NFR Project: 'Tarantella' (1940)

 

NFR Project: ‘Tarantella’

Made by Mary Ellen Bute

Premiere: 1940

4:41

 

Mary Ellen Bute (1906-1983) was a visual artist who became obsessed with sequential art. Naturally she turned with her great strength as an abstract artist to the problem of setting images to music. She’s a pioneer of experimental film. (Read Lauren Rabinovitz's excellent essay here.)

Between 1934 and 1967, she made 17 films, mostly her famous “motion paintings,” which coordinated shapes, squiggles, swathes of color, kinetic explosions of dots and lines, all writhing and intermingling with a recorded soundtrack.

In this case, her pictures, over 7,000 of them, are set to music by pianist and composer Edwin Gerschefski. Her kinetic abstractions throb and hustle, pounding along with the crashing chords. The film declares itself “a swift moving dance presented musically and in linear forms in color.” It needs to be seen to be believed.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Dumbo.