Movies: Len Lye

This film documents the major directions in modern American art during the first seven years of the 1960s. The keynote is that the artist has expanded his realm from the two-dimentional picture frame, climaxed by the artists of the 40s and early 50s,...

A British WWII propaganda short warning citizens that Nazi sympathizers could be listening to their everyday conversations to discover important information about the war effort....

Len Lye usually timed his films with great care to match their soundtracks, but for All Souls Carnival, he and composer Henry Brant worked separately, preferring to see if the score and visual track would synchronise by chance. Lye also experimented ...

This documentary, made seven years after the death of legendary filmmaker and kinetic artist Len Lye, tells Lye's story: from being a young boy staring at the sun, to travels around the Pacific and life in New York. It includes excerpts from many of ...

Documentary about the Kiwi artist Len Lye and his legacy....

Life’s Musical Minute, recently re-discovered, is a short promotional film of this kind, based on Gene Krupa’s drum solo from “Golden Wedding” by the Woody Herman jazz band. It was Lye’s attempt to gain support from Life Magazine....

The story of how newspapers were distributed during the Blitz, stressing the importance of an accurate and objective press on the home front....

While stocking the shelves at work late at night, Mike finds a mysterious tape that calls upon The Peanut Vendor....

A fictional enactment of the deadly contest between a British soldier and a German sniper hiding in a tree. Kill or Be Killed differs from most army instructional films because of its powerful dramatization....

Several well-known and pioneering abstract filmmakers discuss the history of non-objective cinema, the works of those that came before them and their own experiments in the field of visionary filmmaking....

Len Lye made this experiment in animating poetry circa 1953 utilising a clip of Sir John Gielgud reciting a passage from The Tempest....

Documentary about women factory workers....

Commissioned by the Pittsburgh Bicentennial Association to celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary, PITTSBURGH was created by a team of filmmakers that included Stan Brakhage (working under the pseudonym James Stanley), Weegee, Len Lye, and Stan Vande...

Len Lye made Pictures for Percussion as a sample for television stations while living in the United States....

In 1959 the United Nations commissioned Lye to make this one-minute film, “Fountain of Hope,” to publicize United Nations Day (24th October). The film was screened worldwide in cinemas and on television. Lye superimposed the word for “peace” in many...

Documentary about New York night clubs....

Short comedic documentary about crops....

Experimental documentary about recycling....

This was another sample promotional film, which Lye offered to television stations. He scratched some dramatic black-and-white abstract images, hand-coloured them, and combined them with African drum music. The film gives us a taste of what Free Rad...