The Film Society of Lincoln Center in association with The Center for Visual Music presents Oskar Fischinger: Optical Etudes, featuring many preserved prints of Fischinger's classic Visual Music films.
The program samples glimpses of Fischinger's earliest silent endeavors before plunging headlong into his unmistakable universe of vibratory parallel lines, comet-like spheroids and pulsating concentric circles, favorite primal forms deployed in one-to-one matchups with pieces by Brahms (1931's STUDY NO. 7), Wagner and Grieg (1933's KREISE), Mozart (1935's Muratti Privat cigarette ad), John Phillip Sousa (1941's AMERICAN MARCH) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1947's MOTION PAINTING NO. 1). Fischinger's technique, equally adept at interpreting then-contemporaneous pop music testifies to the powerful effects that can be wrought through pure abstraction.
Program also includes: ALLEGRETTO (2 versions), RADIO DYNAMICS, STUDY NO. 6, SPIRITUAL CONSTRUCTIONS, R-1 EIN FORMSPIEL, WALKING FROM MUNICH TO BERLIN and more.
Program provided by CVM. Prints preserved by the Academy Film Archive, CVM and Fischinger Archive, with the support of Film Foundation, Sony, Deutsches Filmmuseum and Cinematheque Quebecoise.
The program will be at 5:00 pm and 9:00 pm at Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, plaza level, New York, New York. Tickets on sale online through www.filmlinc.com and at the box office.
