Lichtspiel Opus 1.

This is an interesting experimental short feature by Walther Ruttman that, while simple in its effect, took some creative thinking and innovation to come up with. Very few things like this had been done at the time, and the basic concept took advantage of Ruttman's painting experience as well as his theories on art.

The basic concept is similar to one or two of the more abstract sequences from "Fantasia", with one difference being that the score for "Opus I" was produced specifically to accompany the images, rather than adapting the images to an already-known piece. The harmony between the music and the abstract shapes of light works well.

"Opus I" is one of Ruttman's abstract experiments that show his imagination and his willingness to experiment. Of course, this little feature can hardly be compared with his wonderful creation, "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City", of a few years later. In itself, though, "Opus I" is a pleasant if simple piece, one that probably gets the most out of the basic idea without trying to stretch it too far.

The isn't, of course, an actual movie as I'd understand the term: it's a piece of music with multi-coloured pictorial accompaniment... in an interesting reversal of the norms of its day, when music would usually be the accompaniment to 'colour' the emotions and message of the silent picture! It's pretty good music, too.

The actual picture motifs are simple and repetitive, bordering on a lava-lamp effect, and move against a variety of coloured backgrounds. I felt that the effect didn't quite outstay its welcome, as new variations are introduced every so often, but it does fall somewhere between the tedious and the hypnotic; I found my attention wandering to the question of by what combinations of dyes and coloured film stock the various colour combinations had been achieved, and away from the actual performance. I also found myself automatically attempting to ascribe meaning to the abstracts: searchlights, the sails of boats, bats' wings, or clouds sweeping across the sun.

An interesting experiment, although not exactly in my line: worth hearing for the music, anyway.

This experimental one-reeler was included as an extra on the Image Entertainment DVD of the same director's famous feature-length documentary BERLIN: SYMPHONY OF A GREAT CITY (1927) – though I actually acquired (and, consequently, watched) both via ulterior sources. The film is basically a play of lights set to music (composed, for this 1993 edition, by Timothy Brock – who also scored its companion effort on the R1 disc), highlighting various shapes and occasionally adopting colour (predominantly red) for greater effect. The end result approximates (indeed precedes) what was achieved by the Walt Disney animation studio in the opening segment of their ode to classical music, FANTASIA (1940) or the works of Canadian animator Norman McLaren around the same time. For the record, OPUS 1 would be followed by volumes II, III and IV (albeit all running for about half its length!) within the space of 3 years.

German artist/filmmaker Walter Ruttman was seeking a new form of artistic expression using painted moving images. Combining brushed oil drawings on glass with geometric cut-outs, Ruttman created cinema's first abstract animation in 1921's "Lichtspiel Opus 1."

Ruttman saw paintings hanging on walls as a single snapshot in a long sequence of action. Wanting to steer modern art towards a moving fashion, he created rhythmic movements of abstract that are far more colorful than his contemporary counterparts Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling's black and white works. Ruttman's film also was the first of abstract artists to be shown to the public, making him a true pioneer in a new form of moviemaking. Walt Disney 19 years later incorporated Ruttman's ideas to develop his 1940 monumental movie "Fantasia."

I just found this info on Opus I:

In 1914 World War I disrupted the lives of millions of people world wide, and Ruttmann was no exception. He served as a lieutenant in the German army durring the war, and when the war ended in 1918 he became increasingly dissatisfied with the medium of painting. The main problem Ruttmann saw in the medium was its inherently static nature. A painter could attempt to capture some sense of motion in his paintings, but the paintings were, in the end, fixed in place forever. We are told that Ruttmann made a comment, shortly after the end of the war, to the effect that it made no sense to continue painting, unless the paintings could be set in motion(Starr). In 1921, in Frankfort, Germany, he realized this desire with the release of his first abstract film, and indeed the first abstract film the world had ever seen: Lichtspiel Opus I. As is evident from its title, the film combined the separate art forms of painting and music into one work. The film featured moving patterns of light set to a custom score, written specially for Lichtspiel Opus I by Max Butting. The film was a great success, making a lasting impression on people such as Bernhard Diebold, film reviewer for the Frankfurter Zeitung, and Oskar Fischinger, future avant-garde filmmaker in his own right. Ruttmann went on to produce three more completely abstract films, Opus II, Opus III, and Opus IV, which were all well recieved at the time.