Bio-Mathematics in Busby Berkeley Musicals--Image Dump

JF Ptak Science Books  Post  1133   

There's a certain amount of Leggy Geometry going on in the many films of the great and often-troubled Busby Berkeley.  Berkeley was about 38 when he came into great prominence as a choreographer for movies with music--they were grand and spectacular, intricate dances involving dozens, many times employing overhead shots looking straight down on a full-kaleidoscope productions.  (A kaleidoscope mirrors the great majority of its displayed image; Berkeley mirrored almost nothing, And he didn't really produce movie musicals per se, I think; those would come later with Fred Astaire and the like, where there were story lines and plots and associated happenings along with the terrific dancing and music. "Plot" was a throw-in with Berkeley, but everything else was just so grand that storyline really didn't get in the way of entertainment.)  The motion, the offset camera work, the constant motion, almost gives you the sensation of falling into a Phoenix Set.  Between 1931 and the end of WWII, Busby choreographed more than 30 films, many of which are now considered high classics, his very name now associated with fabulous stage productions.

There's a big dollop of natural history geometry in his work, as we can see by this selection of still images below. They're tessellated (if you squint hard and make sure there are no margins) and fractal-like, very organic, very much looking like diagrams outlining the mathematical forms of nature.  And they're pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Charles]

Hmm.. I was just reading some math papers by Alan Turing today about this subject. He would have called many of these patterns "Fibonacci phyllotaxis."

http://www.swintons.net/deodands/archives/000088.html

[John F. Ptak]

Yes, thanks Charles--esp the umbrella sequence.