Overture (1965 film)

Overture
Written byJános Vadász
CinematographyJános Vadász
Release date
  • 1965 (1965)
CountryHungary
LanguagesHungarian (title cards only; no dialogue)

Overture (Hungarian: Nyitány) is a 1965 Hungarian short documentary film written by János Vadász. It won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival[1] and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.[2][3]

Synopsis

After the opening title card, a white blur in the center of a black screen resolves to the shape of a chicken egg. We penetrate the shell, and watch, in time-lapse, the 21-day development of a chicken embryo, from a germ spot on the yolk to the emergence of the baby chick, compressed into under eight minutes, set to Beethoven's Egmont Overture.

Cultural influences

Film uses complete Beethoven's Ouverture to Egmont as soundtrack for image series featuring hatching bird, referencing rebellious nature of Egmont fighting for freedom despite all barriers. Beethoven's Egmont is a set of incidental music pieces for the 1787 play of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The film, nominated for Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) is described as "among the most ingenious pairings of music and image in the history of the festival."[4]

References

  1. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Overture". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 7 March 2009.
  2. ^ "NY Times: Overture". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2009. Archived from the original on 2 November 2009. Retrieved 29 November 2008.
  3. ^ "The 38th Academy Awards (1966) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Archived from the original on 11 January 2015. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  4. ^ "News - Entertainment, Music, Movies, Celebrity". MTV News. Archived from the original on 2 July 2019. Retrieved 2 July 2019.


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