Unseen cinema. 3, Light rhythms. 1941

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LIGHT RHYTHMS is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Lee's emotionally powerful rendering of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ...

LIGHT RHYTHMS is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Lee's emotionally powerful rendering of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 is presented as an abstract, animated action painting, its saturated color made possible through the new 16mm Kodachrome. Finally, primary colors give way to grays, blacks, and browns, as the world is metaphorically turned into an ashen battlefield. -JAN-CHRISTOPHER HORAK Francis Lee began experimenting with abstract animation in 1939, completing "1941" before going to war. After World War II, he made several more pioneering films, including "Le Bijou" (1946), before returning to painting. In the 1960s/70s he worked again as a cameraman and animator on "The Black Fox" (1962) and experimental videos. -JAN-CHRISTOPHER HORAK 35mm from 16mm 1.37:1 color sound 4:20 minutes. Music Igor Stravinsky.

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