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Another dubious entry in Bruce Posner's series “Unseen Cinema: American Avant-Garde Film 1893-1941,” which argues that “a vital avant-garde film culture” existed in the U.S. before Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). This one juxtaposes D.W. Griffith's Pippa Passes (1909) and The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) with Mary Ellen Bute's light pattterns, abstractions, and explorations of moving objects in the 1930s. Curiosities such as Bute and Ted Nemeth's Synchromy No. 2 (1935) represent a step backward from European abstract films of the 1920s, naively seeking synchronicity by trying to match musical phrases with appropriate shapes. More interesting is Bute's similarity to Busby Berkeley, both of whom seem to be choreographing patterns in space—though the two Berkeley numbers on the program, “Don't Say Goodnight” from Wonder Bar (1934) and “By a Waterfall” from Footlight Parade (1933), are not his most innovative. 88 min.
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Sorry there are no showtimes for Writing With Lightning: Griffith, Bute, and Berkeley on Saturday, November 21.
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