‘As a pre-eminent progenitor of experimental film, Oskar Fischinger became one of the most influential filmmakers and visual music practitioners of the twentieth century. During the 1930s, Fischinger increasingly focused on the synchronisation of music and image, leading to experimental drawings on the soundtrack section of filmstrips (producing synthetic sound) and to multiple Studien (c.1929–34), black and white films accompanied by phonograph recordings. For Study No. 7 1931, Fischinger animated 5000 drawings to compose forms metamorphosing with Johannes Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5 1869. His first colour films, including the vibrantly hued Composition in Blue 1935, earned an international acclaim that lured Fischinger to Hollywood in 1936, where he worked for Paramount, MGM, Disney, and Orson Welles. He departed from image-sound synthesis with Radio Dynamics 1942, in which visual; imagery asserts its primacy by functioning as soundless music.’
Lauren Hebert and Heather McGuire
Oskar Fischinger: Optical Poetry All ages 69 minutes
Sun 25 May 3.00pm / Cinema A
Spirals c.1926
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, SILENT, 6 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER
Walking from Munich to Berlin 1927
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, SILENT, 3 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER
Spiritual Constructions c.1927
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, SILENT, 7 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER
Study No. 1 c.1929
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, SILENT, 2 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / ORIGINALLY ACCOMPANIED BY LIVE ORGANISTS / MUSIC UNKNOWN
Study No. 2 c.1930
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, SILENT, 2 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / ORIGINALLY SYNCHRONIZED TO MUSIC, BELIEVED LOST
Study No. 5 1930
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, MONO, 3:15 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER
Study No. 6 1930
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, MONO, 2:30 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: JACINTO GUERRERO
Study No. 7 1931
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, MONO, 2:30 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: BRAHMS
Liebesspiel (Love Games) c.1934
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, SILENT, 2 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / ORIGINALLY SCREENED WITH MUSIC, UNKNOWN
Coloratura 1932
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, MONO, 2:30 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER
Kreise (Circles), (Tolirag Ad Version) 1933
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 2 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: WAGNER, GRIEG
Kreise (Circles), (Abstract Version) 1933
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 2 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: WAGNER, GRIEG
Muratti Greift Ein 1934
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 3 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: JOSEF BAYER
Muratti Privat c.1935
35MM, BLACK AND WHITE, MONO, 3 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: MOZART
Komposition in Blau (Composition in Blue) 1935
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 4 MINUTES, GERMANY / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: OTTO NICOLAI
Allegretto (Early Version) 1936
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 2:30 MINUTES, USA / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: RALPH RAINGER
Allegretto (Late Version) 1936–43
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 2:30 MINUTES, USA / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: RALPH RAINGER
An American March 1941
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 3 MINUTES, USA / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: SOUSA
Radio Dynamics 1942
35MM, COLOUR, SILENT, 4 MINUTES, USA / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER
Motion Painting No. 1 1947
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 11 MINUTES, USA / DIRECTOR: OSKAR FISCHINGER / MUSIC: BACH
Oskar Fischinger program provided by Center for Visual Music with thanks to Fischinger Archive. Includes prints preserved by the Academy Film Archive, Center for Visual Music and Fischinger Archive.
