Parabola

1937
9m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Screen titles introduce the parabola as nature's poetry of motion: the path of every ball and bullet, of a fountain's jet and a falling star. Sculptor Rutherford Boyd's creations appear fram... Read allScreen titles introduce the parabola as nature's poetry of motion: the path of every ball and bullet, of a fountain's jet and a falling star. Sculptor Rutherford Boyd's creations appear frame by frame under controlled lighting. Curved objects float by; mirror images appear. Paper... Read allScreen titles introduce the parabola as nature's poetry of motion: the path of every ball and bullet, of a fountain's jet and a falling star. Sculptor Rutherford Boyd's creations appear frame by frame under controlled lighting. Curved objects float by; mirror images appear. Paper sculptures separate into parabolic slices. One can see the abstracts of shells and fans, ... Read all

Directors

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IMDb RATING

6.1/10

246

YOUR RATING

Directors

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos2

User reviews3

6.1246

Featured reviews

10andreipisces

A beautiful treat in experimental film

This film is outstanding. The camera, light and soundtrack are all phenomenal. It has no plot at all, being just a visual ode to a form the author deemed beautiful - the parabola - and it spends around eight minutes dazzling the viewer with it.

The atmosphere created by this short over but a shape is surreal and majestic. Surely a great watch.

Michael_Elliott

Something Completely Different

Parábola (1937)

*** (out of 4)

I guess the best way to describe this type of film is that it's spirograph animation. Hopefully that makes sense but there's virtually no plot here but instead you're treated to the use of light and how it shows up against shadows. I'll be honest and admit that I'd probably never watch this film from Mary Ellen Bute a second time but at the same time I don't mind saying that the picture was quite impressive for what it was. This certainly isn't my favorite type of animation but it is visually like poetry and I thought for the most part that it was entertaining. It's a bit stretched out at nine-minutes but there's no question that it was worth watching once.

planktonrules

They got so much out of just light and camera angles.

This is just one of many strange films from the DVD collection "Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941" and it's from Disc 3. This is the third film on the disc in which Mary Ellen Bute participated--this time accompanied by Rutherford Boyd and Theodore Nemeth. Boyd created a sculpture and Bute and Nemeth filmed, frame by frame, this process.

It all begins with some words on the screen about parabolas and art. What followed were various non-anamorphic sculptures (almost as if modeled after Spirograph pictures) that appeared to move slinky-like to the music. Through the use of expert lighting, they were able to get so much out of so little and while I think the average person would NOT love this film, it is pleasant and watchable.