when filmmakers write poems, make charts, and connect words and colors...

a theory of ocular music

words: sadly she wandered, loveliest of maidens...
music: the notes of a flute, plaintive.
color: olive, mixed with pink and white.

words: ... in flowery meadows -
music: gay, rising tones.
color: green, mixed with violet and daisy yellow.

words: singing a song, joyful as a lark.
music: soft notes, rising and gently falling in quick succession.
color: dark blue streaked with scarlet and yellowish green

words: and god, in the temple of creation, hears her.
music: majestic grand.
color: a mixture of the most splendid colors - blue, red, and green - glorified with the yellow of the dawn and purple - dissolving into soft green and pale yellow.

words: the sun rises over the mountains...
music: a majestic bass, from which middle tones rise imperceptibly!
color: bright yellows, mixed with the color of the dawn - dissolving into green and whitish yellow.

words: and shines upon the violet in the valley...
music: softly, descending tones.
color: violet, alternating with varied greens.

"a little poem, which i accompany with my color music" by sergei eisenstein from "the film sense". the poem is followed by "this should be sufficient to prove that colors also hold the power of expressing the emotions of the soul"; and comes from a wonderful chapter about the "synchronization of the senses", reflecting on the relationship of rimbaud's vowel colors to the phonetic color equivalents of rene ghil to goethe and lewis caroll. it's a great text on the collision of words and color.

"just as tones of music must harmonize with the playwright's words in a melodrama, so must colors likewise correspond with the words".

the image is from a large fold out at the back of the book, where eisenstein shows a kind of synaesthetic chart of activities of various frame sequences from alexander nevsky including music, motion, time, and image.

when hopscotch blends into hats...

"you see, the way the words are used in films mostly derives from the theatrical tradition in which what you see makes the sound you hear. and so, in that sense, they would be redundant in film if they were used as a further projection of the image. however if they were brought in on a different level, not issuing from the image which would be complete in itself, but as another dimension relating to it, then it is the two things together that make the poem. it's almost as if you were standing at a window and looking out into the street and there are children playing hopscotch. well, that's your visual experience. behind you in the room are women discussing hats or something, and that's your auditory experience. you stand at the place where these two come together by virtue of your presence. what relates these two moments is your position in relation to the two of them. they don't know about each other, and so you stand by the window and have a sense of afternoon, which is neither the children in the street, nor the women talking behind you, but a curious combination of both, and that is your resultant image, do you see? and this is possible in film because you can put a track on it."

maya deren to arthur miller during a poetry and film symposium, 1953. reprinted in film culture no. 29, 1963

avoid complete synchronization...

"that there should be no music to the older silent flms is a rather pure and pedantic attitude since there has actually never been "silent" films in the sense of viewing them in a black and utterly silent void... as a precedent for this question we asked hans richter for his attitude. his reply settles the matter, as far as this book is concerned, once and for all.

"i believe firmly that music for the silent avant garde film is essential. of course it depends on what music. however i do not believe in the synchronization of sound and image...i agree with man ray that we must avoid complete synchronization. we should find a way to let the sound and the picture move on its own in the same direction, but nevertheless, separately. this refers to the spoken word as well as to the musical and other sounds."

paul velguth, art in cinema, 1947