For Short Film Saturday for most of the coming year I will revisit the animated shorts that were presented in snippets by the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And here you’ll get to see the whole thing.
Aside form being a standout work of Dada filmmaking, Ballet Mecanique also demonstrates how silent film was always somewhat of a misnomer, which is why the addition of synchronous sound films led to the colloquial phrase “talkies” because they often had music via live accompaniment. Rescoring, or attempting to reconstruct the original score of a film, is often a task that is central to restoration as the quote below indicates.
An abstract, surreal mini-epic of kaleidoscopic images, “Ballet Mecanique” has a tangled history, marked by uncertainties about individual contributions and blurred by Leger’s re-edited versions. The music intended for the film also actually intersected with it only in intermittent fashion. Ironically, the Green Umbrella presentation matched the attempt to restore the original visual intentions with Antheil’s final revision of the score, made 28 years after the film was first shown in 1924. The union of sight and sound seemed more organic at some points than at others, but Antheil caught the manic rhythm of the film quite successfully. The combination proved surprisingly fresh and vital Monday, with Stephen Mosko conducting a tight, hard hitting performance of the brash score beneath the witty endlessly inventive images, in a remarkable triumph of imagination over the limitations of primitive technology.
John Henken, The Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1989
Not only is this short a blast from the Internet’s past, it was also an Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Short in 2002. Enjoy!
For Short Film Saturday for most of the coming year I will revisit the animated shorts that were presented in snippets by the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And here you’ll get to see the whole thing.
There is only one film left in this theme but since it’s Christmas-themed I’ll save it for December.
For Short Film Saturday for most of the coming year I will revisit the animated shorts that were presented in snippets by the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And here you’ll get to see the whole thing.
For Short Film Saturday for most of the coming year I will revisit the animated shorts that were presented in snippets by the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And here you’ll get to see the whole thing.
For Short Film Saturday for most of the coming year I will revisit the animated shorts that were presented in snippets by the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And here you’ll get to see the whole thing.
This post will include a bonus short as two films are included in the same clip.
For Short Film Saturday for most of the coming year I will revisit the animated shorts that were presented in snippets by the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And here you’ll get to see the whole thing.
For Short Film Saturday for most of the coming year I will revisit the animated shorts that were presented in snippets by the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And here you’ll get to see the whole thing.
For Short Film Saturday for most of the coming year I will revisit the animated shorts that were presented in snippets by the King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. And here you’ll get to see the whole thing.
The Movie Rat 