editor's choice

New Zealand-born Len Lye was an experimental animator and sculptor. He is known primarily for a series of innovative films produced in the 1930s and 40s, the earlier while working with John Grierson’s much acclaimed GPO Film Unit. A Colour Box (1935) was particularly influential – wonderful Norman McLaren took up animation full time after seeing it. Made to advertise the postal system, it was different to pretty much anything audiences had seen. An experimental animated film, it combined Cuban music with Lye’s ‘dancing’ abstract designs, painted directly onto film. In Italy, it was deemed ‘degenerate’ by the Fascists who disrupted screenings where it was shown, while elsewhere it garnered many awards. It’s rather brilliant, but hey, why don’t you judge for yourselves?

Also of interest:  Night Mail (1936), changing the face of British film; The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) – a Billy Wilder classic?; Hitchcock (2012); The Splendour of George Stevens’ Giant (1956).

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