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James Whitney (filmmaker)
Encyclopedia
For other people named James Whitney, see James Whitney (disambiguation)
James Whitney (December 27, 1921 – April 8, 1982), younger brother of John
, was a filmmaker regarded as one of the great masters of abstract cinema. Several of his films are classics in the genre of visual music.
, California
, and lived all his life in the Los Angeles
area. He studied painting, and traveled in England before the outbreak of World War II. In 1940, he returned to Pasadena.
The first of the brothers' films was Twenty-Four Variations on an Original Theme. Its structure was influenced by Schoenberg
's serial principles.
James spent 3 years working on Variations on a Circle (1942), which lasts some 20 minutes, and was made with 8mm film.
James and John created their series of Five Film Exercises (John #1 and #5; James #2, #3 and #4) between 1943 and 1944, for which the brothers won a prize for best sound at the 1949 Brussels Experimental Film Competition.
In 1946, the brothers travelled to San Francisco
Museum of Art to show their films at the first of ten annual "Art in Cinema" festivals.
Following this period, James became more involved in spiritual interests such as Jungian psychology, alchemy
, yoga
, Tao
, and Jiddu Krishnamurti
. These interests heavily influenced his later work.
James was a potter and ceramicist, interested in raku ware, and examples of his pottery still exist today.
Between 1950 and 1955, James laboured to construct a truly astounding masterpiece, Yantra. The film was produced entirely by hand. By punching grid patterns in 5" by 7" cards with a pin, James was able to paint through these pinholes onto other 5" x 7" cards, to create images of rich complexity and give the finished work a very dynamic and flowing motion, but the film was not completed yet. It was first released as a silent film.
A very short, manipulated fragment from an early version of Yantra was shown at one of the historic Vortex Concerts in San Francisco's Morrison planetarium
in early 1959. Soon after Vortex, the film acquired its soundtrack, when Jordan Belson synchronized it to an excerpt from Henk Badings
’ "Cain and Abel". This did not occur at the Morrison Planetarium Vortex Concerts, contrary to popular belief (Keefer, 2008).
Analogue computer equipment developed by brother John, allowed James to complete Lapis (1966) in two years, when it might have taken seven years otherwise. James drew dot patterns again for this film, but the camera was positioned using computer control, allowing each image to be overlaid from multiple angles. In this piece, smaller circles oscillate in and out in an array of colors resembling a kaleidoscope
while being accompanied by Indian sitar
music. The patterns become hypnotic and trance inducing.
Dwija (1973), meaning "twice-born" or "soul" in Sanskrit
, is completely solarized
, and much of the imagery is re-photographed by rear-projection to create a constant flow of hardly definable transformations of color and form.
Wu Ming (1977), meaning "no name" in Chinese
, repeats a single action over and over - a particle disappears into infinity, and returns as a wave. James described the particle-to-wave action in Wu Ming as being "like throwing a pebble into water and seeing the ripples spread out".
His two final films, intended to form a quartet with Dwija and Wu Ming, were Kang Jing Xiang and Li, which were left incomplete when James died April 8, 1982, after a brief and unexpected illness. Kang was completed post-humously according to James' instructions. His short test for Li is believed to be lost.
Several of James' films were preserved by Center for Visual Music (CVM) in Los Angeles; HD transfers from their preservation project have been seen in major museum exhibitions including Visual Music at MOCA and The Hirshhorn Museum (2005), Sons et Lumieres at Centre Pompidou (2004-05), The Third Mind at The Guggenheim Museum, and other shows. Scholars may view high quality copies of Yantra and Lapis at CVM. CVM also provided prints from this preservation to Centre Pompidou, Paris, which provided support for this project.
Moritz, William
. "James Whitney." Articulated Light: The Emergence of Abstract Film. Boston: Harvard Film Archives, 1996
Moritz, William. "James Whitney." L'art du Mouvement: Cinema du Musee National d'art Moderne. Paris: Centre Pompidou, 1996
Moritz, William. "In Memoriam James Whitney." Osnabruck Media Art Festival program May 1996.
Bendazzi, Giannalberto. Cartoons. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Sightlines. New York: Educational Film Library Association, Winter 1985-86
Moritz, William. "The Poetic Eye-- Visionary Filmmaker James Whitney, An Appreciation." The Advocate. Los Angeles: David B. Goodstein, April 2, 1985.
Moritz, William. "James Whitney Retrospective" Toronto 1984 International Animation Festival. 1984
Whitney, James. "Yantra." New Magazine Beyond Baroque Foundation, May 1977
Sitney, P. Adams. Visionary Film: The American Avant Garde 1943-1978. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Jacobs, Lewis. "Avant-Garde Production in America." Experiment in Film. New York: Arno Press, 1970
Keefer, Cindy. "Cosmic Cinema and The Vortex Concerts." Cosmos: The Search for the Origins, from Kupka to Kubrick. Arnauld Pierre, Ed. Madrid:El Umbral/Santa Cruz de Tenerife:TEA, 2008. (on Yantra)
James Whitney (disambiguation)
James Whitney may refer to:*James Whitney, politician*James Whitney *Jim Whitney, baseball player*James Pounder Whitney , British historian...
James Whitney (December 27, 1921 – April 8, 1982), younger brother of John
John Whitney (animator)
John Whitney, Sr. was an American animator, composer and inventor, widely considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation.-Life:...
, was a filmmaker regarded as one of the great masters of abstract cinema. Several of his films are classics in the genre of visual music.
Early life
James Whitney was born December 27, 1921, in PasadenaPasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, and lived all his life in the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
area. He studied painting, and traveled in England before the outbreak of World War II. In 1940, he returned to Pasadena.
Career - Early Works
James completed a number of short films over four decades, two of which required at least five years of work. James collaborated with his brother John for some of his early film work.The first of the brothers' films was Twenty-Four Variations on an Original Theme. Its structure was influenced by Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
's serial principles.
James spent 3 years working on Variations on a Circle (1942), which lasts some 20 minutes, and was made with 8mm film.
James and John created their series of Five Film Exercises (John #1 and #5; James #2, #3 and #4) between 1943 and 1944, for which the brothers won a prize for best sound at the 1949 Brussels Experimental Film Competition.
In 1946, the brothers travelled to San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
Museum of Art to show their films at the first of ten annual "Art in Cinema" festivals.
Following this period, James became more involved in spiritual interests such as Jungian psychology, alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
, Tao
Tao
Dao or Tao is a Chinese word meaning 'way', 'path', 'route', or sometimes more loosely, 'doctrine' or 'principle'...
, and Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti or J. Krishnamurti or , was a renowned writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive change in society...
. These interests heavily influenced his later work.
James was a potter and ceramicist, interested in raku ware, and examples of his pottery still exist today.
Career - Later Works
A very short, manipulated fragment from an early version of Yantra was shown at one of the historic Vortex Concerts in San Francisco's Morrison planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
in early 1959. Soon after Vortex, the film acquired its soundtrack, when Jordan Belson synchronized it to an excerpt from Henk Badings
Henk Badings
Henk Badings was a Dutch composer.Born in Bandung, Java, Dutch East Indies, as the son of Herman Louis Johan Badings, an officer in the Dutch East Indies army, Badings became an orphan at an early age...
’ "Cain and Abel". This did not occur at the Morrison Planetarium Vortex Concerts, contrary to popular belief (Keefer, 2008).
Analogue computer equipment developed by brother John, allowed James to complete Lapis (1966) in two years, when it might have taken seven years otherwise. James drew dot patterns again for this film, but the camera was positioned using computer control, allowing each image to be overlaid from multiple angles. In this piece, smaller circles oscillate in and out in an array of colors resembling a kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope
A kaleidoscope is a circle of mirrors containing loose, colored objects such as beads or pebbles and bits of glass. As the viewer looks into one end, light entering the other end creates a colorful pattern, due to the reflection off the mirrors...
while being accompanied by Indian sitar
Sitar
The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...
music. The patterns become hypnotic and trance inducing.
Dwija (1973), meaning "twice-born" or "soul" in Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, is completely solarized
Solarisation
Solarisation is a phenomenon in photography in which the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is wholly or partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark...
, and much of the imagery is re-photographed by rear-projection to create a constant flow of hardly definable transformations of color and form.
Wu Ming (1977), meaning "no name" in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, repeats a single action over and over - a particle disappears into infinity, and returns as a wave. James described the particle-to-wave action in Wu Ming as being "like throwing a pebble into water and seeing the ripples spread out".
His two final films, intended to form a quartet with Dwija and Wu Ming, were Kang Jing Xiang and Li, which were left incomplete when James died April 8, 1982, after a brief and unexpected illness. Kang was completed post-humously according to James' instructions. His short test for Li is believed to be lost.
Several of James' films were preserved by Center for Visual Music (CVM) in Los Angeles; HD transfers from their preservation project have been seen in major museum exhibitions including Visual Music at MOCA and The Hirshhorn Museum (2005), Sons et Lumieres at Centre Pompidou (2004-05), The Third Mind at The Guggenheim Museum, and other shows. Scholars may view high quality copies of Yantra and Lapis at CVM. CVM also provided prints from this preservation to Centre Pompidou, Paris, which provided support for this project.
Filmography
- Twenty Four Variations on an Original Theme (with John Whitney) (1939–1940) 5 min, 8mm
- 3 Untitled Films (with John Whitney) (1940–1942) 15 min 8mm
- Variations on a Circle (1941–1942) 9 min, 8mm
- Film Exercises #2, #3 (1943–1944) 3 min, 16mm and #4 (1944) 8 min, 16mm. Actually he is credited along with his brother John for their Film Exercises 1 - 5.
- Yantra (1950–1957) 8 min, 16mm
- High Voltage (1957) 3 min, 16mm, constructed by Jordan BelsonJordan BelsonJordan Belson was an American artist and filmmaker who created nonobjective, often spiritually oriented, abstract films spanning six decades.-Biography:Belson was born in Chicago, Illinois....
from James' footage - Lapis (1963–1966) 10 min, 16mm
- Dwi-Ja (1974), 16mm.
- Wu Ming (1977) 17 min, 16mm. According to William Moritz, two versions exist.
- Kang Jing Xiang (1982) 13 min, 16mm. Completed posthumously.
- Li (unfinished)
Further reading
Willis, Holly: Cinema Du Dots: LA Weekly, 2005Moritz, William
William Moritz
William Moritz , film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger...
. "James Whitney." Articulated Light: The Emergence of Abstract Film. Boston: Harvard Film Archives, 1996
Moritz, William. "James Whitney." L'art du Mouvement: Cinema du Musee National d'art Moderne. Paris: Centre Pompidou, 1996
Moritz, William. "In Memoriam James Whitney." Osnabruck Media Art Festival program May 1996.
Bendazzi, Giannalberto. Cartoons. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.
Sightlines. New York: Educational Film Library Association, Winter 1985-86
Moritz, William. "The Poetic Eye-- Visionary Filmmaker James Whitney, An Appreciation." The Advocate. Los Angeles: David B. Goodstein, April 2, 1985.
Moritz, William. "James Whitney Retrospective" Toronto 1984 International Animation Festival. 1984
Whitney, James. "Yantra." New Magazine Beyond Baroque Foundation, May 1977
Sitney, P. Adams. Visionary Film: The American Avant Garde 1943-1978. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Jacobs, Lewis. "Avant-Garde Production in America." Experiment in Film. New York: Arno Press, 1970
Keefer, Cindy. "Cosmic Cinema and The Vortex Concerts." Cosmos: The Search for the Origins, from Kupka to Kubrick. Arnauld Pierre, Ed. Madrid:El Umbral/Santa Cruz de Tenerife:TEA, 2008. (on Yantra)
