Movies and TvShows featuring "abstraction" theme.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, abstraction - that most quintessentially modernist innovation - maintains a peculiarly contradictory position. Used, on one hand, by post-modernist artists as just one more quotable style amongst many, it is on the other hand still considered an elitist or hermetic language by audiences intimidated by its lack of recognizable subject matter. Yet ultimately, abstraction continues to be a viable creative path for contemporary artists of all generations, many of whom embrace it as the most inclusive and fundamentally resonant of artistic languages. Filmed at the artists' studios, the Dia Center for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Museum during their exhibition, "Abstraction in the Twentieth Century."
The Last of England is a surreal and poetic film that takes a deep dive into the post-industrial landscape of England. The story follows a couple as they navigate through a crumbling society, encountering various characters and situations along the way. The film explores themes of repression, rebellion, and the human spirit in the face of adversity. With stunning visuals and a haunting soundtrack, The Last of England creates a unique and thought-provoking cinematic experience.
The Angelic Conversation is a poetic and homoerotic film that explores themes of love and desire. With no dialogue, the film relies on beautiful visuals, slow-motion sequences, and Shakespearean sonnets to tell its story. It portrays a male-male relationship and includes scenes of a passionate kiss. This experimental film is a captivating and visually stunning exploration of gay love.
Documentary - From 1977 to 1981, multimedia artist Stephen Seemayer shot a Super-8mm movie of his creative friends in their unnatural habitat: the deserted industrial buildings of Downtown Los Angeles. His camera captured them at work and at play. - The Light Bob, Linda Frye Burnham, James Croak
In a dark and mysterious world, an angel with extraordinary powers arrives and brings light to its inhabitants. The angel's presence brings about both hope and chaos as the world's secrets are revealed.
Red Ball Express is a surreal animated short film that takes the audience on a steam train journey with a red ball. The film incorporates elements of abstraction and surrealism, creating a unique visual experience. The story follows the red ball as it travels through various landscapes, encountering strange characters and situations along the way. The film is a blend of animation techniques, including drawn-on-film and bluegrass music.
Explore the vibrant art scene of 1960s America and the revolutionary art movements that shaped the era. From abstract-expressionism to minimalism, delve into the works of renowned artists and their impact on art history.
Niki and his friends are members of the marginalised underclass living on the outskirts of Santiago. During Chile's transition from dictatorship to democracy (1988-1990), they forge a path from drug- and drink-fuelled nihilism and petty crime into the world of market-driven illegality and Niki begins a seemingly predestined relationship with the middle-class "loca", Manuela. Memorable episodes and characters, quotable dialogue and a mix of earthy national portrait and surrealistic flourish make this one of the key Chilean films of the Nineties.
A film woven around the idea that between early cinema and avant-garde film exists a connection.
In an effort to work without the distractions of the city, artist Carroll Dunham moved his studio from Manhattan to a small village in Connecticut, not far from where he grew up. Finding himself to be more at peace in the calm, rural setting, Dunham feels the freedom to create wildly bold and visually stimulating work, painting his way through expression and sexuality. Continuously holding a mirror up to society, Dunham aims to examine the ways in which we interpret images and ideas surrounding the physical human form and our contrived notions of appropriate depictions of it through art and media. Dunham's large canvas works are flooded with vivid color and striking imagery that grabs the attention of its audience and encourages a reconsideration of form and gaze. "The Artist's Studio: Carroll Dunham" documents a visit with critic Roberta Smith as she observes his new captivating work: a series entitled "In the Flowers" and a large canvas "The Beach".
A pioneer of visual music and electronic art, Mary Ellen Bute produced over a dozen short abstract animations between the 1930s and the 1950s. Set to classical music by the likes of Bach, Saint-Saëns, and Shoshtakovich, and replete with rapidly mutating geometries, Bute’s filmmaking is at once formally rigorous and energetically high-spirited, like a marriage of high modernism and Merrie Melodies. In the late 1940s, Lewis Jacobs observed that Bute’s films were “composed upon mathematical formulae depicting in ever-changing lights and shadows, growing lines and forms, deepening colors and tones, the tumbling, racing impressions evoked by the musical accompaniment.” Bute herself wrote that she sought to “bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding along with the thematic development and rhythmic cadences of music.”
To the toccata portion of Bach's "Toccata and fugue in D minor," we watch a play of sorts. Blue smoke forms a background; a grid of black lines is the foreground. Behind the lines, a triangle appears, then patterns of multiple triangles. Their movements reflect the music's rhythm. Behind the barrier of the black lines, the triangle moves, jumps, and takes on multiple shapes. In contrast with the blue and the black, the triangles are warm: orange, red, yellow. The black lines bend, swirl into a vortex, then disappear. The triangle pulsates and a set of many of them rises.
Impressionistic surrealism in three acts. The approach is literary experimental with optical effects. There are three mental states that are interesting: amnesia, euphoria and ecstasy. Amnesia is not knowing who you are and wanting desperately to know. I call this the White Night. Euphoria is not knowing who you are and not caring. This is the Dream of Meditation. Ecstasy is knowing exactly who you are and still not caring. I call this the Memory of the Future. This is an autobiographical film funded by the American Film Institute.
Uso Justo is a 2005 avant-garde short film that delves into the surreal world of abstraction and image. Through the use of archive footage, the film takes the viewer on a unique journey of surrealist storytelling, challenging traditional narrative structures.
Experimental short film by Anna Lajolo and Guido Lombardi.
Created in 1976 by Mort Jordan, a student at Temple University, “Time and Dreams” is a unique and personal elegiac approach to the civil rights movement. The filmmaker has described “Time and Dreams” as a personal journey back to his Alabama home, where he contrasts two societies: the nostalgia some residents have for past values versus the deferred dreams of those who are well past waiting for their time to fully participate in the promise of their own dreams. Through vignettes and personal testimonies, the film portrays Greene County, Alabama, as its people move toward understanding and cooperation in a time of social change.
Recycled footage from commercial films, which the film-maker has manipulated by removing the layer of emulsion and reconfiguring it on the transparent substrate of the film base.