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Pas de Deux (1968).
News of a theatre piece celebrating the creativity of Norman McLaren, the pioneering Scots (and gay) animator and film-maker, had me searching YouTube again for his work. His short film Neighbours (1952) is very well-known, oft-cited and imitated for its pixillated character movement. No surprise to see it there, then, along with […]

YouTube keeps turning up the abstract cinema goods with this great seven-minute John Whitney showreel from 1961. And recent additions include a better copy of Whitney’s Arabesque as well as Permutations from 1966.
Update: Two masterpieces by John Whitney’s brother, James, Yantra and Lapis, are now on YouTube at last!
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Arabesque by […]

The Demon Regent Asmodeus (2006).
Alan Moore fans have finally discovered my little easter egg on the Mindscape of Alan Moore DVD so I can now talk about the creation of this miniature work. Director Dez Vylenz and I thought it would be nice to have a hidden extra somewhere on the main disc and […]

I made the complaint in November last year when writing about James Whitney’s Lapis that few of the classic works of abstract cinema have yet to find their way to YouTube. Happily, things change fast in the online world and you can now see a clip of Lapis here. Another recent addition is the whole […]

Great abstract animation from the Trollbäck design company for Moonlight in Glory, a track from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno & David Byrne. Via Design Observer.
In a similar vein there’s Bruce Connor’s 1981 film for another track, Mea Culpa. Connor also produced a film for America is Waiting from the […]

Samadhi (1967).
“Jordan Belson is one of the greatest artists of visual music. Belson creates lush vibrant experiences of exquisite color and dynamic abstract phenomena evoking sacred celestial experiences.” William Moritz
Good things come to those who wait. Following their collection of Oskar Fischinger films, the Center for Visual Music releases Jordan Belson: 5 Essential Films […]

After complaining a couple of days ago about the difficulty of seeing works of abstract cinema, it turns out that a collection of Oskar Fischinger’s great animations appeared earlier this year.
Decades before computer graphics, before music videos, even before Fantasia (the 1940 version), there were the abstract animated films of Oskar Fischinger (1900–1967), master of […]

Lapis (1966).
Proof of the conservative nature of cinema as an artistic medium can be found in the way its abstract practitioners don’t merit anything like the attention received by Piet Modrian or Jackson Pollock. In cinema narrative is all, and it’s ironic that when artists such as Julian Schnabel or Robert Longo turn to film […]

This prescient out-of-print volume from 1970 is available as a free PDF download here. Also at the essential ubu.com. (Thanks to Jay for the tip!)
From the original back jacket copy:
“Today when one speaks of cinema, one implies a metamorphosis in human perception,” writes the author of this extraordinary book. “Just as the term ‘man’ is […]