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THE MECHANIZED EYE is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. G.W. “Billy” Bitzer’s cinematography was famous for the expressive realism it added to D. W. Griffith’s films. Before those he shot hundreds of others, this being one of his best. Gliding through space, the camera and lights suddenly halt when something jams the overhead crane. Everyone freezes

THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Inspired by “Dream of a Rarebit Fiend” (1906), this sequence is the most remarkable example of the avant-garde in a mainstream Hollywood release. Fleming and Fairbanks worked with cameramen William McGann and Harris Thorpe and writer Tom Geraghty. The film incorporated cut scenes from “His Majesty the Americ... THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Inspired by “Dream of a Rarebit Fiend” (1906), this sequence is the most remarkable example of the avant-garde in a mainstream Hollywood release. Fleming and Fairbanks worked with cameramen William McGann and Harris Thorpe and writer Tom Geraghty. The film incorporated cut scenes from “His Majesty the American” (1919). — KEVIN BROWNLOW Cameraman for Douglas Fairbanks and assistant director on “Intolerance” (1916), Victor Fleming directed two of the most famous films ever made, “Gone with the Wind” (1939) and “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). When he made “When the Clouds Roll By” (1919), he had just returned from filming the Paris Peace Conference. —KEVIN BROWNLOW 35mm 1.33:1 black and white silent with music 18fps excerpt 8:40 minutes. New music by Eric Beheim Show more Show less

LIGHT RHYTHMS is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Lee’s emotionally powerful rendering of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 is presented as an abstract, animated action painting, its saturated color made possible through the new 16mm Kodachrome. Finally, primary colors give way to grays, blacks, and browns, as the world is metaphorically turned into... LIGHT RHYTHMS is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Lee’s emotionally powerful rendering of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 is presented as an abstract, animated action painting, its saturated color made possible through the new 16mm Kodachrome. Finally, primary colors give way to grays, blacks, and browns, as the world is metaphorically turned into an ashen battlefield. —JAN-CHRISTOPHER HORAK Francis Lee began experimenting with abstract animation in 1939, completing “1941” before going to war. After World War II, he made several more pioneering films, including “Le Bijou” (1946), before returning to painting. In the 1960s/70s he worked again as a cameraman and animator on “The Black Fox” (1962) and experimental videos. —JAN-CHRISTOPHER HORAK 35mm from 16mm 1.37:1 color sound 4:20 minutes. Music Igor Stravinsky Show more Show less

In the late 1920s, Francis Bruguière exhibited photographic works based on dramatically lit, cut, and folded paper shapes, some figurative, some abstract. “Light Rhythms” is a strictly abstract film that added new dimensions to these shapes: moving light sources, a scheme of superimpositions, and the elements of time and music. —DAVID CURTIS American photographer Bruguière devoted himself to ceaseless experimentation in multiple exposure... In the late 1920s, Francis Bruguière exhibited photographic works based on dramatically lit, cut, and folded paper shapes, some figurative, some abstract. “Light Rhythms” is a strictly abstract film that added new dimensions to these shapes: moving light sources, a scheme of superimpositions, and the elements of time and music. —DAVID CURTIS American photographer Bruguière devoted himself to ceaseless experimentation in multiple exposure montage prints of persons and places, stylist modernist advertising imagery, abstract short films examining the play of light on cut paper forms, and solarized figure studies in the style of Man Ray. —DAVID SHIELDS San Francisco photographer Francis Bruguiére completed the film “Danse Macabre “(1922) made with Dudley Murphy and one unfinished personal project “The Way”(1925). Later he collaborated with designer Norman Bel Geddes on a “psuedomorphic film” that was abandoned. —DAVID CURTIS Oswell Blakeston was a painter, poet, novelist, and prolific columnist on “advanced cinema” for journals such as “Close Up” and “Film Art”. He collaborated with Francis Bruguière on Light Rhythms. In later life, he returned to painting and reviewing art exhibitions. Neither of Blakeston’s other known films appears to have survived. —DAVID CURTIS Jack Ellitt was an Australian avant-garde composer who moved to England in 1928. Between 1929 and 1937 he collaborated with artist Len Lye on film soundtracks. He wrote and performed an improvisational piano score for Bruguiére's “Light Rhythms”. From 1930 onward he directed documentary films and was a pioneer of electronic music. —ROGER HORROCKS 35mm 1.37:1 black and white silent with music 20fps 5:37 minutes. Music: Jack Ellitt Show more Show less