Robert Beatty's Portal
November 2013

Still from Marcell Jankovics’s Feherlofia (1981)
Follow Hair Police and Three Legged Race's noise man Robert Beatty as he cuts a path through the digital jungle through experimental animations and electronic scores. Beatty is interviewed about his work with film maker Takeshi Murata by Nick Cain in The Wire 358.
Walerian
Borowczyk’s Les Jeux Des Anges (1964)
A dark, nightmarish vision of a factory that manufactures
(or disassembles) angels, made
by Walerian Borowczyk well before his soft core pornography
days. In it, composer Bernard Parmegiani reworks a chant from
Polish concentration camps into a church organ piece bookended
by cacophonous insectoid clattering accompanying the bizarre
hybrid mechanical/organic abstractions rushing past the
viewer.
Jan Svankmajer’s
Et Cetera (1966)
This
is my favourite Svankmajer short and something of an anomaly
for him. Simple, paper cut-out animations depicting
increasingly futile situations looping back on themselves
feature a manic soundtrack by frequent Svankmajer collaborator
Zdeněk Liška. The repeating theme of melodic percussion and
harpsichord interrupted by staccato electronic blasts fits the
frantic and frustrating nature of the film perfectly.
Lillian Schwartz’s
Pixillation (1970)
One of the earliest examples of computer generated film made by digital pioneer Lillian Schwartz at Bell Labs. It's a combination of organic, painted abstractions and pixelated (naturally) cellular automata patterns clashing in a retina-burning frenzy that grows in intensity with each second. The score by Gershon Kingsley, is by far the harshest work I've ever heard from him. A proto-techno white noise beat is buried by electronic sirens and sledgehammers as the piece evolves into a minimal ping dripping with metallic reverb.
Yoji Kuri’s
The Midnight Parasites (1972)
Japanese
animator Yoji Kuri's surreal portrayal of parasitic
relationships inspired by the painting of Hieronymus Bosch. The
soundtrack is a synthesized piece of baroque exotica by Kaoru
Tomita (who I can find no information on), not too far removed
from Mort Garson or Tonto's Expanding Head Band. A few of
Kuri's earlier shorts had featured animation set to spare,
chaotic music by Toru Takemitsu and Yoko Ono.
Frans
Zwartjes’s Bedsitters (1973)
Everything about this film seems improvised, although I'm not
sure it was. In typical baffling Zwartjes fashion, a few people
roam around a house, sometimes interacting, but it's often hard
to tell who is who. It seems that the players on the soundtrack
(Zwartjes, his brother Rudolf, and longtime STEIM director
Michel Waisvisz) are reacting to each other in similar ways to
the characters in the film, moving around the spaces without
any consideration for each other except where absolutely
necessary. There was talk a few years ago of a box set of the
soundtracks from Zwartjes' films, and I hope that becomes a
reality someday.
Toshio Matsumoto’s
Atman (1975)
A menacing figure in a demonic Noh mask sits perfectly still,
while the camera does all the work. Shot in saturated infrared
color, the camera zooms in and out and circles around the
figure in a nauseatingly strobing motion while Toshi
Ichiyanagi's relentless ring modulated score takes the figure
into an outer space that exists at the bottom of a sewer.
Marcell
Jankovics’s Feherlofia (1981)
An over the top adaptation of a Hungarian folk tale that puts
any other post-Yellow Submarine "psychedelic" animation to
shame. The score by István Vajda is a dense, alien,
claustrophobic electronic mass that wouldn't sound out of place
now on a label such as Editions Mego. When viewed large and
loud the combination of the sound and visuals are completely
overwhelming, and unlike much else I have ever seen.
Comments
great stuff. thanks for sharing!
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