Obsessed With Light is a comprehensive if by-the-books study of the life and times of dance pioneer Loïe Fuller.
Directors: Sabine Krayenbühl & Zeva Oelbaum
Genre: Documentary
Run Time: 90′
U.S. Release: December 6, 2024
U.K. Release: TBA
Where to Watch: At the NY Quad Cinema
“The light will be the queen of the party; it will have the greatest role.” So says Loïe Fuller in an early excerpt from her writings voiced by Cherry Jones. You might think you’re about to watch a documentary on dance and one of the medium’s great geniuses, which wouldn’t be entirely incorrect, but Obsessed With Light feels more like a love story chronicling her, and in some ways our, relationship with light and colour.
Born in 1862 on a remote farm in Illinois, Loïe Fuller took to the stage as an infant and began a career that would later help define La Belle Époque across the Atlantic. At 16 years of age and working in Europe, she adopted her French-derived moniker (her birth name was Marie Louise Fuller) and began to experiment with movement and improvisation, inspired by technological innovations and how modern artists were using them. She would soon originate the serpentine dance, a form of skirt dance that used large fabrics and stage lights and would become a staple of both her own work and that of countless peers and imitators.
Fuller’s rise in her adopted home of Paris coincided, luckily for us, with the advent of filmmaking, and so Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum’s film boasts an impressive catalogue of recordings of the dancer’s mesmerising work. As demonstrated by the number of 21st century creatives inspired by her – Taylor Swift, Shakira and Alexander McQueen are just a few of those depicted in the film – Fuller’s exploration of form remains revelatory and lends itself easily to the big screen. The archive footage, some of it using gorgeous early colourisation techniques, is blended with Krayenbühl and Oelbaum’s own modest experimentations, resulting in a number of montage sequences as we hear from the equally generous written records of the artist’s personal life.
There’s a vast roster of talking heads spanning the worlds of dance, theatre, music, fashion and art, accompanied by current performers who we see in action, imitating and reinterpreting Fuller’s work. These voices convey the sheer admiration and affection the dancer still garners in various fields, while offering an invaluable contemporary perspective on issues such as body image and sexuality that followed her throughout her life. But this is no Van Gogh story; Fuller was adored by artists during her lifetime too, as demonstrated by the inclusion of quotes from the likes of Jean Cocteau and Auguste Rodin.
And yet the film’s smartest move comes when it departs from the world of the arts and depicts Fuller’s interest in science and technology. We learn about meetings with Thomas Edison and visits to the home of Marie Curie, through which one suspects the performer truly gained her edge. The great post-war sociologist Daniel Bell once wrote that ‘Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination’ and it seems Fuller shared this view, endlessly fascinated by innovations in light and vision and continuing throughout her career to incorporate these in her craft.
But the sections exploring such interests are regretfully brief, frequently swept aside for more insights from our contemporary commentators, upon whom the film relies a little too much. The punctuation of every sequence with the views of several experts becomes tiring, as if the film was designed with the classroom in mind rather than the cinema. For a documentary about an innovative experimentalist, it seems frustratingly constrained by formal convention and too often refuses to let the transfixing images speak for themselves.
Nonetheless, the sheer breadth of material on display justifies the existence of Obsessed With Light alone. Its researchers should be commended for such a feat and for so comprehensively shining a light, no pun intended, on a singular figure in art history whose impact demands more attention outside of her field. As is often the case with films like this, it is both baffling that it took this long to tell Fuller’s story and comforting that finally great women pioneers like her are getting the attention they deserve.
Obsessed With Light: Movie Plot & Recap
Synopsis:
This documentary charts the life and times of Loïe Fuller, a modern dance pioneer who revolutionised the use of light and colour in performance. Her impact and legacy is brought to life by narrated diaries, archive footage and a roster of expert talking heads.
Pros:
- A comprehensive study of Fuller’s life and work.
- The use of montage and colourisation echoes Fuller’s own innovations.
- Examples of Fuller’s continuing legacy are surprisingly varied.
Cons:
- Restrictively conventional structure.
- Overreliance on talking heads.
- It feels like it was designed with the classroom in mind rather than the cinema.
Obsessed With Light will be released at the NY Quad Cinema on December 6, 2024 and will be available to watch on digital and on demand on February 7, 2025.