Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Kaleidoscope Jazz Chair (1960)

A little bit of nostalgia can go a long way.  When looking up the short film Powers of Ten, I came to realize that the directors of the film had also made several other movies.  Charles and Ray Eames are known for chairs.  But they also made a lot of movies, including Kaleidoscope Jazz Chair.  They not only wrote and directed it, but they also make an appearance.

The short film is pretty much what the name implies.  There’s no dialogue, but there are plenty of chairs and a lot of imagery reminiscent of kaleidoscopes.  There’s also some nice music accompanying it.  It only runs for seven minutes, which makes it pretty efficient.

I had gotten this on DVD from Netflix.  I was able to skip the first DVD, as both of those motion pictures were available through their YouTube channel.  It took me a while to watch many of the shorts on the second disc, as I was having trouble finding a DVD player that would play the disc.  When I went to see about renting another disc, I was dismayed to see that they’re no longer available.

It’s a shame.  All of the shorts, including this one, are kind of fun to watch at least once.  I don’t expect to get a lot of replay out of this one, so buying it probably wouldn’t be best.  From what I can tell, most of the versions available on YouTube are excerpts.  To watch the full video, you may have to either buy the DVD or see if your local library has it.

I think for most people, this isn’t going to be one of the videos that would compel you to buy the whole set or even the one disc.  It’s the kind of thing you’d watch after having some other reason to buy it.  I could see an art teacher playing this in class one day.  I would definitely recommend watching this short film if you can get access to it.  It’s a shame you can’t rent it from Netflix, though.



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