Cartoon Brew has gathered together three very unusual animations from mid 1930s Britain made under the auspices of the old GPO (General Post Office) Film Unit, which was headed by the famous John Grierson who later did much to set up the National Film Board of Canada and who is still regarded by many film historians as the father of modern documentary. It was a very fertile period for experimentation and many of the styles and everyday standards from TV and film that we know today were laid down around then. During this period the GPO Film Unit was tasked with making some short films which explained changes in services and costs at the post office, to be shown in cinemas (since TV was in its infancy at this point). What could be a dust-dry piece of subject matter or a laughable ‘Cholmondley-Warner’ film with dreadful accents was taken by the animator Len Lye who produced some remarkable animated shorts instead.
(frame from Len Lye’s A Colour Box, 1935; been a long time since this came up at college, but I seem to recall some of this astonishing work was achieved by painting directly onto the film)
I first came across these films years ago as a student and thought they were remarkable works of animation – they may not be overly great as adverts or for communicating information from the GPO, but they are amazing to look at, especially given this was mid-30s Britain. The first time I saw A Colour Box I was amazed; a swinging, (then) modern jazz soundtrack with pulsating, wavering, fluid abstract art and animations, clearly drawing on the then-contemporary modern arts scene and, in some ways, almost anticipating the much later pop-art movement, with a touch of Impressionism thrown in. Hard to imagine how this must have looked to unsuspecting 30s audiences in gloomy, post-Depression Britain.
Watching it again it still seems fresh and vibrant and very, very alive. Stangely enough I was thinking about Colour Box just the other evening when I was channel hopping and came across an advert which used flowing, colurful lines in semi-abstract patterns, dancing to music, which eventually form the outlines of a car for an Audi advert; looking at it I just knew the animator behind this had watched Colour Box. Got to love the internet for letting us see old works like this again so easily; if you’ve never seen Lye’s work before and you like animation then go and enjoy these rare gems of animated history; Cartoon Brew has YouTube links to Colour Box, Rainbow Dance and Trade Tattoo.
Fri, May 18, 2007
Art and animation