Swinging The Lambeth Walk by Len Lye (1939).
In 1939, as Britain waged war with Germany, filmmaker Len Lye stayed in London to work; and visited his pregnant wife Jane and their son Bix, who had evacuated the city to stay at a friend’s farm in Scotland, on the weekends. According to Len Lye: A Biography by Roger Horrocks, Lye was too old (38) and recovering from an appendectomy to fight in the war. Struggling for money, Lye found a financial respite when the British Council for the Travel and Industrial Development Association agreed to sponsor a new film.
“The Lambeth Walk” was a dance that had become popular in England in 1937; and Lye’s visualization of the song links “the drums with bouncing circles, the piano with a sprinkling of coloured dots and rectangles, and the string instruments with vibrating lines,” as noted by Horrocks. The two thumbs-up images that bookend...
In 1939, as Britain waged war with Germany, filmmaker Len Lye stayed in London to work; and visited his pregnant wife Jane and their son Bix, who had evacuated the city to stay at a friend’s farm in Scotland, on the weekends. According to Len Lye: A Biography by Roger Horrocks, Lye was too old (38) and recovering from an appendectomy to fight in the war. Struggling for money, Lye found a financial respite when the British Council for the Travel and Industrial Development Association agreed to sponsor a new film.
“The Lambeth Walk” was a dance that had become popular in England in 1937; and Lye’s visualization of the song links “the drums with bouncing circles, the piano with a sprinkling of coloured dots and rectangles, and the string instruments with vibrating lines,” as noted by Horrocks. The two thumbs-up images that bookend...
- 4/14/2019
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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