SCHWECHATER

Peter Kubelka

35mm. D.: 1440 fotogrammi = 60 secondi, due colori, due sonori

info_outline
T. it.: Italian title. T. int.: International title. T. alt.: Alternative title. Sog.: Story. Scen.: Screenplay. F.: Cinematography. M.: Editing. Scgf.: Set Design. Mus.: Music. Int.: Cast. Prod.: Production Company. L.: Length. D.: Running Time. f/s: Frames per second. Bn.: Black e White. Col.: Color. Da: Print source

Film Notes

Peter Kubelka is one of the most important “film artists” of the postwar, and his genius quickly reached the United States. He began his studies with music and art in Vienna and then dedicated himself to cinema, attending the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. His first film Mosaik im Vertrauen (1955) preceded three “metric” films Adebar (1957), Schwechater (1958) and Arnulf Rainer (1958-1960), which prefigure the so-called “structural” cinema from the end of the Sixties, as their structure is actually calculated by frame. Arnulf Rainer – alternation of black and white frames, of which some are accompanied by white noise – corresponds in painting to Malévitch’s “white square on a white background”.

Unsere Afrikareise (1961-1966), which is the result of a commissioned reportage of a safari in Africa, is a musical construction based on analogies and contrasts between images and sound. With Pause! (1977), Kubelka’s work did not exceed sixty minutes all together. This however was sufficient to bring worldwide fame to the filmmaker, who held numerous courses throughout the United States and Europe and who in 1976, organized the experimental film showing in Paris “Une histoire du cinéma”. Kubelka is Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Vienna Film Library.

Dominique Noguez, Une Rénaissance du cinéma. Le cinéma “underground” américain, Klinckseieck, Paris, 1985