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Len LyeA Colour Box

Three minute hand-painted film by Len Lye.


This movie is part of the collection: Animation & Cartoons

Director: Len Lye
Audio/Visual: sound, color

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Reviewer: kapifare - - August 12, 2008
Subject: Correction -plus ...
Lye was from New Zealand, not Australia. What's really spectacular about him as well is the continuity between his early animation work and his later kinetic sculptures [which, sadly, I've only seen on TV.]There can't be another artist who has brought together such widely diverging forms.

Reviewer: Eva Vikstrom - - May 21, 2008
Subject: Before Photoshop
It's great to see another "experimental classic" on this site. Len Lye created "A Colour Box" in London in 1935 - he was born in Australia and would later move on to New York. In fact it's a sponsored film, produced for the British General Post Office (GPO Film Unit) as an advertisement for "cheaper parcel post". You hardly connect the avant garde of those years to the Post Office, but the GOP Film Unit was something extra. Lye created "direct films". He worked directly on film, painted and scratched it without using a camera. The rhythm of vertical scratches goes together with the music of a Cuban band.

Reviewer: LeGrande - - May 3, 2008
Subject: If you thought the original Fantasia was psychedelic ...
... you ain't seen nothing yet.

The collage of patterns and colors combined with the latin flavored music is a treat to watch. No plot ... just lots of patterns ... like the iTunes visualizer in many ways. Too bad it's only 3 minutes long.