Lye created a series of scratched images in the 1950s – more regular or geometric than his usual style – to accompany Rock ‘n’ Rye, a track by jazz guitarist Tal Farlow, but he did not get far with the editing. He returned to the material in 1980 but died before it was completed. His assistant Steven Jones finished the film under the supervision of Lye’s widow Ann, who had been closely involved with all of Lye’s American films. - Harvard Film Archive

Excerpt from the DVD 'A Box of Birds' available from myspace.com/harryharrisonmusic Scene from New Zealand artist Len Lye's first film (1927)'Tusalava' music by Harry Harrison

Len Lye’s camera-less film animates “swing” versions of the popular Lambeth Walk—featuring Django Reinhardt on guitar and Stéphane Grappelli on violin—through scratched and painted imagery directly on celluloid. Sponsored by the Tourist and Industrial Development Association after Lye and his family fell into hardship, the film blends vibrant visual rhythms with music, free of advertising slogans, and stands out as one of Lye’s most playful experiments in direct cinema.

Intended as a publicity film for Chrysler, Rhythm uses rapid editing to speed up the assembly of a car, synchronizing it to African drum music. The sponsor was horrified by the music and suspicious of the way a worker was shown winking at the camera; although Rhythm won first prize at a New York advertising festival, it was disqualified because Chrysler had never given it a television screening. P. Adams Sitney wrote, “Although his reputation has been sustained by the invention of direct painting on film, Lye deserves equal credit as one of the great masters of montage.” And in Film Culture, Jonas Mekas said to Peter Kubelka, “Have you seen Len Lye’s 50-second automobile commercial? Nothing happens there…except that it’s filled with some kind of secret action of cinema.” - Harvard Film Archive

For Kaleidoscope, which was sponsored by Churchman Cigarettes, Lye animated stenciled cigarette shapes and is said to have experimented by cutting out some of the shapes so that the light of the projector hit the screen directly. As in Colour Box Lye uses music by Don Baretto and his Cuban Orchestra. - Harvard Film Archive