Len Lye Movies

Documentary about the Kiwi artist Len Lye and his legacy.

A 1941 Ministry of Information propaganda film set to the tune of The Lambeth Walk, a popular song from the musical Me and My Girl.

This was another sample promotional film, which Lye offered to television stations. He scratched some dramatic black-and-white abstract images,...

Documentary about New York night clubs.

A fictional enactment of the deadly contest between a British soldier and a German sniper hiding in a tree. Kill or Be Killed differs from most army...

A British WWII propaganda short warning citizens that Nazi sympathizers could be listening to their everyday conversations to discover important...

Len Lye usually timed his films with great care to match their soundtracks, but for All Souls Carnival, he and composer Henry Brant worked...

In this powerful abstract film with a soundtrack of African drum music, Lye scratched "white ziggle-zag-splutter scratches" on to black leader, using...

Life’s Musical Minute, recently re-discovered, is a short promotional film of this kind, based on Gene Krupa’s drum solo from...

Commissioned by the Pittsburgh Bicentennial Association to celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary, PITTSBURGH was created by a team of...

Surrealism, avant-garde sound montage, and irreverent wit might be the last thing you'd expect from a government-sponsored film about wartime...

Short comedic documentary about crops.

Experimental documentary about recycling.

Len Lye’s camera-less film animates “swing” versions of the popular Lambeth Walk—featuring Django Reinhardt on guitar and...

Master of Motion follows Len Lye, New Zealand's greatest international artist, and showcases his visionary work in film and sculpture and his...

Documentary about women factory workers.

With the screen split asymmetrically, one part in positive, the other negative, the film documents the evolution of simple celled organic forms into...

Lye completed his last great film a few months before his death at the age of 78. The film returned to the black-and-white techniques of Free...

For Kaleidoscope, which was sponsored by Churchman Cigarettes, Lye animated stenciled cigarette shapes and is said to have experimented by cutting...

Len Lye made Pictures for Percussion as a sample for television stations while living in the United States.