Moods of the Sea

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Moods of the Sea
Title card
Directed bySlavko Vorkapich
John Hoffman
Music byFelix Mendelssohn
Release date
  • 1979 (1979)
Running time
10 minutes

Moods of the Sea (

Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture
.

The film is considered to be an early example of American avant-garde and experimental film. It is currently held in the Vorkapich – Hoffman Collection at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.[1]

Synopsis

Moods of the Sea contains no dialogue and features footage of the sea and surrounding wildlife. Examples of the "moods" of the sea include waves crashing against a rocky cliff and calmly lapping at a beach and rocks.

Production

The short film was created around 1941; some sources list the creation date as around 1940-1942.[2][3] Vorkapich's title card for the short states that it was copyrighted in 1942.[4]

Release and restoration

Vorkapich was unable to release Moods of the Sea upon completing it alongside Hoffman, due to a lack of funding and studio interest.

UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2004, utilizing grant funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation.[7][8] It was then included in the 7-disc DVD collection Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941, released in October 2005.[9]

Moods of the Sea has screened at multiple film festivals that included the UCLA Festival of Preservation,

Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival.[10][11][3]

Reception

The film is considered to be an early example of American

The Chicago Reader noted that the film was an example of films that "register quite differently than their makers intended: Slavko Vorkapich and John Hoffman's impressionistic, somewhat pompous Moods of the Sea (1942) tries to marry ocean imagery with the Mendelssohn on its sound track (crashing waves for loud sections, birds for calm ones), and while it's hard to take as seriously as it seems to demand, it fascinates by pushing the visualization of music to such an extreme."[14]

Charles Silver, the curator for the Museum of Modern Art's department of film, compared Moods of the Sea to others shown by the museum, specifically Jean Epstein’s Le Tempestaire and Arne Sucksdorff’s Trut! (The Sea Hawk).[15]

Legacy

Vorkapich's experimental films, including Moods of the Sea, were an influence on film student and future director George Lucas.[16]

Further reading

References

  1. ^ "USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive » SLAVKO VORKAPICH – JOHN HOFFMAN COLLECTION". USC. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-27787-7
    .
  3. ^ a b "American Cinema 1940 -1950". Musée de l'Orangerie. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  4. OCLC 1035150382
    .
  5. ^ Chinen Biesen, Sheri (2015). "'Kinesthesis' and Cinematic Montage: An Historical Examination of the Film Theories and Avant-Garde Mediation of Slavko Vorkapich in Hollywood". Studies in Visual Arts and Communication. 2 (1).
  6. ^ Sightlines. Educational Film Library Association. 1979. p. 20.
  7. ^ "Moods of the Sea". NW Film Center. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  8. ^ "NFPF Films at the UCLA Festival of Preservation". National Film Preservation Foundation. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  9. ^ Sinnott, John (November 7, 2005). "Unseen Cinema (review)". DVD Talk. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  10. ^ "The Lost Moment". George Eastman Museum. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  11. ^ "Moods of the Sea". Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival. 2013. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  12. S2CID 150218692
    .
  13. ISBN 978-0-299-14684-9
    .
  14. ^ Camper, Fred (26 October 1985). "Light Rhythms: Melodies & Montages". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  15. ^ Silver, Charles. "California Dreaming: The American Avant-Garde, 1942–58". MoMA. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  16. ISBN 978-0-316-25745-9
    .

External links
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