Visual variations on Noguchi

Film directed by Marie Menken in 1945 (revised in 1955). The film's score is the piece 'Poetry of natural sound' by Lucille Dlugoszewski.

Synopsis
This is an experimental short made in sculptor Isamu Noguchi's MacDougal Alley studio in New York. Noguchi had to be out of town for a time and asked filmmaker Marie Menken to look after the place. She brought her camera with her and filmed the sculptures utilizing hand-held techniques, appearing to imbue Noguchi's smooth and curvaceous sculptures with 'movement.' Menken later heightened the effect though skillful editing. At the time Visual Variations on Noguchi was first presented, no one had ever seen anything like it. Canadian animator Norman McLaren endorsed it, saying 'never before have I seen such purely dynamic treatment of sculpture in film.' Visual Variations on Noguchi circulated for years as a silent short through Menken's Gryphon film distribution company, but in 1955 she re-edited the title somewhat and added a striking soundtrack by composer Lucia Dlugoszewski; this is the form in which the film now stands. ~-David Lewis, All Movie Guide

Film notes
'By use of hand-held, ambulating camera, unusual editing and a startling experimental score by Lucille Dlugozewski, the sculptures of the famous Japanese-American artist, Isamu Noguchi, are given audacious movement in a controversial art-film experiment. --Cinema 16

'Never before have I seen such purely dynamic treatment of sculpture in film. Marie Menken has successfully transformed Noguchi's sculpture into her own medium. --Norman McLaren

Links
*Notes on Marie Menken DVD

Author: 

Year: 

1945
Technical data

Original format: 

16mm

Speed: 

24FPS

Aspect ratio: 

1.37:1

Colour: 

B&W

Sound: 

Optical

Length: 

4 minutes

Distribution/sales: 

Copies for rent:
Canyon Cinema

*Arsenal Experimental

Sales:

Visual Variations on Noguchi is one of the extra features in the DVD edition of Notes on Marie Menken, published by austrian publishing label Index.

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