Michael Lee
Directing
Biography
Michael Lee came to Melbourne in 1968 to study at Swinburne College, then the only film-making school in Australia. He became involved in the blossoming avant-garde film scene in Melbourne. He was a member of the founding board of the Melbourne filmmakers Co-operative and later served on the board of the Modern Image Makers Association. He has produced over a dozen 16mm films. Apart from some shorter films concerned with formal structure and the parameters of the motion picture medium, my main thematic concern has been the search for meaning. My big efforts were The Mystical Rose (1976, 65 mins), which expresses the confused dissolute narcissism of my youth, Turnaround (1983, 60 mins), which illustrates the search for a centre or foundation, and A Contemplation of the Cross (1989, 27 mins), which communicates the acceptance of Christian faith
Known For
A 16mm record of the anti-nuclear demonstration in Melbourne, Australia on Palm Sunday 1985. The soundtrack is made from several group chants recorded at Down to Earth Confests during the 1980's.
Dance for Love
A disturbing cinematic opera from Melbourne film-maker, Michael Lee, presenting an intense emotional collage of film clips, original footage and complex object animation, structured loosely in the form of a Catholic Mass, to communicate the film-maker's traumatic Catholic experience. The film is intended in part as 'anti-imagery' in response to the iconography of Catholicism.
The Mystical Rose
This 16mm film uses animation, recycled newsreel footage and experimental techniques to convey the dark moods the film maker was experiencing at the time which was 1971.
Black Fungus
A Super 8 animation made in Melbourne, Australia in 1969; Michael Lee's first film, featuring some popular songs of its time.
Fundeath
Shot mostly at Uluru, the rock in the heart of Australia. The extreme heat damaged the emulsion of the film which is subsequently incised by the filmmaker. A ceremonial death and rebirth. The soundtrack was made by the Orchestra of Skin and Bone comprising of Ollie Olsen and John Murphy. The aborigines were from Narwietooma Station. 16mm.
Rock Heart Fire
An abstract animation set to music by Graeme Bell and his Orchestra recorded in Melbourne in 1950.
Frolic
Abstract Animation. Digitally remastered 16mm animation.
Various Energies
Photography and music by Michael Lee.
Juggling Time
A meditation upon the redemptive power of Christ's crucifixion. The film employs a variety of styles including animation, newsreel footage, hand painted footage, live-action and optical effects. The soundtrack is composed of a wide variety of music including Gregorian chant, Kodaly, Liszt and electronic music.
A Contemplation of the Cross
Michael Lee uses a 16mm Bolex camera to explore various zooming and framing techniques to photograph images from National Geographic Magazines. The silent film was made in 1972.
National Geographic
Michael Lee uses various techniques with a Bolex 16mm camera to observe a vase of flowers. The film is silent.
Contemplation of the Rose
A spiritual journey, symbolized by the spiral, through images and sounds selected from the physical world over several years as the filmmaker moved between city and country and journeyed to the Center. Lee added some sounds and music to enhance the mood and sees the film as a mirror in which the image is distorted by his own consciousness.
Turnaround
An experimental sequence of colourful kaleidoscope-type images combined with a vibrant musical accompaniment.
Razzle Dazzle Rhapsody
"A film with no colour, no movement, no sound, and no representation". 16mm.
Screen
"A meditative film on the Holy Eucharist."
On The Way
Images of electrical cables shot from a moving train and digitally treated. Intended to relax you.
Power Lines
Filmmaker Michael Lee puts pictures to his daughter, Kathleen Mary Lee's performance of her song "The Quiet Game".
The Quiet Game
Filmed over a period of several years "for a variety of motives and no objective" from a window above a shop in Victoria St., North Melbourne where the filmmaker was living. When he edited the footage several years later the filmmaker re-found "the overwhelming nature of all phenomena" which he had felt as he sat at the window. - NFSA