Diagonal Symphony

Symphonie diaganale (original title) | Viking Eggeling | Germany | 1924 | Short, 7 min

October 20, 2012



Diagonal Symphony. Directed by Viking Eggeling (1880-1925). Completed in the fall of 1924 and shown for the first time on November 5, 1924 in Berlin.

Swedish painter and avant-garde filmmaker Eggeling went to Paris at 17, then later joined the Dada movement in Switzerland. He began a close association with Hans Richter in 1918. Eggeling was the only Swedish dadaist. He labored for three years completing thousands of drawing that were necessary to animate his "scroll painting." The result, Diagonal Symphony, was a landmark in abstract cinema, a unique examination of delicate and almost art deco tones and lines. It was greatly admired by members of the Bauhaus.

Eggeling was interested in the creation of visual analogs to musical composition and in his notes, has cited the composer and music theoretician Ferrucio Busoni as an inspiration.

"Diagonal Symphony aspires to musical form. Eggeling conceived of the film screen as a network or axes; two diagonal co-ordinates crossing the screen like and 'X' and extending in depth into the vanishing point... The total evolution of the film occurs in waves; scenes become more complex or simplify; sections of the film repeat themselves directly, or with some form of inversion."

—P. Adam Sitney
Cinema, A Critical Dictionary