Learn­ing from Lye

http://prodesign.co.nz/learning-from-lye/2010/03/22/

Motion as emotion.

The potential to be moved by movement was Lye’s motive force – he conceived his sculptures as performers rather than objects. Horrocks suggests Lye might have reframed Descartes’ dictum by declaring ‘I move, therefore I am’, and paraphrased Archibald MacLeish’s ‘A poem should not mean / But be’ with ‘A film should not mean / But move’.

How much attention do designers give to ‘composing motion’ through the way their creations move and /or the way people are made to move, and be moved, as they inter act with them? Lye’s prose included at least two explorations of bodily feelings and physical sensations around chairs.

ttp://www.introuble.com.au/www2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=124&Itemid=65

Glenn Deegan

Motion in film. Lye was a pioneer of scratch film and one of the more important underground film makers of the early twentieth century. His film “Colour Box” (1935) was named as one of the top ten most influential animations, “Free Radicals” (1958) was in the top fifty. “Free Radicals” has also been included the US National Film Registry. Lye pioneered ‘scratch’ film, where the image is painted directly onto the celluloid. A technique later taken up and made famous by Norman Mclaren. As Lye tells it he was watching clouds one day and thinking about the way Constable used to try painting clouds in motion. “Well, I thought, why clouds, why not just motion? ... All of a sudden it hit me – if there was such a thing as composing music, there could be such a thing as composing motion.” The result is his ‘scratch’ films. Remarkable compositions of moving geometric shapes, dancing in all directions across the screen to jazz soundtracks. Jazz was the perfect fit for the free form films like “Swinging the Lambeth Walk” (1939). Lye made these films for the General Post Office in London. Later he would make films for Imperial Airways and The Ministry of Information and the American series “March of Time”.

Motion in his sculpture. The true power of this exhibit is Lye’s kinetic sculpture. Mesmerising works that frame the artist as engineer and the engineer as artist. As with his film work, Lye is a true Modernist here, not just thematically but through the choice of medium. It’s the machine as a work of art. “Grass” (1961-1965) is a plank of wood with dozens of metal rods protruding from it. The plank is mounted in the middle on a motor which gently rocks it like a seesaw. The rods wave like a sea of grass captivating, evocative and compelling. “Universe” (1963-1966) is a large two metre high loop of metal mounted to a base with electromagnets mounted either side, alternately powering up and down causing random movement like sound waves along the top of the loop. Above hangs a wooden ball. As the hoop bends up toward the ball, tension in the viewer rises so that when the hoop misses the ball there are sighs of disappointment, followed soon after by a release of tension as the hoop hits the ball. ‘CLANG’ the sound rings out across the exhibition space, then ‘CLANG’ ‘CLANG’ it continues in an irregular pattern. Lye’s original vision for this was as a sixty foot high sculpture that would have rang out like a cathedral bell.

Lye’s photograms are a fascinating range of portraiture. Several well known profiles such as Le Corbusier, Hans Richter, Joan Miro and Georgia O’Keefe. The photogram by its nature is minimalist. The outline of a profile and some carefully placed items, they are black and white making them a simple strong statement of who the subject is. Le Corbusier with a matchstick blind. The plumber with a spanner and a pair of pliers.

The exhibition now showing at ACMI is the most extensive retrospective of Lye’s work yet. It includes film, photograms, sculpture and perhaps to its detriment his drawings and paintings. It’s often nice to see background work of an artist to follow his development and gain insight into the creative process. However the collection of painting and doodles that divides the powerful works of his film and kinetic sculptures diminishes rather than strengthens the exhibit. It’s interesting to note at this point that Lye’s strength seems to lie in the intersection of engineering and art. There is a mastery of technology in the films, the photograms and the kinetic sculpture. It’s only when he returns to more traditional art mediums that his work wanes. Overall, however, this exhibition in the newly renovated basement of ACMI is a wonderful collection from a talented and diverse artist.

METROPOLIS: Character Profiles

Metropolis, considered by some to be the greatest Science Fiction film of all time, is truly a tribute to the imaginations of director Fritz Lang, and author Thea Von Harbou.

It is a tale that mixes Norse mythology with Biblical Prophecy to give a glimpse to what was perceived then, as a possible future for our society.

It is thrilling because of the breathtaking imagery. The set design pays homage to the Art Deco designs of the 1920s. The miniatures used for the city scape are incredibly detailed. If one looks at the film from a cinematography stand point, you have to conclude that this movie was years ahead of its time.

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FILM ARCHITECTURE From Metropolis to Blade Runner

"Throughout the 20^th century, the visions of cities and spaces shown in films are often more memorable than any crated on drafting board or construction site. However, despite its significant role in the history of both architecture and film, screen architecture still remains largely undiscovered. Film Architecture: Set Designs from Metropolis to Blade Runner examines these architectural elements, and includes a look at he original set designs used by filmmakers across Europe and the United States."

Edited by Dietrich Neumann Munich and New York: Prestel-Verlag, 1996

Film Architecture. From Metropolis to Blade Runner is a beautiful book about the relationships between Architecture and Cinema. It was edited by Dietrich Neumann in 1999 and includes essays by Donald Albrecht, Anton Kaes, Anthony Vidler and Michael Webb.

Fritz Lang : Frau im Mond - A heavy hand on a heavy heart

Erich Kettelhut 'Metropolis' Drawings

http://www.michaelorgan.org.au/Metrop.htm

The following page contains reproductions of a series of preliminary drawings prepared by Erich Kettelhut for the production of Metropolis. Kettelhut was one of the production team formed during 1924 to work with Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou on developing the film and preparing it for shooting. The following brief biography of Kettelhut by P.L. is taken from Dietrich Neumann (ed.) Film Architecture: Set Designs from Metropolis to Blade Runner, Prestel, Munich, 1997.

Erich Kettelhut 1893-1979

Erich Kettelhut was apprenticed as a stage-set painter, studied drawing and painting at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Berlin, and held various appointments at provincial theatres. In April 1919, Joe May appointed him assistant set designer for Herrin der Welt (Empress of the World). Kettelhut assisted Otto Hunte, who was responsible for the artistic and technical direction as well as the overall plan of the structures. Around Berlin, at Weissensee, Potsdam, and Woltersdorf, fantastic monumental building began to appear that were intended to transport the audience all over the world, to China, Africa, America, and the legendary Ophir. With this production Kettelhut acquired the tools of the set designer's craft. Together with the cameraman Karl Puth, he experimented with different heights and angles for perspective vistas and developed an understanding for the way film can represent architecture.

In his next project, it was Kettelhut's job to convert designs by Hunte into ground plans and elevations for the construction sets. Joe May's Das Indische Grabmal (The Indian Tomb, 1921), Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, 1921-2), and Die Nibelungen (1924) were construction assignments this team completed in spectacular fashion. But Kettelhut's specialty was above all architectural models, as well as the special effects necessary to make his trick building appear as actual architecture on the screen. As on Metropolis, Kettelhut worked mainly with Gunther Rittau, a cameraman with a great interest in special effects.

From then on, Kettelhut was in charge as the art director. For Walter Ruttman's Berlin, die Sinfonie der Grossstadt (Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, 1927), he organized the sheltered and disguised sites for the camera in order to capture street scenes directly, authentically, and without interruption. One camera, for example, was installed in an advertising kiosk in front of the Anhalter railroad station in order to record the morning and evening traffic at this busy Berlin intersection. The experience of Berlin also contributed to the success of Asphalt. In Neue Sachlichkeit style, documentary takes of daily life in Berlin were incorporated into the opening scenes of the film by means of multiple exposures. For the action in the film itself, Kettelhut built a 230 metre street in the studio, made completely according to the demands of camera operation, and constructed a movable crane to provide interesting details for the panning lens.

Thanks to his diversity, Kettelhut remained in demand as a set designer after the end of World War II. Shooting of Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse (The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, 1960) brought him and Lang together once again. With Lang's last film, Kettelhut also left the cinema. A few projects for television concluded the more than four decades of work in film.

1. Opening title of "Metropolis", sketch by Erich Kettelhut. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek. Sepia wash and colour drawing on paper. This image forms the basis for the original opening title graphic.

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2. Dawn, oil and gouache on cardboard, 39 x 54.5 cm. Part of opening sequence. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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3. Cityscape for Metropolis, Version 1, ink on paper, 30.7 x 40.2 cm. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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4. Cityscape for Metropolis, Version 2, gouache on grey paper, 30 x 39 cm. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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5. City of the Sons, coloured pencil and grey wash on paper, 30.7 x 40.2 cm. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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6. Tower of Babel, oil on cardboard, 43.6 x 55.2 cm. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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7. 'Metropolis - Stadt von oben mit Turm Babel. Bild I.' City from Above with Tower of Babel, Image No.1, gouache on cardboard, 39.2 x 52.6 cm. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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8. 'Metropolis - Hall of the Machines: View from Above, gouache and coloured pencil on cardboard, 27.5 x 35.5 cm. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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9. In the Elevator, oil and gouache on cardboard, 31 x 41 cm. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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10. Underground city. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

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11. Stadium, in City of the Sons complex. (c) Filmmuseum Berlin - Deutsche Kinemathek.

The Religious Affiliation of Director Fritz Lang

http://www.adherents.com/people/pl/Fritz_Lang.html#

Although Fritz Lang had Jewish heritage on his mother's side, his father was Catholic. Fritz Lang's mother converted to Catholicism after she was married. She took this conversion seriously, and she was dedicated to raising Fritz as a Catholic. Fritz Lang said he was raised "Catholic and very puritanical." As an adult, Fritz Lang always adamantly identified himself as a Catholic. Although he was not a particularly devout Catholic, he regularly used Catholic images and themes into his films.

Fritz Lang was completely uninterested in his mother's Jewish heritage while growing up. Nevertheless, it ended up being a key factor in his career when Nazi Germany rose up around the Austrian-born filmmaker and took over film industry of Germany (his adopted home). Lang was actually offered the opportunity to be supreme Fuhrer over the German film industry, but he instead fled Germany, because, he later claimed, he was fearful about what the Nazi regime would eventually to him because of his half-Jewish heritage.

Throughout much of Lang's life, many people thought of him as Jewish or at least part-Jewish. After Lang's experiences with Nazi oppression he became a staunch anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist; he made a number of anti-Nazi films. Later in life he apparently had some sense of Jewish identity. He may be best described as a partially ethnic Jew whose religion throughout life was a partially observed Catholicism.

From: David Michael Wharton, "Crucified to the Machine: Religious Imagery in Fritz Lang's Metropolis" in Strange Horizons, 6 January 2003

Fritz Lang's Metropolis... Certainly, the film's profusion of religious imagery can be traced back through Lang's lineage. Although his lapsed Catholic father and Jewish mother began their union at best uninterested in religion -- they requested a marriage ceremony stripped of all spiritual trappings, though they did not get it -- they did eventually embrace the tenets of Catholicism. The doctrines of that faith insinuated themselves into Lang, shaping his worldview, his politics, and his cinematic vocabulary. The language of Metropolis -- the themes, the images, the characters -- are all rooted firmly in the language of Judeo-Christian theology.

Judeo-Christianity date to 1899 and 1910 respectively. The term appeared in discussions of theories of the emergence of Christianity, and with a different sense than the one common today. "Judeo-Christianity" here referred to the early Christian church, whose members were Jewish converts and still considered themselves part of the Jewish community.

Fritz Lang: Behind the Scenes with a Master Science Fiction Filmmaker

http://www.fanboy.com/2010/02/fritz-lang.html

Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 7, 2010 in Cinema

When I came across the above photo I was blown away: I’ve seen Metropolis and looked at so many stills — yet I never came across a image that represented so well the amazing amount of work that went into this film. So I set on a quest to locate other behind-the-scenes glimpses of the work that Fritz Lang did before he fled Germany in 1933:

This photo shows Fritz Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou in their Berlin apartment, 1923 or 1924. The two worked together a great deal during the 20s and wrote the script for Metropolis together. However they separated in 1931 and divorced in 1933 as Hitler came to power. Thea joined the Nazi party and continued writing scripts during the war — however Lang’s mother was Jewish and thus he was lucky enough to flee Germany.

This amazing photo shows Lang on the set of the flooded city ofMetropolis.

Actress Brigitte Helm played Maria and the robot in Metropolis — like Lang she left Germany in 1935 and moved to Switzerland where she lived until the age of 88 in 1996. She retired from filmmaking but left behind an amazing legacy from the silent film era.

This is an Architectural drawing of Metropolis by the artist Erich Kettelhut (1893-1979). Kettelhut got his start as a stage-set painter and worked on quite a few of the expressionist silent films of the 20s including earlier collaborations with Lang on Dr. Mabuse der Spieler (1921) and Die Nibelungen (1924).

This drawing by Kettelhut was actually used as part of the opening sequence of Metropolis. It was created with a combination of dawring, oil pant and gouache on cardboard.

This was a preproduction sketch by Kettelhut which showed the city of Metropolis — this was the second sketch he did and you can see how he slowly evolved from a cityscape that looked like a Manhattan skyline to something had more of a science fiction flavor.

And here are carpenters at work making those preproduction drawings come to life. If you look at the center of the drawing you can see the left side of the central building of Metropolis which would inspire the film Blade Runner over fifty years later.

Frau Im Mond (Woman in the Moon) from 1929 was years ahead of its time in showing a journey to the moon. This photo shows them filming on the set of the moon which features a giant backdrop painting of a lunar landscape.

This is the model of the rocket used in Frau Im Mond which shows the amazing amount of detail that Lang would put into his films. In fact the rocket scientist Hermann Oberth was a technical advisor to Lang on the film which became very popular with Wernher von Braun’s circle. After World War II Oberth went to work for Wernher von Braun doing work for NASA and while he retired in 1962 he did witness the first moon launch of the Apollo 11.

This photo shows the master at work — on the far left is Fritz Lang instructing the cameraman on the set of Frau Im Mond. When Lang moved to America he did a great deal of work in Hollywood including many films that were westerns and film noir, but sadly he never returned to making science fiction films.

Metropolis

METROPOILIS Fritz Lang silent feature film, GERMANY 1927

http://web.archive.org/web/20021015002010/www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/Metroa.html

Metropolis continues to be highly regarded and influential to a new generation of film makers. Since the time of its initial public screening, Fritz Lang's futurist drama has motivated critics and others to comment on aspects of its production, the many filmic elements, narrative structure, and way in which it reflects and comments upon so many aspects of Weimar Germany and German culture during a period of great turbulence and social change. They have also attempted to define its place in the developing history of cinema. However, such an expansive, multifacetted film as Metropolis is not easily pigeon-holed. The New York Times reviewer in 1927 called Metropolis:

...a remarkable achievement....a technical marvel with feet of clay...a picture as soulless as the manufactured woman of the story...

Fritz Lang's 1927 silent feature film Metropolis is a landmark in the history of the development of cinema as an artform. Monumental in both scale of production and the themes it addressed, the film is widely regarded as the pinnacle of German Expressionist filmmaking during the 1920s. It was the first of a long line of science-fiction and fantasy spectaculars which continues to this day in the form of blockbusters such as Bladerunner and the Star Wars series.

From its point of inception Metropolis was to be no ordinary film. Conceived as a major cinematic production, it was backed by the gigantic, state-operated Ufa during a period when German filmmaking was at the cutting edge of quality cinematic production. In that brief period following on the end of World War I in 1918 and up until the seizure of power by Adolf Hitler's National Socialists (NAZI) Party in 1933, German studios were responsible for the creation of such memorable films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), Nosferatu (1921), Das Nibelungen (1924), Metropolis (1927) and The Blue Angel (1930). The late teens and early twenties in Germany was a time of rampant inflation, decadence, personal liberty, violence and insecurity, and artistic freedom of expression. It was followed by the unfortunate rise of the Nazis during the late twenties and early thirties, which saw a severe clampdown on these freedoms in all walks of life, especially the arts and politics.

During the twenties the barriers separating film from art became decidedly blurred in Germany and Europe. Abstract Expressionism, Dada and the Modernist movement carried over into motion picture making, and directors such as Fritz Lang, Friedrich Murnau and Sergei Eisenstein absorbed many of the ideas being put forward by artists and writers of the time. The infuence of the German Bauhaus School in regards to the use of light, arrangement of objects (staging), architectural innovation, and modern design was especially strong. Cinematographers, set designers and script writers were also similarly influenced, such that the team which produced Metropolis were of like mind in seeking innovation and looking to push the boundaries of film as art. Fritz Lang spelled out this philosophy in an article published during October 1926, towards the end of the final editing phase of Metropolis:

There has perhaps never before been a time so determined as ours in its search for new forms of expression. Fundamental revolutions in painting, sculpture, architecture, and music speak eloquently of the fact that people of today are seeking and finding their own means of lending artistic form to their sentiments. Film has an advantage over all other expressive forms: its freedom from space, time, and place. What makes it richer than the others is its natural expressiveness inherent in its formal means. I maintain that film has barely risen above the first rung on the ladder of its development, and that it will become the more personal, the stronger, and more artistic the sooner it renounces all transmitted or borrowed expressive forms and throws itself into the unlimited possibilities of the purely filmic... (F. Lang, Die Literarische Welt, 2, 1 October 1926)

Initial German reviews of the director's 17 reel (elsewhere given as 9 or 14 reel), 4189 metre long, three hour plus film were decidedly mixed, finding fault in elements such as the narrative structure, and critical of its Socialist / Communist elements. The visuals were generally highly praised and audiences flocked to see this cinematic spectacular throughout 1927-8. Fritz Lang's masterpiece was almost immediately recognised as a landmark in German Expressionist filmmaking, whilst its use of lighting to set mood (a common expressionist device partially revived in the late 1940s as a prominent element in Film Noir), state-of-the-art special effects, and overpowering set design, all marked new standards in the developing art of the motion picture.

The film's central theme of workers revolting against domination by exploitative management, their soulless machines, and new technologies, also struck a chord with reviewers and the general public, though many critics in America and Britain objected strongly to this anti-Fordism / anti production-line tale. As such, Metropolis, with its many themes and sub-texts - inluding the almost obligatory 'boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy finds girl' - was a controversial film from day one. It garnered both positive and negative comment wherever it was shown, and generated much critical discussion in the press upon release.

Due to pre-release publicity in Germany during 1925-6 in association with the large scale of the production - it was supposedly the most expensive German film production to date, costing some 5 million Marks - and UFA's self-promotional activities, a great deal was expected of the film; and whilst a great deal was in fact achieved by Lang and his team, the resultant film was subject to indept scrutiny and criticism from a number of quarters. This largely adverse criticism was due, in part, to factors beyond the director's control. For example, the film was savagely cut and re-edited to change many key elements prior to screening outside of Germany. American and foreign theatre managers were generally unwilling to allocate more than ninety minutes to a feature in their program, during a period when film attendance figures were high. Metropolis suffered accordingly as the original version was thought to be too long. Also, individual projectionists and theatre managers saw to it that the film was screened at a ludicrously fast speed of up to 26 frames per second (as at its Berlin premiere!), thereby affecting the rhythm and pace of the original film, which had in all likelihood been cranked at the standard speed of 16 frames per second. As such, few people outside of Berlin saw Metropolis as Fritz Lang originally intended. The butchered, speeded-up version which was presented to European and American audiences in 1927 - and which we continue to see to this day - was disjointed, illogical in parts, and therefore open to criticism on a number of fronts. Lang could rightly claim that by the middle of 1927 his original film no longer existed.

Cover for Gottfried Huppertz's original score to the film Metropolis. Published by UFA in 1927.

Metropolis, UFA poster, Designer - Jósef Bottlik, Berlin, 1927. Designed for the release of the film in Hungary.e Helm as the robot Maria, in Metropolis

Brigitte Helm on the set of Metropolis.

(1927) by Fritz Lang.