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Mary Ellen Bute: Pioneer of Abstract Film

1) Mary Ellen Bute was one of the first abstract filmmakers in the US, making over a dozen films between 1934-1953 using experimental techniques like oscilloscopes and mirrors. 2) Inspired by kinetic artworks she saw in her travels, Bute sought to develop a kinetic visual art form and experimented with submerged mirrors and light patterns. 3) With the help of color organ pioneer Thomas Wilfred and inventor Leon Theremin, Bute made her first film "Rhythm in Light" in 1929 using 3D animation and interrelated light patterns to visualize her goal of creating art that "unwound in time continuity."

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149 views1 page

Mary Ellen Bute: Pioneer of Abstract Film

1) Mary Ellen Bute was one of the first abstract filmmakers in the US, making over a dozen films between 1934-1953 using experimental techniques like oscilloscopes and mirrors. 2) Inspired by kinetic artworks she saw in her travels, Bute sought to develop a kinetic visual art form and experimented with submerged mirrors and light patterns. 3) With the help of color organ pioneer Thomas Wilfred and inventor Leon Theremin, Bute made her first film "Rhythm in Light" in 1929 using 3D animation and interrelated light patterns to visualize her goal of creating art that "unwound in time continuity."

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Norman McLaren and Mary Ellen Bute in 1982

Photograph by Pierre St-Arnault

MARY ELLEN BUTE: I came to New York and tried to find the technical
means . The most developed thing at that time was stage
REACHING FOR KINETIC ART lighting . I went to an art school where we did many things
with lighting, but it wasn't adequate, an art medium per se.
Then, by a fluke, I got into Yale, and they had a fabulous
Editor's Note: Mary Ellen Bute (1904-1983) was one of the switchboard-and of course I became one of its runners,
first abstract film-makers in the United States . Between 1934 reaching for my kinetic art form .
and 1953 she made over a dozen films with such materials as From Yale I got the job of taking drama around the
oscilloscopes, mirrors, three dimensional objects-often to world . . . and got to see, oh, the Noh drama of Japan, and
classical music. Her films were presented in commercial the Taj Mahal in India [where gems surrounded the
theaters across the country. Bute rarely spoke abouthow she building] . I looked into the gems and saw reflected the Taj
became a film-maker . On May 7, 1976 she gave a talk at the Mahal, and the lake, and the whole thing appealed to me
Art Institute of Chicago . The following was assembled from enormously . . . because it was romantic and because it was a
her remarks. The complete tape recording of the program is kinetic, visual thing. I started entertaining myself by imagin-
in the collection of the Pioneer American Women Film- ing these designs and patterns all in movement .
makers project . Back in New York I related all of this to Thomas
Wilfred, who by that time had developed a color organ. This
I was a painter in Texas [and] lived on a ranch [until my was in 1929 . . . Then I heard about Leon Theremin . . . and ap
Houston art teacher] arranged for a scholarship for me at the prenticed myself to his [sound] studio to learn more about com-
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts . That was a whole new position . He became interested in my determination to develop
world for me . Practically all of the articles and journals that a kinetic visual art form [and helped me with experiments] .
had reached my part of Texas were very against modern art . We submerged tiny mirrors in tubes of oil, connected
[So] when I went to Philadelphia I was . . . deeply im- [them] to an oscillator, and drew where these points of light
pressed by the wonderful Picassos, the African art, the were flying . The effect was thrilling for us-it was so pure .
[Paul] Klees, the Braques, the Kandinskys . . . . He [Kandin But it wasn't enough . Finally we got a Bolex camera, and
sky] used abstract, nonobjective elements so you could ex- started . . . to make my first film, Rhythm in Light. It was
perience a canvas the way you experience a musical composi- mostly three-dimensional animation. Pyramids, and ping
tion . . . . Well, I thought it was terrific . . . [but] these things pong balls, and all interrelated by light patterns-and I
should be unwound in time continuity. It was a dance. That wasn't happy unless it all entered and exited exactly as I had
became my [objective] . . . planned.

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