from the dvd set unseen cinema, the mechanized eye, experiments in technique and form.
54 minutes of drifting clouds and smoke, pulsing mechanic devices, abstracted water, and trees and leaves being blown about by the wind.
from the wonderful bruce posner's box set unseen cinema.
can't seem to find out much about henwar rodakiewicz except that he did the script for the film the city in 1939.
portrait of a young man is a great example of "the long form", or, films that are challenging in subject matter, but don't conform to the traditional short length of the avant-garde film (other examples are andy warhol's empire or michael snow's la region centrale).
here are some images from the film:
water
water
machines
machines
machines
water
smoke
leaves
clouds
waterfor other studies of artists using nature, see woolgathersome's lovely study of snow crystals and ice palaces.
5 comments:
yes, this set is amazing!!!!! we did some live improvised soundtracks to some of the films a few months ago... i'm still working my way through the set. these images remind me a little of that eames film of them hosing off a playground, which is one of my all time favorites. by the way, have you seen "into great silence"? saw it last night... make sure you see it in the theatre.... it's stunning.
i love that eames movie, with the bach soundtrack.
i am still working on the set as well, some of it is just amazing, like the mechanized eye disc especially.
i have been wanting to see into great silence, hasn't opened here yet.
looks like a perfect movie.
Perhaps of interest, HR worked with Paul Strand on the Mexican film Redes (aka The Wave in the US) in 1934. He and Strand met in New Mexico in the summer of 1932, when HR was living in Santa Fe and Strand was in Taos. It seems that HR was filming at Taos Pueblo in 1934 before heading down to Mexico proper, but nothing much came of it of his efforts, largely because of lack of funding. By 1935 he appears to have been working in Hollywood.
thanks, that is interesting.
i really couldn't find out much about him, do you know of some books that talk about his work?
Sorry, can't help much on the publications front as I came across HR while researching the Strand archive at the Center for Creative Photography at the U of Arizona, Tucson. Perhaps he's mentioned in Jan-Christopher Horak's Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde, 1919-1945 and/or Alexander William's Film on the Left? Good luck!
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