouncing back from the screen. It is this very synchronization of colors and images with the music makes Lye’s animations more than appealing. Lye’s animated films were not only quite different from the movies produced in their respective times but also technologically advanced than other.

This technological edge is one of the distinct features of Lye’s films. It was in 1926, Len Lye moved to England from New Zealand. He was attracted to the modernist movement in England and active in such circles having many friends among the stalwarts of arts and literature. Lye was also attracted into various art forms such as surrealist stories and poems and moving sculpture. He was both eclectic and eccentric. The indigenous art of Maori people in the New Zealand had strong influence on Ley’s idea of art, especially his conception of visual art.

Moreover, he was extremely fascinated by the oceanic cultures from around the world. It is necessary to remember that he was expelled from the racist New Zealand for living among the Maori people. In his way to England, he had also visited many pacific islands and closely interacted with the aboriginal people. It might be because of this influence of the indigenous culture, Lye’s painted-on-celluloid art resembled a lot to the finger paintings which are common among the aboriginals. In 1944, Len Lye moved to the United States wherein he got more acquainted with the African music traditions.

As his interests in kinetic sculpture grew, it was well reflected in the films he made later. 3. The Free Radicals as Doodling on the Film The Free Radical was made in 1958 and it was peculiar with its intense black and white nature. It appeared as drawings on a chalkboard. According to Kasmere, “an assured, signature work that Stan Brakhage called “an almost unbelievably immense masterpiece”, Free Radicals synchronizes etched hieroglyphs, squiggly horizontal lines and verticals of varying thickness to energetic drum music from The Bagirmi Tribe of Africa.

Nothing in the film is static. “White ziggle-zag-splutter scratches”, inscribed using a variety of tools including arrowheads and saw-teeth, appear abruptly, leap, quiver, and dance alongside the beat, then vanish suddenly. Occasionally the flat picture plane is transformed into a three-dimensional space as fluid, rough-edged wiry shapes appear to rotate, as though circled by a camera/eye. At times one denotes the outline of quickly passing hill covered or jagged mountainous landscape as the line-play slips