Oskar Fischinger
Encyclopedia
Oskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract
animator
, film
maker, and painter
. He made over 50 short animated films, and painted c. 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1
(1947
), which is now listed on the National Film Registry
of the U. S. Library of Congress
.
, Germany, Oskar Wilhelm Fischinger was the fourth of six children. His father ran a drugstore while his mother's family owned a combination brewery, tavern, and bowling alley. At an early age he dabbled in painting, encouraged by the painters who came to capture Gelnhausen's scenery. Also interested in music (he took violin lessons), he apprenticed at an organ-building firm until the owners were drafted into the war. The next year he worked as a draftsman in an architect's office, until he himself was called to duty. He was rejected as being unhealthy, and the Fischinger family moved west to Frankfurt
. There Fischinger attended a trade school and worked as an apprentice at a factory, eventually obtaining an engineer's diploma.
, a pioneer in abstract film
. Inspired by Ruttmann's work, Fischinger began experimenting with colored liquids and three-dimensional modeling materials such as wax and clay. He conceptualized a "Wax Slicing Machine", which synchronized a vertical slicer with a movie camera's shutter, enabling the efficient imaging of progressive cross-sections through a length of molded wax and clay. Fischinger wrote to Ruttmann about his machine, who expressed interest. Moving to Munich
, Fischinger licensed the wax slicing machine to Ruttmann and began working on the first production model. Upon delivery, Ruttmann found that hot film lights often melted the wax to a serious degree. Ruttmann gave up, though during this time Fischinger shot many abstract tests of his own using the machine (some of these are distributed today under the assigned title Wax Experiments).
In 1924 Fischinger was hired by American entrepreneur Louis Seel to produce satirical cartoons that tended toward mature audiences. He also made abstract films and tests of his own, trying new and different techniques, including the use of multiple projectors.
In 1926-27 Fischinger performed his own multiple projector film shows with various musical accompaniment. These shows were titled Fieber (Fever), Vakuum, Macht (Power) and later, R-1 ein Formspiel. (Keefer, 2005)
Facing financial difficulties, Fischinger borrowed from his family, and then his landlady. Finally, in an effort to escape bill collectors, Fischinger decided to surreptitiously depart Munich for Berlin
in June 1927. Taking only his essential equipment, he walked 350 miles through the countryside, shooting single frames that were later released as a film in itself: Walking from Munich to Berlin.
. He soon was doing the special effects for various films. His own proposals for cartoons were not accepted by producers or distributors, however. In 1928 he was hired to work on Fritz Lang
's space epic Frau im Mond
, which provided him a steady salary for a time. On his own time, he experimented with charcoal-on-paper animation. He produced a series of abstract Studies that were synchronized to popular and classical music. A few of the early Studies were synchronized to new record releases by Electrola
, and screened at first-run theatres with a tail credit advertising the record, thus making them, in a sense, the very first music videos.
The Studies—Numbers 1 through 12—were well-received at art theaters and many were distributed to first-run theatres throughout Europe. Some of the Studies were distributed to theatres in Japan and the US. His Studie Nr. 5 screened at the 1931 "Congress for Colour-Music Research" to critical acclaim. In 1931 Universal Pictures
purchased distribution rights to Studie Nr. 5 for the American public, and Studie Nr. 7 screened as a short with a popular movie in Berlin. The special effects Fischinger did for other movies led to his being called "the Wizard of Friedrichstraße". In 1932, Oskar also married Elfriede Fischinger, a first cousin from his hometown of Gelnhausen.
As the Nazis
consolidated power after 1933, the abstract film and art communities and distribution possibilities quickly disappeared as the Nazis instituted their policies against what they termed "degenerate art
". Fischinger continued to make films, and also found work producing commercials and advertisements, among them Muratti Greift Ein (translated as Muratti Gets in the Act, Muratti Marches On, Here Comes Muratti, or Muratti Attacks) (1934), for a cigarette company, and Kreise (Circles) (1933), for an ad agency. The color Muratti commercial with it stop-motion dancing cigarettes was a sensation, screening all over Europe. Though Fischinger at times ran afoul of the Nazi authorities, he nevertheless managed to complete his abstract work Komposition in Blau in 1935. It was well-received critically, and contrary to popular myth, was legally registered.
At this time an agent from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
had screened a print of Komposition in Blau and Muratti in a small art theatre in Hollywood, and Ernst Lubitsch
was impressed by the films and the audience's enthusiastic response to the shorts. An agent from Paramount Pictures
telephoned Fischinger, asking if he was willing to work in America, and Fischinger promptly agreed.
Oskar prepared the film Allegretto, tightly synchronized to Ralph Rainger
's tune "Radio Dynamics". Allegretto was planned for inclusion in the feature film The Big Broadcast of 1937
(1936
). Unfortunately, he found that Paramount had changed the film project from Technicolor
to black-and-white. Also, Paramount printed the black-and-white version intercut with various live action images, so it was no longer totally abstract. Fischinger left Paramount. Several years later, with the help of Hilla von Rebay
and a grant from the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, he was able to buy the film back from Paramount. Fischinger then redid and re-painted the cels, and made a color version to his satisfaction. This became one of the most-screened and successful films of visual music
's history, and one of Fischinger's most popular films.
All Fischinger's filmmaking attempts in America suffered difficulties. He composed An Optical Poem (1937
) to Franz Liszt
's Second Hungarian Rhapsody
for MGM, but received no profits due to studio bookkeeping systems. He designed the J. S. Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor sequence for Walt Disney
's Fantasia
(1940
), but quit without credit because all studio artists simplified and altered all his designs to be more representational. According to William Moritz
, Fischinger contributed to the effects animation of the Blue Fairy's wand in Pinocchio
(1940). In the 1950s, Fischinger did create several animated TV advertisements, including one for Muntz TV which unfortunately never aired.
The Guggenheim Foundation
required him to synchronize a film with a march by John Philip Sousa
in order to demonstrate loyalty to America, and then insisted that he make a film to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, even though he wanted to make a film without sound in order to affirm the integrity of his non-objective imagery. Secretly, Fischinger composed the silent movie Radio Dynamics (1942
).
Frustrated in his filmmaking, Fischinger turned increasingly to oil painting as a creative outlet. Although the Guggenheim Foundation specifically required a cel animation film, Fischinger made his Bach film Motion Painting No. 1
(1947
) as a documentation of the act of painting, taking a single frame each time he made a brush stroke—and the multi-layered style merely parallels the structure of the Bach music without any tight synchronization. Although he never again received funding for a film, the Motion Painting No. 1 won the Grand Prix at the Brussels International Experimental Film Competition in 1949. Three of Fischinger's films also made the 1984 Olympiad of Animation's list of the world's greatest films. (The latter two paragraphs only are from the Fischinger biography by film historian William Moritz
at the Fischinger Archive website.
Fischinger died in Los Angeles in 1967.
. Like other inventors of color organs, Fischinger hoped to make the Lumigraph a commercial product, widely available for anyone, but this did not happen.
The instrument produced imagery by pressing against a rubberized screen so it could protrude into a narrow beam of colored light. As a visual instrument, the size of its screen was limited by the reach of the performer. Two people were required to operate the Lumigraph: one to manipulate the screen to create imagery, and a second to change the colors of the lights on cue.
The device itself was silent, but was performed accompanying various music. Fischinger did several performance in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco in the early 1950s, performing various classical and popular music pieces, and many were impressed by the machine's spectacular images. In 1964 the Lumigraph was used in the science fiction
film The Time Travelers
, in which it became a 'lumichord' (this was not Fischinger's intent, this was the decision of the film's producers). His son Conrad even built two more machines in different sizes. After Fischinger's death, his widow Elfriede and daughter Barbara did performances with the Lumigraph, along with William Moritz
, in Europe and the US.
Today one of the instruments is displayed at Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt
, and is still played occasionally. In February 2007 Barbara Fischinger performed on this Lumigraph.
Other Lumigraphs are in California. Film and video documentation of Elfriede's Lumigraph performances are at the Center for Visual Music in Los Angeles.
Abstract film
Abstract film is a subgenre of experimental film. Its history often overlaps with the concerns and history of visual music. Some of the earliest abstract motion pictures known to survive are those produced by a group of German artists working in the early 1920s, a movement referred to as Absolute...
animator
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
, film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
maker, and painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. He made over 50 short animated films, and painted c. 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1
Motion Painting No. 1
Motion Painting No. 1 is a 1947 short animated film in which film artist Oskar Fischinger put images in motion to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, BWV 1048. It is a film of a painting ; Fischinger filmed each brushstroke over the course of 9 months...
(1947
1947 in film
The year 1947 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 22 - Great Expectations is premiered in New York.*November 24 : The United States House of Representatives of the 80th Congress voted 346 to 17 to approve citations for contempt of Congress against the "Hollywood Ten".*November 25...
), which is now listed on the National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
of the U. S. Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.
Early life
Born in GelnhausenGelnhausen
Gelnhausen is a town and the capital of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located approx. 40 kilometers east of Frankfurt am Main, between the Vogelsberg mountains and the Spessart range at the river Kinzig...
, Germany, Oskar Wilhelm Fischinger was the fourth of six children. His father ran a drugstore while his mother's family owned a combination brewery, tavern, and bowling alley. At an early age he dabbled in painting, encouraged by the painters who came to capture Gelnhausen's scenery. Also interested in music (he took violin lessons), he apprenticed at an organ-building firm until the owners were drafted into the war. The next year he worked as a draftsman in an architect's office, until he himself was called to duty. He was rejected as being unhealthy, and the Fischinger family moved west to Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
. There Fischinger attended a trade school and worked as an apprentice at a factory, eventually obtaining an engineer's diploma.
Early career
In Frankfurt he met the theater critic Bernhard Diebold, who in 1921 introduced Fischinger to the work and personage of Walter RuttmannWalter Ruttmann
Walter Ruttmann was a German film director and along with Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling was an early German practitioner of experimental film....
, a pioneer in abstract film
Abstract film
Abstract film is a subgenre of experimental film. Its history often overlaps with the concerns and history of visual music. Some of the earliest abstract motion pictures known to survive are those produced by a group of German artists working in the early 1920s, a movement referred to as Absolute...
. Inspired by Ruttmann's work, Fischinger began experimenting with colored liquids and three-dimensional modeling materials such as wax and clay. He conceptualized a "Wax Slicing Machine", which synchronized a vertical slicer with a movie camera's shutter, enabling the efficient imaging of progressive cross-sections through a length of molded wax and clay. Fischinger wrote to Ruttmann about his machine, who expressed interest. Moving to Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Fischinger licensed the wax slicing machine to Ruttmann and began working on the first production model. Upon delivery, Ruttmann found that hot film lights often melted the wax to a serious degree. Ruttmann gave up, though during this time Fischinger shot many abstract tests of his own using the machine (some of these are distributed today under the assigned title Wax Experiments).
In 1924 Fischinger was hired by American entrepreneur Louis Seel to produce satirical cartoons that tended toward mature audiences. He also made abstract films and tests of his own, trying new and different techniques, including the use of multiple projectors.
In 1926-27 Fischinger performed his own multiple projector film shows with various musical accompaniment. These shows were titled Fieber (Fever), Vakuum, Macht (Power) and later, R-1 ein Formspiel. (Keefer, 2005)
Facing financial difficulties, Fischinger borrowed from his family, and then his landlady. Finally, in an effort to escape bill collectors, Fischinger decided to surreptitiously depart Munich for Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in June 1927. Taking only his essential equipment, he walked 350 miles through the countryside, shooting single frames that were later released as a film in itself: Walking from Munich to Berlin.
Berlin
Arriving in Berlin, Fischinger borrowed some money from a relative and set up a studio on FriedrichstraßeFriedrichstraße
The Friedrichstraße is a major culture and shopping street in central Berlin, forming the core of the Friedrichstadt neighborhood. It runs from the northern part of the old Mitte district to the Hallesches Tor in the district of Kreuzberg...
. He soon was doing the special effects for various films. His own proposals for cartoons were not accepted by producers or distributors, however. In 1928 he was hired to work on Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's space epic Frau im Mond
Frau im Mond
Woman in the Moon is a science fiction silent film that premiered October 15, 1929. It is often considered to be one of the first "serious" science fiction films...
, which provided him a steady salary for a time. On his own time, he experimented with charcoal-on-paper animation. He produced a series of abstract Studies that were synchronized to popular and classical music. A few of the early Studies were synchronized to new record releases by Electrola
Electrola
Electrola was a record label founded in Berlin in 1925 by the Gramophone Company. In March 1931 Electrola, along with its parent label and Carl Lindström Company parent Columbia Graphophone Company, merged to form the Electric & Musical Industries Ltd. . The German EMI unit was first called...
, and screened at first-run theatres with a tail credit advertising the record, thus making them, in a sense, the very first music videos.
The Studies—Numbers 1 through 12—were well-received at art theaters and many were distributed to first-run theatres throughout Europe. Some of the Studies were distributed to theatres in Japan and the US. His Studie Nr. 5 screened at the 1931 "Congress for Colour-Music Research" to critical acclaim. In 1931 Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
purchased distribution rights to Studie Nr. 5 for the American public, and Studie Nr. 7 screened as a short with a popular movie in Berlin. The special effects Fischinger did for other movies led to his being called "the Wizard of Friedrichstraße". In 1932, Oskar also married Elfriede Fischinger, a first cousin from his hometown of Gelnhausen.
As the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
consolidated power after 1933, the abstract film and art communities and distribution possibilities quickly disappeared as the Nazis instituted their policies against what they termed "degenerate art
Degenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
". Fischinger continued to make films, and also found work producing commercials and advertisements, among them Muratti Greift Ein (translated as Muratti Gets in the Act, Muratti Marches On, Here Comes Muratti, or Muratti Attacks) (1934), for a cigarette company, and Kreise (Circles) (1933), for an ad agency. The color Muratti commercial with it stop-motion dancing cigarettes was a sensation, screening all over Europe. Though Fischinger at times ran afoul of the Nazi authorities, he nevertheless managed to complete his abstract work Komposition in Blau in 1935. It was well-received critically, and contrary to popular myth, was legally registered.
At this time an agent from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
had screened a print of Komposition in Blau and Muratti in a small art theatre in Hollywood, and Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
was impressed by the films and the audience's enthusiastic response to the shorts. An agent from Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
telephoned Fischinger, asking if he was willing to work in America, and Fischinger promptly agreed.
Hollywood
Upon arriving in Hollywood in February 1936, Fischinger was given an office at Paramount, German-speaking secretaries, an English tutor, and a weekly salary of $250. With no immediate assignment, Fischinger sketched and painted. He and Elfriede socialized with the émigré community, but felt out of place among the elites.Oskar prepared the film Allegretto, tightly synchronized to Ralph Rainger
Ralph Rainger
Ralph Rainger was an American composer of popular music principally for films.-Biography:Born Ralph Reichenthal in New York City, Rainger embarked on a legal career before escaping to Broadway where he became Clifton Webb's accompanist...
's tune "Radio Dynamics". Allegretto was planned for inclusion in the feature film The Big Broadcast of 1937
The Big Broadcast of 1937
The Big Broadcast of 1937 is a 1936 Paramount Pictures production directed by Mitchell Leisen, and is the third in the series of Big Broadcast movies. The musical comedy stars Jack Benny, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Bob Burns, Martha Raye, Shirley Ross, Ray Milland, Benny Fields, Frank Forest and...
(1936
1936 in film
The year 1936 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 29 - Fritz Lang's first Hollywood film Fury, starring Spencer Tracy and Bruce Cabot, is released.*November 6 - first Porky Pig animated cartoon...
). Unfortunately, he found that Paramount had changed the film project from Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
to black-and-white. Also, Paramount printed the black-and-white version intercut with various live action images, so it was no longer totally abstract. Fischinger left Paramount. Several years later, with the help of Hilla von Rebay
Hilla von Rebay
Hildegard Anna Augusta Elizabeth Freiin Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, Baroness Hilla von Rebay, or simply Hilla Rebay , was a notable woman abstract painter in the early 20th century. After immigrating to the United States in 1927, she may be best known for helping Solomon R...
and a grant from the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, he was able to buy the film back from Paramount. Fischinger then redid and re-painted the cels, and made a color version to his satisfaction. This became one of the most-screened and successful films of visual music
Visual music
Visual music, sometimes called "colour music," refers to the use of musical structures in visual imagery, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods or devices which can translate sounds or music into a related visual presentation...
's history, and one of Fischinger's most popular films.
All Fischinger's filmmaking attempts in America suffered difficulties. He composed An Optical Poem (1937
1937 in film
The year 1937 in film involved some significant events, including the Walt Disney production of the first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.- Events :*April 16 - Way Out West premieres in the US....
) to Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
's Second Hungarian Rhapsody
Hungarian Rhapsodies
Hungarian Rhapsody redirects here. For the 1979 Hungarian film Hungarian Rhapsody . For the 1928 German film Ungarische Rhapsodie.The Hungarian Rhapsodies, S.244, R106, is a set of 19 piano pieces based on Hungarian folk themes, composed by Franz Liszt during 1846-1853, and later in 1882 and 1885...
for MGM, but received no profits due to studio bookkeeping systems. He designed the J. S. Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor sequence for Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
's Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
(1940
1940 in film
The year 1940 in film involved some significant events, including the premieres of the Walt Disney classics Pinocchio and Fantasia.-Events:*February 7 - Walt Disney's animated film Pinocchio is released....
), but quit without credit because all studio artists simplified and altered all his designs to be more representational. According to William Moritz
William Moritz
William Moritz , film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger...
, Fischinger contributed to the effects animation of the Blue Fairy's wand in Pinocchio
Pinocchio (1940 film)
Pinocchio is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the story The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. It is the second film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, and it was made after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and was released to theaters by...
(1940). In the 1950s, Fischinger did create several animated TV advertisements, including one for Muntz TV which unfortunately never aired.
The Guggenheim Foundation
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
required him to synchronize a film with a march by John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
in order to demonstrate loyalty to America, and then insisted that he make a film to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, even though he wanted to make a film without sound in order to affirm the integrity of his non-objective imagery. Secretly, Fischinger composed the silent movie Radio Dynamics (1942
1942 in film
The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
).
Frustrated in his filmmaking, Fischinger turned increasingly to oil painting as a creative outlet. Although the Guggenheim Foundation specifically required a cel animation film, Fischinger made his Bach film Motion Painting No. 1
Motion Painting No. 1
Motion Painting No. 1 is a 1947 short animated film in which film artist Oskar Fischinger put images in motion to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, BWV 1048. It is a film of a painting ; Fischinger filmed each brushstroke over the course of 9 months...
(1947
1947 in film
The year 1947 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 22 - Great Expectations is premiered in New York.*November 24 : The United States House of Representatives of the 80th Congress voted 346 to 17 to approve citations for contempt of Congress against the "Hollywood Ten".*November 25...
) as a documentation of the act of painting, taking a single frame each time he made a brush stroke—and the multi-layered style merely parallels the structure of the Bach music without any tight synchronization. Although he never again received funding for a film, the Motion Painting No. 1 won the Grand Prix at the Brussels International Experimental Film Competition in 1949. Three of Fischinger's films also made the 1984 Olympiad of Animation's list of the world's greatest films. (The latter two paragraphs only are from the Fischinger biography by film historian William Moritz
William Moritz
William Moritz , film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger...
at the Fischinger Archive website.
Fischinger died in Los Angeles in 1967.
Lumigraph
In the late 1940s Fischinger invented the Lumigraph (patented in 1955) which others have called a type of color organColor organ
The term color organ refers to a tradition of mechanical , then electromechanical, devices built to represent sound or to accompany music in a visual medium—by any number of means. In the early 20th century, a silent color organ tradition developed...
. Like other inventors of color organs, Fischinger hoped to make the Lumigraph a commercial product, widely available for anyone, but this did not happen.
The instrument produced imagery by pressing against a rubberized screen so it could protrude into a narrow beam of colored light. As a visual instrument, the size of its screen was limited by the reach of the performer. Two people were required to operate the Lumigraph: one to manipulate the screen to create imagery, and a second to change the colors of the lights on cue.
The device itself was silent, but was performed accompanying various music. Fischinger did several performance in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco in the early 1950s, performing various classical and popular music pieces, and many were impressed by the machine's spectacular images. In 1964 the Lumigraph was used in the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
film The Time Travelers
The Time Travelers (1964 film)
The Time Travelers is a science fiction film directed by B-movie director Ib Melchior that inspired the 1966 TV series The Time Tunnel as well as the 1967 remake Journey to the Center of Time...
, in which it became a 'lumichord' (this was not Fischinger's intent, this was the decision of the film's producers). His son Conrad even built two more machines in different sizes. After Fischinger's death, his widow Elfriede and daughter Barbara did performances with the Lumigraph, along with William Moritz
William Moritz
William Moritz , film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger...
, in Europe and the US.
Today one of the instruments is displayed at Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, and is still played occasionally. In February 2007 Barbara Fischinger performed on this Lumigraph.
Other Lumigraphs are in California. Film and video documentation of Elfriede's Lumigraph performances are at the Center for Visual Music in Los Angeles.
Further reading
- William MoritzWilliam MoritzWilliam Moritz , film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger...
, Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger, (London: John Libbey & Company; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University PressIndiana University PressIndiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. It was founded in 1950. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana....
, 2004) ISBN 0-253-21641-9 - Fischinger Bibliography at CVM Fischinger Research Pages
- Moritz, William. The Importance of Being Fischinger. Ottawa International Animated Film Festival (program), 1976
- Keefer, Cindy. "Space Light Art" - Early Abstract Cinema and Multimedia, 1900-1959. White Noise (Melbourne: Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 2005). 2008 revised version online at CVM Library.
- Keefer, Cindy. Raumlichtmusik - Early 20th Century Abstract Cinema Immersive Environments PDF. Leonardo Electronic Almanac, 2009.
- Clavier à lumièresClavier à lumièresThe clavier à lumières , or tastiéra per luce, as it appears in the score, was a musical instrument invented by Alexander Scriabin for use in his work Prometheus: Poem of Fire. However, only one version of this instrument was constructed, for the performance of Prometheus: Poem of Fire in New York...
- Color organColor organThe term color organ refers to a tradition of mechanical , then electromechanical, devices built to represent sound or to accompany music in a visual medium—by any number of means. In the early 20th century, a silent color organ tradition developed...
- Klein, Adrian Bernard, 'Coloured Light An Art Medium' 3rd ed. The Technical Press, London, 1937 (general theoretical text, not specifically related to Fischinger)
- Rimington, Alexander Wallace, 'Colour-Music The Art Of Mobile Colour' Hutchinson, London, 1912 (general theoretical text, not specifically related to Fischinger)
External links
- The Fischinger Archive Site maintained by the Oskar Fischinger Archive, run by the Fischinger Trust.
- My Statements are in My Work Oskar Fischinger's statement.
- Center for Visual Music Fischinger Research pages, includes bibliography, Film Notes, gallery with some Fischinger animation drawings; reference material in online library.
- DVD: "Oskar Fischinger: Ten Films" plus other Fischinger-related materials at the CVM online store
- Fischinger Bibliography at CVM Fischinger Research pages
- Oskar Fischinger at IMDB Contains many errors