Come Closer

1952

Dir. Hy Hirsh, 16mm Color Sound 07:00

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Description

One of the first... if not the first...3-D computer abstract films ever made. Using complex oscilloscope patterns moving whimsically to Caribbean swing music, often with five to six different sets of images appearing simultaneously in an early use of split screen techniques, this film was originally produced in 1953 for presentation at the San Francisco Museum of Art's Art in Cinema Festival, by one of the pioneer West Coast experimental filmartists.

In the visual music films of Hirsh his exquisite taste shows up most strongly: in the parallel between the impossible three-dimensional occlusions of ribbons in COME CLOSER (1952) with wild infectious Caribbean carnival music, or in linking the jagged moving camera and staccato cutting of images of Paris posters in DEFENSE D'AFFICHER (1958-59) with an equally frenetic Cuban jazz.

[Source 1975 Creative Film Society Catalog]
[Source http://www.iotacenter.org/visualmusic/articles/moritz/hirsharticulatedlight]