An Optical Poem(1938)
A dance of shapes. A title card tells us this is an experiment in conveying the mental images of music in a visual form. Liszt's "Second Hungarian Rhapsody" is the music. The shapes, all two-dimensional, are circles primarily, with some squares and rectangles, and a few triangles. The shapes move rhythmically to the music: receding from view or moving across the screen. Red circles on a blue background; light blue squares; white rectangles. Then, a red background of many circles with a few in the foreground. Red gives way to blue then to white. Shapes reappear as Liszt's themes re-occur. Then, with a few staccato notes and images, it's over.
Movie: An Optical Poem
Recommendations Movies
Port of Shadows(fr)
Down a foggy, desolate road to the port city of Le Havre travels Jean, an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, as acts of both revenge and kindness render him front-page news.
2001: A Space Odyssey(en)
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
Interstellar(en)
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
Shutter Island(en)
World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.
Oppenheimer(en)
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
Titanic(en)
101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
Ex Machina(en)
Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.
Julieta(es)
The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.
Sixteen Candles(en)
With the occasion all but overshadowed by her sister's upcoming wedding, angst-ridden Samantha faces her 16th birthday with typical adolescent dread. Samantha pines for studly older boy Jake, but worries that her chastity will be a turnoff for the popular senior. Meanwhile, she must constantly rebuff the affections of nerdy Ted, who is unfortunately the only boy in school who seems to take an interest in her.
Eden Lake(en)
When a young couple goes to a remote wooded lake for a romantic getaway, their quiet weekend is shattered by an aggressive group of local kids. Rowdiness quickly turns to rage as the teens terrorize the couple in unimaginable ways, and a weekend outing becomes a bloody battle for survival.
Bullet Train(en)
Unlucky assassin Ladybug is determined to do his job peacefully after one too many gigs gone off the rails. Fate, however, may have other plans, as Ladybug's latest mission puts him on a collision course with lethal adversaries from around the globe—all with connected, yet conflicting, objectives—on the world's fastest train.
Top Gun: Maverick(en)
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.
The Lighthouse(en)
Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.
The Truman Show(en)
An insurance salesman begins to suspect that his whole life is actually some sort of reality TV show.
12 Angry Men(en)
The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
Toy Story 3(en)
Woody, Buzz, and the rest of Andy's toys haven't been played with in years. With Andy about to go to college, the gang find themselves accidentally left at a nefarious day care center. The toys must band together to escape and return home to Andy.
Similar Movies
Lisztomania(en)
In the 19th century, Romantic composer/pianist Franz Liszt tries to end his hedonistic ways but keeps getting sucked back in by his seductive fellow composer Richard Wagner.
John Williams in Tokyo(ja)
30 years after his last visit to Japan, John Williams has returned for a special concert – making his debut with the world-famous Saito Kinen Orchestra in renditions of his beloved film scores and reuniting with his longtime friend, world-renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa (1935-2024). Captured live on record at Suntory Hall last year, John Williams In Tokyo is now being be released by Deutsche Grammophon and follows his acclaimed concert albums, The Berlin Concert and John Williams in Vienna, which topped charts around the globe.
Andre Rieu : Love In Venice(en)
The Vrijthof concerts have been going for ten years and this anniversary was all the excuse André Rieu needed to make things extra festive and put on a fantastic, unforgettable anniversary concert with his new DVD, ‘Love In Venice’ – a selection of favourites from the concert. For this tenth concert series he had the Vrijthof square specially decorated in Venetian style, complete with a Doge’s Palace, Rialto Bridge, a fabulous Italian fountain and a colourful Venetian masquerade and it was a party from start to end. Love In Venice is an evening full of wonderful Italian music, world hits like Funiculi funicula, Tiritomba and Vieni sul mar and fabulous operatic arias. For the occasion of this anniversary, the Italian singer Rocco Granata came to sing his world hit Marina. Thanks to the perfect sound and image recordings on this DVD you can enjoy it at home just as though you were there yourself.
Alfred Deller: Portrait of a Voice(en)
In this unique documentary, French filmmaker Benoit Jacquot interviews Alfred Deller, the internationally celebrated contemporary countertenor who focused his talent on showcasing Renaissance and Baroque music to modern audiences. One of the few films on Deller, it includes footage of him performing selections from Campion, Rosseter, Morley and Purcell. Deller toured the globe with his group, the Deller Consort, from the 1950s through the '70s.
Fantasia 2000(en)
Blending lively music and brilliant animation, this sequel to the original 'Fantasia' restores 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' and adds seven new shorts.
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-9 / The Beethoven Project(en)
This is a 4-DVD set, featuring the Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi and the chamber orchestra (around 40 members) Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. The first 3 DVDs feature live performances of all 9 of Beethoven's symphonies, and the 4th DVD is a documentary produced for DW (Deutsche Welle) on this Beethoven project.
Not Knot(en)
Not Knot is a guided tour into computer-animated hyperbolic space. It proceeds from the world of knots to their complementary spaces -- what's not a knot. Profound theorems of recent mathematics show that most known complements carry the structure of hyperbolic geometry, a geometry in which the sum of three angles of a triangle always is less than 180 degrees.
Nodame Cantabile: The Movie II(ja)
Nodame and Chiaki mutually decide that it would be for the best if they parted ways for a while so Nodame can practice for an upcoming competition. However, when things don’t go her way, she gets impatient and depressed. While Nodame is away, Chiaki’s former pianist Rui Son returns to take her place. To make matters worse, Rui and Chiaki are set to play the song Nodame dreams of playing with Chiaki herself: Ravel’s “Concerto in G Minor”.
O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams(en)
Award-winning filmmaker Tony Palmer directs this riveting documentary on the life and times of influential English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. With archived performances by conductor Sir Adrian Boult and stirring musical passages from "The Tallis Fantasia" and "The Lark Ascending," among others, Palmer's film also features interviews with Vaughan and his beloved wife, Ursula.
Animated Hero Classics: Beethoven(en)
Even as a young boy, Beethoven marched to the beat of a different drummer. Trained in the traditional music methods by his father, Beethoven was an accomplished pianist by the age of 12. But he yearned to try new sounds and persevered until audiences heard his music. By his early twenties, this persistent young man performed for Joseph Haydn, who compared him to the great Mozart. Sadly, Beethoven began to lose his hearing, but he threw himself even more deeply into his music, composing "Fur Elise," "Sonata Pathetique" and the dramatic "Fifth Symphony" years later, audience members heard what he could not and leapt to their feet in ecstatic appreciation for such passionate music. His creativity gave the world then, as it does today, music that stirs the soul. The video begins in 1827 with 30,000 people paying tribute to the great Beethoven in Vienna, Austria. Then the video switches to his life as a child...
Lang Lang - Live in Vienna(en)
Filmed live in Vienna's legendary Musikverein concert hall, this release represents Lang Lang's second live recorded recital to date after the best-selling "Live at Carnegie Hall" in 2004, which marked his international breakthrough as a recording artist.
Herbert von Karajan: Verdi: Requiem(en)
This installment in the "Karajan Legacy" series captures the acclaimed conductor leading the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra with the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Sofia National Opera in a masterful performance of Verdi's "Requiem." Filmed in 1984, the concert features an array of renowned soloists, including tenor José Carreras, soprano Anna Tomowa-Sintow, bass-baritone José van Dam, bass Kurt Moll and mezzo-soprano Agnes Baltsa.
La poste du paradis(fr)
Fred Pellerin and Kent Nagano revive the great tradition of the OSM and offer a new symphonic Christmas tale! They take you to Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, where the first post office in history was run by Madame Alice Lavergne. For a long time the only reliable channel through which we could send and receive, this trunk service constituted the privileged link to maintain between us everywhere. Letters, cards, invoices, packages, forms, catalogs: everything went there.
Andre Rieu - Christmas Around the World(nl)
Classical performer André Rieu treats his fans to 23 festive tracks with this Christmas release. Rieu celebrates the holiday season with songs including "Jingle Bells," "Slumber my Darling," and "Winter Wonderland."
Andre Rieu : Live In New York(en)
André Rieu returns with an all-new blockbuster show from New York's iconic landmark theater Radio City Music Hall for his first-ever U.S. taped special. Features performances by the world-renowned Harlem Gospel Choir.