Tusalava
About Tusalava
The frame splits into rectangles. Dots and circles twist, collapse, and grow into denser patterns. A totem-like figure is invaded by a wriggling shape, which is then blown off the screen. Spirals appear and a black dot swallows them. Len Lye treated the nine minutes as a picture of life starting: single cells become more complex forms, and two of them fight until the cycle closes.
Cast & crew
More about Tusalava
Len Lye's first film, made in England and premiered by the London Film Society in 1929. The Film Society and the writer Robert Graves funded it. Lye photographed about 4,400 separate drawings, a cel method he rarely used again. The British Film Institute print is 35mm, black and white, silent, and 590 feet. Te Ara describes the result as a nine-minute film.
Themes
Background
The London Film Society, which showed work commercial cinemas would not book, premiered the film in 1929.
In film history
The Len Lye Foundation, quoted by Ngā Taonga, calls it a film case of modernist primitivism: Lye used Māori, Aboriginal, and Samoan motifs rather than the African sources then common among Cubist painters.
Making
Lye spent about two years on the drawings in the later 1920s. After Tusalava he had trouble raising money until the mid-1930s, when he began painting and scratching directly on film.
Technique
About 4,400 drawings were photographed one by one. Lye almost never used cel animation again.
Music
Jack Ellitt wrote music for two pianos, performed live at the 1929 premiere. No score survives, so archive copies run silent.
Preservation
The British Film Institute holds a 35mm print of 590 feet. Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision holds a copy, reference F1861. The original piano score is lost.
Notes
- The title is a Samoan word suggesting that things come full circle.
- Lye said he imagined himself an Australian witchetty grub making a ritual dance film.
- Jack Ellitt's piano score, played live at the Film Society premiere, is lost.
- Ngā Taonga quotes Lye: he doodled for "some hypnotic image I'd never seen before," drawing on Māori, Aboriginal, and Samoan tradition.
- BFI Screenonline notes that the Aboriginal influence sets it apart from the abstract films of Hans Richter and Oskar Fischinger.
Scenes
- The screen opens as separate rectangles filled with twisting dots.
- A totem figure is entered by a wriggling shape.
- A black dot engulfs a field of spirals.
Influenced by
- Australian Aboriginal art
- Māori and Samoan motifs
Also available
- British Film Institute
- Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Quotes
I imagined I was myself an Australian witchetty grub who was making this animated ritual dance film.