Rhythm in Light (1934)
Genre :
Runtime : 5M
Director : Mary Ellen Bute, Ted Nemeth, Melville Webber
Synopsis
Screen titles introduce the film as a modern artist's impressions of what goes on in the mind while listening to music. Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite" accompanies images of common objects and abstract forms photographed in soft focus and through prisms: rings, pyramids, the staff of musical notes, and floating lights are all seen in multiple images, sometimes as if through a kaleidoscope, other times as if in animation. Images appear and patterns move across the screen. Sparklers celebrate at the film's end.
A young woman's plans to propose to her girlfriend while at her family's annual holiday party are upended when she discovers her partner hasn't yet come out to her conservative parents.
College student Danielle must cover her tracks when she unexpectedly runs into her sugar daddy at a shiva - with her parents, ex-girlfriend and family friends also in attendance.
When three parents discover that each of their daughters have a pact to lose their virginity at prom, they launch a covert one-night operation to stop the teens from sealing the deal.
An unexpected affair quickly escalates into a heart-stopping reality for two women whose passionate connection changes their lives forever.
The star of a team of teenage crime fighters falls for the alluring villainess she must bring to justice.
Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.
In 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.
The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.
Ava, 13, is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns that she will lose her sight sooner than expected. Her mother decides to act as if everything were normal so as to spend their best summer ever. Ava confronts the problem in her own way. She steals a big black dog that belongs to a young man on the run...
Two high school girls are best friends until one dates the other's older brother, who is totally his sister's nemesis.
Alice, a young innocent Catholic girl, is tempted into masturbating after an AOL chat suddenly turns sexual, however is conflicted as the act would be considered a sin.
19-year old Belle practices playing the violin diligently, but is unable to impart her music with a sensitive undertone. Her life changes when she discovers that sexual desire stimulates passion in her music.
Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.
A young female intern at a small magazine company becomes involved with a drug-addicted lesbian photographer, both of whom seek to exploit each other for their respective careers, while slowly falling in love with each other.
15-year-old Mia faces an overwhelming transformation which puts her entire existence into question. Her body is changing radically, and despite desperate attempts to halt the process, Mia is soon forced to accept that nature is far more powerful than she is.
Georgia Nicolson is fourteen, lives with nosey parents who don't understand her, an annoying three year old sister and has to wear a beret to school. She would, however, rather be blonde, have a smaller nose and a boyfriend. Revolving around her hilarious journal entries, prepare to be engulfed in the world of the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager.
A 17-year old Missouri teen discovers she has gotten pregnant, a development that threatens to end her dreams of matriculating at an Ivy League college, and the career that could follow.
Despite her sheltered upbringing, Jenny is a teen with a bright future; she's smart, pretty, and has aspirations of attending Oxford University. When David, a charming but much older suitor, motors into her life in a shiny automobile, Jenny gets a taste of adult life that she won't soon forget.
A feisty young woman returns to Glasgow to run her deceased father's curry house.
At a skid row mission, a cleric opines as men wait to eat. After his sermon, he brings out a pie and cuts it into small slices. The two men at the end of the line get none. They leave the mission and head for a garbage dump where junk becomes props for their play. A dress form becomes Mae West; a rusted car gives them a wild ride. Then, one dresses as a priest and promises pie in the sky. By the end, they sport metal halos.
Avant-garde piece making use of trick lighting.
A sing-along short with Irving Kaufman singing, Lew White at the organ, lyrics displayed for the viewing audience, and film clips illustrating the songs. "I Love a Parade" includes a montage of military marchers; "Baby Parade" is music and montage without Kaufman's singing although lyrics are superimposed on the screen images of children passing by. Then, it's on to "Presidents on Parade," featuring Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Coolidge, and FDR. Kaufman adds narration to bridge each piece.
A look at how the weather bureau tries to warn farmers and businessmen about approaching large storms. Although some precautions can be taken to lessen their impact, storms have to run their course, and there is really not much we can do about them.
A self-proclaimed saga of oil, celebrating the speed and power of plane, trains, and automobiles.
Against a background of bluish light, several objects appear: a square, a circle, and a set of rods. As the background color occasionally varies in shade between blue and rose, the objects move around, forming various patterns.
Shoreline images: first small breakers and the swirls they leave, then water running up the shore on a sandy beech, then water hitting pebbles and rocks. The second half is a close look at a sluggish eddy of seaweed, moving to and fro on the surface, like sodden twigs. The ocean's tide creates patterns of small surges and circles. The music of the soundtrack is more dramatic than the more gentle movements of the seaweed. Final closeups show the bulbs and leaves of the plants, then the tide takes over.
Weaves a Gothic spell with its account of love and death on an isolated farm, including a startling passage of sunstruck eroticism.
Neil McRae, an impoverished composer, loves Cynthia Mason, but, fearing poverty, proposes to wealthy Gladys Cady. Can he compose himself and find the courage to seek love over comfort?
A parody of gangland thrillers, with children playing the parts of adults, opens with a heist. Little Geezer, a handsome and self-confident gangster, brings the loot to one of Big Shot's holes in the wall where the instructions are to divide it equally. Little Geezer takes a bigger share. Meanwhile, Big Shot is under pressure from Scarface Macaroni and his East Side gang; they're undercutting Big Shot with cheap beer. They kill one of his guys and wound Little Geezer. Meanwhile, Geezer's fallen under the spell of a siren, Greta Garbage; love leads him to want to leave gang life. But, is there any way out? Will Big Shot let him leave?
At a noisy inn, a young servant woman tries to sing a baby to sleep. The innkeeper and his wife berate and abuse the servant. Later that night, in hunger, misery, and desperation, she leaves and wanders through a Chagal-like landscape. The baby's cries wake up the innkeeper and his wife. Where has the woman gone? For whom is the lullaby?
In New York, a distraught woman sits in her rented room in a rocking chair. Outside, people shop and engage in commerce, men light pipes, hands type. A mother and baby play peek-a-boo: things are okay for many. The woman continues to rock. A drunk is arrested; a Salvation Army band plays, kids run around. Protesting unemployed workers appear. The rocking woman's face becomes more distorted. Military officers parade. A man picks through discarded clothes, hobos sit listless. These men are veterans of the Great War, now forgotten, many alcoholic. Passersby ignore men passed out on sidewalks. The woman stops rocking and takes action.
David Bradley creates a faithfully suspenseful adaptation of a story by Saki which boasts an inadvertent post-modern attitude.
Norman McLaren made Scherzo early after his arrival in North America in 1939, but the film was subsequently lost. In 1984 the original materials were found and the hand-drawn images and sound were reconstituted. Picture and sound dance triple-quick in this animated version of a musical scherzo. A film without words.
An early widescreen film that was told by cutting the two sides of the image off and replacing them with a different image.
The Man in the Moon invites little Mickey and his dog over for a visit. They go on a magical trip and meet strange characters along the way.
A (barely) two minute short is that it was made specially for a Paramount newsreel segment on Bute and Nemeth making films in their teensy New York apartment. Paramount apparently never got round to including the filmmakers in any newsreel, but their own film survived in the Bute-Nemeth Archive. (weirdwildrealm.com) To the rhythm of music that sounds a bit like a Busby Berkeley tune, lines and circles appear against a black background. Then triangles, in groups. Black and white squares move in tandem. Sparkling forms turn in kaleidoscopic patterns. Then cubes appear, white against the background, bouncing; a yin and yang rotate a few times before the film ends with an quick burst of scattering light.
Four prisoners, in convicts' stripes, march backwards down stairs and, under the watchful eyes of guards, hop backwards into their cells. Later, one overpowers a guard and springs his three pals. But, will they be able to pull off an escape? Other guards come to the aid of their fallen comrade before all four felons can flee. Guards and convicts spring forward and backward out of cells, up and down stairs, and into and out of freedom.
Independent film featuring modern dance in a forest, with the performers wearing white fabric costumes.
A condemned man manages to avoid being hanged from a bridge over a river when the rope breaks, so that he falls and sinks into the water…