An Optical Poem (1938)
• March 5th, 1938 • 0h 7min
Animation, Music
Overview
A dance of shapes. A title card tells us this is an experiment in conveying the mental images of music in a visual form. Liszt's "Second Hungarian Rhapsody" is the music. The shapes, all two-dimensional, are circles primarily, with some squares and rectangles, and a few triangles. The shapes move rhythmically to the music: receding from view or moving across the screen. Red circles on a blue background; light blue squares; white rectangles. Then, a red background of many circles with a few in the foreground. Red gives way to blue then to white. Shapes reappear as Liszt's themes re-occur. Then, with a few staccato notes and images, it's over.
Make sure to check your pop-up blocker!!
Trailer
Similar Movies
Beethoven Missa Solemnis
Released on: 2012-01-01
Music
With this performance of the Missa solemnis Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Honorary Guest Conductor of the Ro...
DORA - Escape into Music
Released on: 2022-10-15
Documentary, Music, History
The pianist Kyra Steckeweh and the filmmaker Tim van Beveren search for traces where Countess Dora P...
Lindsey Stirling: Brave Enough
Released on: 2017-05-17
Documentary, Music
Beginning on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, “Brave Enough,” documents violinist Lindsey Stirling...
The Passions of Vaughan Williams
Released on: 2008-05-23
Documentary, Music, TV Movie
Fifty years after his death, this musical and psychological portrait of Ralph Vaughan Williams explo...
House of Ricordi
Released on: 1954-12-01
History, Drama, Music
The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of th...
Ghosts and Whispers
Released on: 2022-05-27
Music
An unbroken sequence of fragments, last thoughts, elegies and absences by Schubert, Mozart, Wagner, ...
Great Russian Composers
Released on: 1993-01-11
Documentary, Music
These biographical drama documentaries explore the lives and careers of Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Scr...
Aida - Arena di Verona
Released on: 2013-11-05
Drama, Music
The grand scale and magnificent acoustics of the Roman arena in Verona are ideally suited to the pag...
Gloria!
Released on: 2024-04-11
Drama, Music
In late 18th century Venice, in a convent school for girls, Teresa, a student with prophetic gifts, ...
Leonard Bernstein: The Gift of Music
Released on:
Documentary, Music
Leonard Bernstein narrated by legendary screen star Lauren Bacall. The movie also relies extensivel...
André Rieu - Power of Love
Released on: 2024-02-01
Music
Enjoy the summer evening concerts of André Rieu on the most romantic square in the Netherlands: the ...
CODA
Released on: 2014-01-01
Animation, Music
This short animation draws on advanced digital technologies to offer a new vision of dance in cinema...
The Life and Loves of Beethoven
Released on: 1937-01-15
Drama, Music, History, Romance
Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.
One 11 and 103
Released on: 1992-01-01
Music, Documentary
Avant-garde composer John Cage is famous for his experimental pieces and "chance music" but temporar...
Bach: A Passionate Life
Released on: 2013-03-30
Music, Documentary, TV Movie
John Eliot Gardiner goes in search of Bach the man and the musician. The famous portrait of Bach po...
What Difference Does It Make?
Released on: 2014-02-17
Documentary, Music
A documentary that explores the challenges that a life in music can bring.
Carmen Torero z „Carmen-Suity”
Released on: 1996-07-02
Animation, Music
Utterly astounding, iridescent sand animation from Aleksandra Korejwo based around Bizet's Carmen.