The film I would like to talk about is Rhythm in Light by Mary Ellen Bute. It is Bute’s first film which introduces a modern artist’s impressions of what goes on in the mind while listening to Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite”. Bute made this film as she used to study stage lighting at Yale, before which she showed great interesting in playing around with lights, and she found herself the ability to create “color organ” which means to paint with light. As the first film she had ever made, Rhythm in Light reflected the achievement Bute had gained after learning and the area that she was interested in (the light), which is her motivation for making this film.
The film is made with a contradiction between abstraction and reality, as well as a combination of science and art. The combination of science and art is a typical characteristic of Bute’s works, as Lewis Jacob commented on Bute’s works, they always compose “upon mathematical formulae depicting in ever-changing lights and shadows, growing lines and forms, deepening colors and tones, the tumbling, racing impressions evoked by the musical accompaniment”. By adding mathematical ideas into film making, Rhythm in Light becomes a contradiction between abstraction and reality as art is usually accepted as abstract and hard to tell the reason behind, while mathematics is logical and scientific. The logic behind Bute’s film makes it more reasonable and interesting. By the same token, Bute creates a contrast between black and white, dark and light with something for real: models of paper and cardboard, cellophane, ping-pong balls, egg beaters, bracelets and sparkless … With the help of real objects, the film has some connection with the real world. What is more, the contradiction between solid shapes and blurry shades follows the tone and speed of the background music, which is created by filming with mirrors and a cut-glass ashtray to get multiple parallel reflection of the shape and by creating “out of focus” to conceal the origin of the abstract apparition.